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    • Fine Gael is now prepared to make overtures to Sinn Fein

      How long before we can expect to see members of Sinn Fein sitting around the cabinet table, not just in Northern Ireland but in this State? The question is raised by a rather surprising source. In an interview published in the Irish News last Friday, John Bruton said that he would consider negotiating with Sinn Fein for the party's support in the Dail for a coalition government. p

    • An Irishwoman's Diary

      Pieces of a jigsaw: fun fur, frosted lipstick, strong arm stunts and a structured society beginning to crack up. Such a kaleidoscope of images whirled around as I travelled by plane from Knock to London after a long absence. p
    EDITORIAL COMMENT

    • A Committee With Teeth

      Today's meeting of the Dail's Public Accounts Committee marks an historic development in the parliamentary system in this State. The committee will hold its first formal hearing into the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General's investigation into the administration of the Deposit Interest Retention Tax and related matters between 1986 and 1998 armed with the proper legal tools to do its job. p

    • Bord Failte's Strategy

      Bord Failte's corporate strategy for the next five years has finally been published. It is hardly dramatic and is couched in the language of the management consultant. This is unfortunate as tourism is an industry which does not lend itself to conventional industrial measurement. A war breaks out in Kosovo and, suddenly, hotels in Turkey are empty. Tourism is the kind of industry which needs imagination and creativity to succeed - and not a little luck. It is not amenable to the discipline of the assembly line or any other kind of normal industrial production. p
    IN TIME'S EYEBack to Top

    • Diminishing Birdsong

      The song thrush stopped his (or her, but it's more likely his) day-long virtuoso performance a few weeks ago. But, the books say, it should resume about October. What a session; you would grudge nobody their nightingales. This was a feast of song, delivered practically day long from the top of a cypress tree and from first light, if not slightly earlier. The song thrush has a large repertoire of simple phrases, repeated but in varying sequence. And the bird is a good mimic. Whistle like a curlew or even an oriole, and you may get the notes played back to you. All this because of a doleful article, well-illustrated in the magazine of The Sunday Times, showing the decline in Britain of their songbirds. The melodious thrush is down by 52 per cent since 1972; the skylark ("Hail to thee, blithe spirit") is even more endangered, having fallen by 60 per cent in the same period; likewise the yellowhammer, but worst of all is the tree sparrow which is down by 87 per cent. Blackbirds are less hit: down only (only!) by 33 per cent, but the lapwing, the pee-wee, falls by 42 per cent. The writer, Richard Girling, is more than emphatic about the reasons for the fall. p
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