Ready for the great Ivo Dimchev!

With the Irish govt report on Rusal’s Aughinish alumina plant due any day there is still a HUGE discrepancy between the latest CSO figures which show that 50% of the alumina produced in Q1 2026 went to Russia and the Irish Times investigation which showed 80%+ to Russia. They can’t both be right.

Sincere thanks to Montenegro's Chief Negotiator with the EU, Dr Predrag Zenović, for an excellent conversation today in Podgorica about Montenegro’s EU accession prospects and the EU enlargement process. Enlargement is a key issue for Ireland during its current EU Council Presidency.

Ireland is probably the best example of what accession to the EU can do to transform small states, their economies, state institutions and societies. Which is why it would be terrific to see the Irish EU presidency help close negotiations with Montenegro by end of this year.

There is now a clear case for placing alumina in the EU’s 21st sanctions package. As the holder of the Council Presidency, Ireland should be facilitating this move, not blocking it. Aughinish Alumina will simply have to find new markets for its product.

Congratulations to my PhD candidate, Oleg Chupryna, on passing his viva with flying colours today on the role of civil society in Ukraine. Thanks to Prof Donnacha Ó Beacháin @DonnachaDCU + Prof Honor Fagan for examining, and Dr. John Morrison for chairing. Congrats Dr Chupryna!

Thanks to everyone who helped contribute to today’s event on Ireland and the changing geopolitics of Europe, at the Council for European Studies conference. In particular Dr. Giada Lagana and Shamsoddin Shariati, and fellow panelists, Prof Ana Juncos, Dr. Ken Macdonagh and Prof Brigid Lagan.

Thanks to EU enlargement Commissioner @MartaKosEU for a superb analysis of where the EU accession process is now at today’s event in Dublin. Thanks also to @iiea and Tespa or a brilliant reflection on Europe as we approach the Irish presidency in a few weeks from now.

Thanks to colleagues at Wroclaw University, especially Prof. Piotr Sula for inviting me to speak at the fourteenth annual Summer School on democracy. It was hugely enjoyable.

Given the global shortage of aluminium, I cannot see any reason why Rusal cannot re-direct its alumina to other parts of the world. Ireland should not have any part (even indirectly) in helping the Russian murder machine.

Delighted to address the Trancarpathian Youth Exchange Forum in Ukraine on Saturday. Great students. Great questions.

One of the stupidest wars in US history. Cost c.$200 billion, ends with a much worse outcome than Obama deal in 2017. Which is why Trump has to brazen it out and pretend it’s a ‘win’. Iranian hardliners have been strengthened and will likely get more than 10x $1.7 bn Obama gave Iran via JCPOA.

Hard to describe just how brilliant this book by Patrick Radden Keefe is.

US politics in 2026.

Delighted to Chair this speech and Q and A with Oleksander Kornikenko, First Vice Speaker of the Ukrainian Verkovhna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, for the Irish Institure of International and European Affairs in Dublin. Ukraine is making significant progress on its EU accession journey.

Erdogan and Putin built palaces that cost their peoples between $1 billion and $2billion. Americans are now being asked to foot a similar bill as their crazed dictator builds a monument to his own colossal vanity.

Every new Trump communication on the Straits of Hormuz reveals how at the mercy of Iran the United States now is. Trump is reduced to combining threats with pleas because he has zero way out of a needless war which he started because he thought it would be an easy ‘win’.

A real pleasure to be in attendance at a truly superb lecture by Prof. Rashid Khalidi, on settler colonial violence and why Ireland is so connected to Palestine. Thanks to Prof Donal Hassett, Prof Linda Connolly and colleagues for organising a hugely thought-provoking talk.

Trump today seems to be auditioning to lead an Orange parade on 12 July.

Live to the White House.

He now seems to be threatening to withdraw troops from South Korea and Japan, as well as insulting Australia and NATO allies. The Russians and Chinese must think of Trump as the greatest gift from the west in at least a millennium.

“Shot down on a Friday--Good Friday. Hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday and rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday. A pilot reborn--all home and accounted for, a nation rejoicing." - Hegseth You call Iran a country run by religious maniacs?

Most intelligence leaders would be deeply ashamed at kissing ass in the way Ratcliffe does with Trump. 10 minutes of unalloyed sucking up, presenting this moron as a leader of historic stature. And he was just the warm up for the alcoholic, religiously crazed, Z list TV nutcase, Pete Hegseth.

How to even describe the deranged mind that can produce something like this on Easter Sunday? (And yes, it is real) It isn’t just the war crimes he openly boasts he will commit. It is that nobody in Washington DC seems to recognise that Trump has mutated into Dr. Strangelove.

The UK is *still* going to send King Charles on a state visit to the US in the weeks ahead. This despite experiencing daily torrents of vitriol from this demented monster. No better example of how European countries exhibit a posture of extreme self-abasement before Trump.

Historians will be baffled by Trump’s capacity to govern through creating chaos. Last Friday was a case in point.

The draft dodger in chief complaining about NATO cowardice? Vladimir Putin couldn’t have put a better surrogate in charge, if his aim was to break up the Transatlantic Alliance (it was/is).

The Chairman of the ‘Board of Peace’ wants another $200billion to prosecute a war that will send the US national debt close to $40 trillion and crash the global economy. Remember those who said Trump was basically all mouth and no harm?

This isn’t just an empty threat. NATO is *already* a walking zombie. Stop clinging to the illusion NATO can be saved. EU leaders should be accelerating plans for a new EU Defence Union, completely independent of the US, with significant military industrial scale/resourcing.

Another turgid Arsenal match but a moment of magic from 16 year old Max Dowman made it all worth it at the death. The youngest ever scorer in a Premier League game.