Hello.

Broadsheet is now in a ‘read-only’ format.

Click on a post if you want to see comments.

We hope to archive the site at a later date.

Thank you to Eamonn Farrell and his team at RollingNews who have supplied images every day since we began. We are very sorry we couldn’t make this work, Eamonn.

There are quite a number people whom we would dearly like to thank, but who may not wish for the association to be highlighted, which we totally respect, although It leaves glaring omissions below. Your work was and is very much appreciated.

Thank you to Broadsheet co-founder Niall Murphy; Legal Coffee Drinker; Will and all at Hosting Ireland; Oisín Kane; Breeda Murphy, Eunan Duffy and Frank Breheny; Tom and Sally Fitzgerald; Ruth Cannon; Aaron McAllorum, John Moynes; Vanessa Foran; Eugene Connolly; Derek Mooney; Olga Werhly; Moira Cardiff; Laura Gaynor; Irvin Muchnick; Larry Ryan (No, a different one); Johnny Keenan; Miriam Cotton; Gary Fitzpatrick; Brendan Keane; Bernard Purcell; Aidan Coughlan; Paul Dowd; Bridget Hourican; Francis Hourican; Michael and Ciaran le Cool; Barry Hartigan; David Langwallner; Neil Curran; Heber Rowan; Kenny Tynan; Grace Garvey; Judith Charlton; Pumpkin Farmer Tom; Shane Heneghan; Luke Brennan; Carlosfandango; Eithne Tynan; Annie West; Donal Moloney; Michael O’Riordan; Lucia O’Farrell; Cynthia Owen; Brendan Ogle; Andy Pipkin; Exchequer Street Boy; The Rabble.ie team; Leather Jacket Guy; Joanne and Sinead (and colleagues) at Presence PR; Jimmy Smyth; Aifric Murray; Colette Colfer; Chay Bowes; Lucky Khumbula; Shayna O’Neill; John Gallen; Kevin Higgins; Paul Quigley; Doug Whelan; Triona Ryan; Niall at Fweed; Karen Costin; Ruadhan Mac Eoin; Morgan C Jones; Sheila Larkin; Fergus at GrandGrand; Eamon Delaney; Simon McGarr; Dennis O’Rourke; Mark at Jam Art Prints; Emma Doran; Sarah Leahy; Warren Brennan, Emmet O’Reilly; Janet Cole; Catherine Murphy and Anne Marie McNally; Joan Fitzpatrick; Frank Armstrong, Michael Smith; Bernard Carr; Dermot Ahern; Kevin Higgins, Kevin L Higgins; Stuart Barlow; Colum Cronin; Derek Mooney; Michael McNamara, @wickedfairysad; John Finucane, Nama Winelake, Joe Kelly, Gerry Bartle, Shane Buckley, Anthony Sheridan, Eamonn Kelly, Olga Cronin and Nick Kelly.

The comment section was the site though.

You made this place what it was.

So, it’s really all your fault.

Fight!

Thank you.

The Broadsheet Book of Unspecified Things That Look Like Ireland (O’Brien Press), edited by Aidan Coughlan. Now out of print but available on Amazon and other online booksellers

This afternoon.

Via Sadhbh:

‘A chairde,

‘As a long time reader of your site I’m so sorry to see you shut down. I loved the lost bikes, Things That Looked Like Ireland, John Moyne’s Limericks, bringing DOB to task and many more important issues, then I stepped back from online activity and I left the site for a while but returned in 2020.

‘Thanks for being a breath of fresh air and a bastion of truth and a contrast to the narrative. It was very reassuring to know I was not alone. A sad day for journalism indeed.

‘I’ve never commented on the site but learnt so much from all sides of many a debate, and cannot understand my sorry state since you posted it the other day. I have shed many a tear since the news especially when reading this week’s comments. I really hope you can reform bigger and better and as many have already said in the last few days, fupp the begrudgers and the trolls!! I hope to see your next incarnation soon, you are badly needed.

‘Mile buíochas ó bhun mo chroí.

‘Beir Bua agus beannacht,

Sadhbh

Pic via Amazon

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Nick Kelly

Nobody told me there’d be days like this.

Strange days indeed.

It has been an honour and a privilege to have been so warmly welcomed into the weird and wonderful world of Broadsheet. It represents the best of Ireland. I have enjoyed working alongside John Ryan more than I can say. There are few in Irish media who possess an ounce of his heart, guts or punning ability.

Since Covid, I have looked upon my profession and despaired at what it has become. Seeing former journalistic colleagues calling for a witch hunt of the unvaccinated on national television is something I never thought I would ever see in my lifetime. Yet here we are.

When I began posting on this site in 2018 the world was a lot different: I loved promoting new Irish music in my daily You May Like This music posts. And the weekly Friday music quiz caught the imagination of the faithful Broadsheet commentariat in a way that gladdened my heart.

I want to thank our sponsors Golden Discs and Currys for their invaluable support which allowed the competition to become a much loved staple of the site.

I also want to thank our readers for encouraging me to continue with the format even after the vouchers ran out; that was a truly heart-warming show of solidarity that I won’t forget any time soon.

I also want to thank the various press officers who sent me so many great videos over the past 4 years (including Pete Murphy, Emma Harney, Ciaran Savage, Sheena Madden, Kevin Murray, Colm Slattery and Michelle Whitehead: I write their names out in a list).

And I want to thank the artists themselves for managing to create such powerful music even when circumstances locked down their dreams. I know this much is true: the Irish music scene has never been in such robust health.

Then Covid happened and everything changed. Although I continued with the music, popular culture and social history posts, I found that I could not stay silent on a subject which affected me so profoundly.

As a vaccine-damaged person who knows first hand the devastation that a pharmaceutical needle can inflict on a person’s health, I felt compelled to warn of the dangers of the jab.

The response to our posts on this subject proved to be polarising in a way that was as regrettable as it was unavoidable. Keeping silent on this issue was simply not an option. If you have a problem with the concept of freedom of speech, then maybe Western Civilisation is not for you.

Broadsheet, to its eternal credit, was the very embodiment of this sacred pillar. Alas, in Ireland it was essentially alone in a cultural landscape that has become gripped by an hysterical conformity to pre-approved narratives handed down by globalist bureaucrats who I suspect may not actually have our best interests at heart. A crazy idea, right?!

Alas, the zeitgeist has moved so far from a commitment to core democratic principles that Broadsheet came under a ferocious and sustained attack in the comments section by both honest and dishonest actors. I want to thank those commenters who rallied to our cause day in and day out. We could not have endured as long as we did without you.

To the honest commenters who virulently disagreed with us, I say this: we are just regular people who sincerely felt that our friends, families and the general public were in great danger. And we used this platform to sound the alarm. That’s it in a nutshell: we were never paid a penny to push any opinion. We pursued our editorial line because it felt like the right thing to do.

For the reasons mentioned by Bodger in his Closing Time post, eventually the excruciating war of attrition, on top of our normal financial and legal woes, took its toll. We had nothing left in the tank.

It’s a bittersweet moment for me. I am immensely proud that this website kept its head – and heart – when all around were losing theirs.

It was a rollercoaster ride for sure, but I loved every minute.

See you hopefully further on down the road.

Previously: Closing Time

Goodbye by Emmylou Harris

As the last chords fade, it’s time to pick a winner of the last music competition.

I loved all your entries, and cannot abandon any of my children, so it’s seems fitting to say you all won my esteem! (With a special mention to Giggidy Goo and Cu Chulainn for previous oversights.)

And yet…

… who could resist Slightly Bemused‘s choice of Abba’s Thank you for The Music to celebrate our Waterloo? Except perhaps Janet (sorry!).

Thank you all so much for making this weekly warm-down such a hoot.

I’ll leave you with a couple of my own farewell choices: So This Is Goodbye by Stina Nordenstam and, playing above, Goodbye by Emmylou Harris.

That’s all folks!

*sobs uncontrollably in the corner*

Previously: Win Nick’s Esteem

Meanwhile…

….Bodger writes:

Looking for a milk-loving, Americana-drenched muso with a heart of gold who writes like an angel?

Nick Kelly is your man and is newly available. Broadsheet@broadsheet.ie for contact details.

Pic: Shutterstock

Vanessa Foran aka Frilly Keane

As stubborn as Saipan on a sultry Summer Sunday.

The original rebel with many causes.

An absolute demon in the kitchen.

Ladies and langers, we give you…

…Vanessa Foran, aka Frilly Keane, writes:

Of all the names attached to Broadsheet, the pair I’m responsible for, Frilly Keane and all the concoctions I made with it, and Vanessa off the Telly, are possibly the pair that will appear across any best of and worst of a Broadsheet reeling in-the-years.

Its hardly a brag to think aloud that the former quite possibly has the most replies of any other Contributor. Frilly Keane was the most regular and consistent cause of most of the rows, it was never trolling never, despite the hardliners’ insistence, it was never trolling.

I loved the voice Frilly Keane let me knit those columns with, I loved the gauntlet I was able to ride my own self-made views and opinions down.

Being an anon let me do that, and when that armour was removed there was nothing underneath only those same inherent reflexes, only without the accent.

I pondered on a few of those columns there in the last few days – they still stack up; OK, the comments tend to need the Irish excuse of ‘that’s what it was like here then’ to work, but what a collection of commenters assembled here under that Friday Frill-Bit [see link below]

Now, as we wake Broadsheet, lads calling around, with final columns and stuff, there is an air of a testimonial about the goodbyes and best wishes, like a lad retiring and all the former colleagues, or past pupils if you like, turning up.

But for me I won’t be saying goodbye to Broadsheet. I will always be on this ship. On its good days and on its worst days. I was here.

A constant theme within my archives here is that the internet eventually uncovers the truth. It may not be today or next year. But one day, the internet establishes the truth of everything. And for that I believe Broadsheet will be remembered only for all its good times and good works. Its discoveries, and creative instincts and initiatives. Such as Broadsheet on the Telly.

On that mention, please remember the role of Neil Curran, a man that had my back but made it look like I didn’t need it, and the brilliance of Marcel Krueger.

I would never have done any of that without  Broadsheet blagguarding me and codding me into it. I wouldn’t even pose for photos before I did that first one, now Streaming and Podcasting is part of what I’m up to now with Village Media.

I move on with friends and colleagues that came to me through this relationship.

Of all the names being remembered fondly, there is one I want to engrave with me now, Mick Flavin. I am one of the very fortunate few to have an original (above). And to be immortalised by the genius of the bould Mickie Fla’. It is very cherished, Mick. Of all the archives here, yours is the most important. Please save it.

A roll call of just some of the friends, collaborators, and confidents, that only for Broadsheet might never have collided:

Kevin Bog Lawyer Higgins and the Tuam Survivors Network, Jimmy Smyth, Johnny Green, Stephen Garland and especially my Mr Big.

And if I don’t mention Bertie [Blenkinsop] and that flaming tramp Fluff [Fluffybiscuits] I’ll be tortured until next hairdo day.

John Ryan, I owe so much to. We didn’t end well. But shur’ that was us anyway. You can safely put the price of your next artisan pizza and craft beer on us working together again. One day.

By tomorrow morning Broadsheet will be another ghostship setting out to meander for internet eternity, we will never know what search query pulls it back up to the surface. I have words here I want people to read and I have never feared a word I have ever written here.

What a wonderful thing for a writer.

So, please be uprising and lift your parting glass

The best is yet to come.

Previously: Frilly Keane on Broadsheet

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Yesterday.

Trinity College, Dublin.

“…the mental gymnastics all of you are involved in here to maintain this narrative are stunning, given the educational backgrounds you have…”

A pandemic preparedness event hosted by the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute with Professor Luke O Neill and Kingston Mills, professor of experimental immunology and the academic director of the Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute, among the attendees, is interrupted.

No way to treat heroes.

FIGHT!

From top: Yin (left) and Yang; Luke Brennan

This afternoon.

Tech entrepreneur, columnist and cat owner Luke Brennan writes:

‘What is worth doing?

‘That’s a question I wrestle with quite often.

‘It’s a bus with many stops and a circular route. I usually get off at either “Something that helps others” or “Something worth leaving behind”. The first is reasonably easy to get to, the second will often catch you up in emotional traffic, rarely your own.

‘On a recent bus trip, I got a new insight. The things that stay in your head, never get into this world, so never get left behind. Unlike our worldly possessions, you can bring them with you.

‘I want to sincerely, deeply and honestly thank all at Broadsheet for helping me get things out of my head and into the world. I’m sure that others feel the same way, all the contributors, helpers and commenters. Thank you for helping us exist. Thank you for helping us feel like we exist.

‘I was surprised when I started sending photos into BS that they were interested in publishing them. I was then thrilled that they would help let the world know about the things I worked on at in my music tech company.

‘I was honoured and surprised that they were interested in having me on the panel on BS on the telly. I grew as a person and in my own estimation at the honest encouragement I received from John and the rest of the team. They made the parts of me which didn’t feel good enough, now feel good enough. It made me feel more OK, which is sometimes all you need.

‘I often think of Quiz Kid Donnie Smith in PT Anderson’s film Magnolia. That scene where he’s crying in a bar and says, “I have so much love, I just don’t know where to put it”. I think everyone has felt like that at stages in their life, I know I have. I think Broadsheet has been a place to put love, in its many forms. I think in creating Broadsheet, John and his team have done something worth doing. They also allowed us all on his bus and broke the laws of metaphysics, allowing us to get off at two stops at the the same time.

‘I attach (above) a photo of our two boys, Yin and Yang (top), who wandered into our lives during first lockdown.

‘Sincere thanks to all.’

Previously: Luke Brennan on Broadsheet

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David Langwallner

This afternoon.

All rise.

Objection!

Overruled. Bailiff, restrain that man.

David Langwallner writes:

‘It has been a great privilege to write for Broadsheet for the last number of years and the site has shown great faith in me and published some of my pieces which were liked very much and are of my more popular works, but which other outlets I write for would not publish.

That is because the Overton Window has shifted to negate criticism and the press either internally censors or corporately censors or now, with the proposed bill in Ireland of criminalising offence, has censorship imposed upon it.

It is unpopular views that most need airing and, although I do not believe covid was a conspiracy, the suppression of human rights alongside a hyped-up emergency and the shifting of assets to a plutocratic and pharmaceutical elite, were clear for all to see.

Broadsheet‘s defence of the underdog is remarkable and the defence of a kind of old world civic decency that did exist in Ireland and to some limited extent still does, Their hatred of official corruption and the persecution and prosecution of the innocent was also very much to the fore.

And Official Ireland is beneath contempt.

We can agree to disagree about other issues. what is certain is that a great forum for public discussion along with others are being closed and these are worrying dark times. The dying of the light of public discourse.

Au revoir not au bientot.

Previously: David Langwallner on Broadsheet.

Follow David on Twitter @DLangwallner

Maxx

‘sup?

This morning.

Martco writes:

‘I was very sorry to read about the passing of your excellent and important site of which I was a regular enough consumer of back in the day (‘14 – ‘19 thereabouts). I especially enjoyed learning about things ordinarily unseen unheard in the regular homogenised media…I also enjoyed the lighter items like bus p0rn, Frilly and her bakery adventures etc. etc. many of the commenters and contributors I’d imagine sharing a pint with of an evening.

‘I don’t know much about you and your crew but I do know that you created something I’d argue is indispensable – who does that now for the kids, Pat Kenny? I do hope on consideration there’s a Broadsheet redux in the future.

‘As the dogs say it best I’m attaching a pic (above) of my fella Maxx, who doesn’t do smart or profound, simply sez: “This ball is mine, gtf”’

Where is his muzzle?

Fight!

Earlier: And Don’t It Make Your Brown Eyes Blue

She Outlived Ye

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