Fintan O'Toole

Fintan O'Toole: Britain’s King Charles should heed the lesson of the crumbling Irish Catholic Church Abusers did not bring down the hierarchy here, it was down to the repeated cover-ups by bishops

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Former UK PM Gordon Brown is providing - voluntarily and not for the first time - information to the police about abuses of power relating to the Epstein files. As PM Brown was briefed against by people such as Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson as being ‘psychologically flawed’ ….1/

Opinion | The Former British Prince and the Very American Outrage

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/o...

From handsome prince to a ghost behind glass, Andrew’s face tells the story of his decline | Fay Bound-Alberti Royals have always prized their images as ways to assert their lineage and authority. Now this pathetic photo will define the former prince, says historian Fay Bound-Alberti

Great piece on Andrew and imagery.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Fintan O'Toole: The Idiocy of Greatness Fintan O'Toole: The Idiocy of Greatness in New York - Checkout. The acclaimed Irish writer delivers the annual Robert B. Silvers lecture. The idea of greatness has infused politics across much of the...

If you're in New York on March 25th you're very welcome to this talk in memory of the great Robert Silvers.
www.showclix.com/tickets/fint...

Trump: "I can do anything I want to do to them ... I'm allowed to destroy the country."

This mock-up from the Guardian is rather eloquent

Worth remembering that none of this would be happening were it not for Julie Brown's brave and brilliant investigative journalism. This is why it matters and why they want to kill it.

Yes it’s Valentine’s Day. But it’s also the chosen birthday of Frederick Douglass who was born in 1818 on a plantation in Talbot County, Maryland. He escaped from slavery & rose to become the most eloquent and forceful voice for the abolition of slavery & for Black voting rights in the U.S.

Trump administration working to expand effort to strip citizenship from foreign-born Americans U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials focused on denaturalization were sent to offices nationwide, sources say.

The idea that Trump is creating quotas for denaturalization is a gross abuse of power that should scare every single American.

Republicans used to pretend they were for legal immigration, but now they are working to strip citizenship from Americans for no reason.

SEN. KAINE: “You said American whites are victims of a cultural genocide… are they represented in the senate? House? Presidency? CEO’s?”

Trump’s white nationalist pick for a top state department spot Jeremy Carl skewered by @kaine.senate.gov

The Crime of Witness | Fintan O’Toole Renée Good and Alex Pretti were murdered for daring to interfere with the Trump administration’s efforts to normalize abductions and state violence.

“If the murder of Alex Pretti…cannot be called murder, an authoritarian regime has passed one of its crucial tests: it can reverse all meanings…making the victim the perpetrator, the perpetrator the victim.” —@fotoole.bsky.social

Fintan O'Toole: Epstein and his pals were culture warriors. The war they waged was against women Jeffrey Epstein and his friends were culture warriors – the war they waged was against women

“The effluence of extreme affluence”. @fotoole.bsky.social in full flight

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Fintan O'Toole: Epstein and his pals were culture warriors. The war they waged was against women Jeffrey Epstein and his friends were culture warriors – the war they waged was against women

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

So in the UkK the repercussions from Epstein scandal have taken down a chief-of-staff, a prince, an ambassador to the US and will soon take doen the prime minister himself. That's what a functioning democracy looks like. And in the US...???

Worth adding that the MAGA campaign to bring McGregor to power in Ireland has close to zero support in Ireland. The vast majority view him with revulsion. He has never stood for election because he knows he would be humiliated.

Exit polls show socialist Antonio Jose Seguro has crushed the Far Right candidate Andre Ventura in Portugal’s presidential runoff.

BREAKING: The Epstein survivors are releasing this ad on this Super Bowl Sunday to send the message that they will not “move on” from the largest sex trafficking scandal in the world. #standwithsurvivors

The cover of A Hosting: Interviews with Irish Writers 1991-2025 by Martin Doyle

Cover reveal of my new book and a link to pre-order. You’re welcome 🤓https://www.lilliputpress.ie/products/a-hosting-interviews-with-irish-writers-1991-2025

The Crime of Witness | Fintan O’Toole Renée Good and Alex Pretti were murdered for daring to interfere with the Trump administration’s efforts to normalize abductions and state violence.

“If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, a country that inflicts the ultimate punishment on those who dare to be vigilant can no longer be free.” —@fotoole.bsky.social

February 26, 2026 Issue Table of Contents

Our 2/26 issue is now online, with @fotoole.bsky.social on the murders in Minneapolis, Namwali Serpell on Toni Morrison’s sense of humor, @juliangewirtz.bsky.social on the new microchip race, Vivian Gornick on Arundhati Roy, @rhodesben.bsky.social on Robert McNamara’s sins, and much more.

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue

Fintan O'Toole: Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson will go down in history as crawlers and creeps If we want to understand why democracy is in such trouble, we can learn plenty from the careers of two men who were once stellar figures in democratic politics

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Troublemaker is my middle name.

The Crime of Witness | Fintan O’Toole Renée Good and Alex Pretti were murdered for daring to interfere with the Trump administration’s efforts to normalize abductions and state violence.

“If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, a country that inflicts the ultimate punishment on those who dare to be vigilant can no longer be free.” —@fotoole.bsky.social

Whose Hemisphere? | Fintan O’Toole The US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro reinforces the Trump administration’s capacity to invent any pretext to justify the use of armed force.

“Trump’s imperial project is all gunboat and no diplomacy. He probably mistakes the flattery…of most European leaders for esteem. In reality their deference masks a mixture of fear and short-term resignation.” —@fotoole.bsky.social

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Lyric Video)

Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst

Directed by Thom Zimny
Edited by Thom Zimny and Samuel Shapiro
Production Footage: Pam Springsteen and Thom Zimny

The Crime of Witness | Fintan O’Toole Renée Good and Alex Pretti were murdered for daring to interfere with the Trump administration’s efforts to normalize abductions and state violence.

Fintan O’Toole @fotoole.bsky.social on the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti https://go.nybooks.com/4bmNB4F

The Crime of Witness | Fintan O’Toole Renée Good and Alex Pretti were murdered for daring to interfere with the Trump administration’s efforts to normalize abductions and state violence.

www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...

Whose Hemisphere? | Fintan O’Toole The US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro reinforces the Trump administration’s capacity to invent any pretext to justify the use of armed force.

www.nybooks.com/articles/202...