Bunker Roy explains his solar-engineering college and castigates the vested-interest aid industry to Samuel McManus (Simon Cumbers Award) It is is Diwali, the most important festival of the Hindu calendar,…

Village is promoting an initiative to assess the viability of pursuing prosecutions of tribunal villains and dishonest bankers   Like you, Village is sick of the Director of Public Prosecutions…

UniCredit breached liquidity requirements in 2007.  Matthew Elderfield nods.  The interconnectedness of banking dysfunctionality. Michael Smith There is a general official view that Ireland’s ethical delinquencies are in the past. …

We need a ‘Social Europe’, not just Stability, Jobs and Growth   By Niall Crowley Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, did for it last year, in the…

Overturned decisions, over-zoning, vacancy, one-off housing, one-off wind farms and car-dependence make Donegal Ireland’s worst-planned county.   By Anton McCabe Last year An Taisce judged Donegal to have the worst…

TONY LOWES INTERVIEWS PETER SWEETMAN, AN ENVIRONMENTAL HERO March issue The cost of litigation, Judge Michael Peart suggested at a recent conference, is “a deterrent to any but the rich,…

Mechanised despoliation may cease, though pervasive exceptions  proposed and EU Commission sceptical. By Tony Lowes Devastating the Bogs In the end for a while even Ming the Merciless, TD, zipped…

Maggie Armstrong interviews coming (now IMPAC-nominated) author, Kevin Barry   Kevin Barry has for some time been creeping in the background of the literary establishment, and of my mind. The…

Since the last edition of Village, in August, the global economy has teetered. From its foundation in 2004, Village has been one of the few local publications that systematically criticised the thrust of the direction of the economy and society. If it did not necessarily predict the at least temporary rout of capitalism then surely it would not have been surprised by it. The new Village takes up where the previous one was suspended.

Few will disagree that crony capitalism is a cancer on Ireland’s economic well being. In 1999 UCD Sociologist, Dr Kieran Allen, stated that “Irish Capitalism was structured around a series…

The community sector is being gradually and inexorably dismantled as part of the Government’s austerity programme writes Niall Crowley,  while two campaigners explain the reality of cuts (see below) This…

Despite being a relatively mundane product, cement has created some of the richest corporations in the world, not least Ireland’s CRH plc Article by Seamus Maye In a simple world,…

It’s time to legislate for abortion in Ireland to save women’s lives, for rape victims and where the foetus is already dead   Article by Ivana Bacik from the Nov-Dec…

Barack Hussein Obama II   Article by Michael Smith in the US Barack Hussein Obama is left-handed, like Bill Clinton, George HW Bush, Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. But his…

Stuck in the sticks Article by Shirley Clerkin Each day, as regular as the Luas, the ladies of the field head out of the gate and file down the road…

  An environmentalist who happens to eat meat is like a philanthropist who doesn’t happen to give to charity.   Article by Frank Armstrong “It struck me” Ailill said, “how…

    Democracy depends on justice.  Justice must be dispensed evenly.  This democracy is subverted by the flagrancy and impunity of white-collar crime – crime committed by the upper social…

    Why no prosecutions? Some unethical behaviour is not criminal; and some prosecuting authorities are slow or inert. So bankers and the villains of our tribunals are not getting…

Government covering up for pulling of planning inquiry By John Gormley May 2012 Village       “it was Phil Hogan who, even before he took office, told Village that…