Confederacy of dunces: Worst Irish governments since 1922

Michael McDowell, a founder of the Progressive Democrats (PD) in 1985, affixes a poster to a pole in Ranelagh, South Dublin, during the 2002 general election campaign. The message on the poster was that the PDs were needed to ensure good governance. However, the PDs had already made a Faustian bargain with Fianna Fáil and they had gone along with the delusion that tax cuts would create a permanent prosperity while ignoring the risks of the property bubble. They also had to turn a blind eye to Bertie Ahern's dodgy personal finances and the bizarre explanations for funds in his personal bank accounts. In the 2007 general election, the PDs lost 7 of its 8 Dáil Éireann seats including McDowell's.

With just two years to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Irish Free State which became the Republic of Ireland in 1949, by next week Ireland will have held 31 general elections beginning on June 16, 1922 — 12 days after the first general election, the shameful Civil War would begin.

State of Irish high tech and biotech 2020

The state is not easy to discern because of the dearth of data, delusion and distortion.

For the third time in 14 years, an Irish government has published another plan to turn Ireland into a "world-class" knowledge economy, despite falsely claiming that the economy is among the most innovative in the world.

The shameful stain of an Irish Civil War

Dublin Castle, the seat of Norman/English and later British rule from 1204-1922 was handed over to the Irish on January 16, 1922 by Lord FitzAlan-Howard, the last Viceroy of Ireland. Michael Collins, the 31-year old chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State, is pictured 'bouncing’ out through the Chief Secretary’s door after the handover. Collins is preceded by Kevin O'Higgins, who had been appointed Minister for Economic Affairs in the previous week. The new government issued a statement which said, ‘"The Members of the Provisional Government received the surrender of Dublin Castle at 1.45 pm today. It is now in the hands of the Irish nation." A unit of the Royal Corps of Engineers remained at the castle until August 1922. (Image courtesy of the National Library of Ireland)

The controversy this month about a proposed official commemoration for members of the British era Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) police forces who lost their lives in the Irish War of Independence of 1919-1921, is a foretaste of the upcoming centenary commemorations of the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 and the shameful Civil War that it triggered.

Entrepreneurship in rich countries declining; Innovation also sliding

In January 2004 Mark Burnett, a British-born producer of reality TV programmes in the United States and Britain, launched a new series that tapped into America's celebration of an era that many saw as an Age of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Burnett teamed up with a New York serial bankrupt who was notorious for defrauding suppliers and who was on the blacklists of Wall Street banks.