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Author Archives: Jimmy Burns
Encounters with the Common Good
I know I am not alone in struggling not to be overwhelmed at times by all the negativity in so many words and acts, a sense of despair about the state of the world from Brexit to Trump, via massacres and other man-made disasters. So let me share three shared encounters in recent days that reminded me that our spirits can be lifted if we allow other less binary, less visceral and conflictive human narratives to give us direction and a sense of common purpose. The first was a silent …
Falklands War-History & Legacy
The Falklands War, following the Argentine military occupation of disputed British territory in the South Atlantic, involved the biggest British naval deployment since WW2, lasted 74 days and cost the lives 649 Argentine military personnel, 255 British military personnel, and three Falkland Islanders . It ended in British victory, the collapse of Argentina’s military regime, and contributed to Mrs Thatcher’s reelection as prime-minister. To a new generation of young European adults, the Falklands War not only barely features in their collective memory, but is largely ignored as a subject worth …
Notes around the 29th March
Part One: Nothing like a two day trip out of London to remind me why I still feel profoundly grateful that I remain a committed citizen of Europe. In Manchester the north-south divide and Brits against spiks mentality that that coalition of nationalist prejudice UKIP , hard-line Tory Brexiteers, and some Corbynistas are so fond of turning into a battle cry, is defied by a less binary reality. Under its elected Labour Mayor, the very pragmatic and non-ideological Andy Burnham ,Manchester is a thriving multicultural hub full of commercial enterprise, …
Postcard from Turin
Greetings from Turin where I am spending a couple of days updating my double bio on Cristiano and Leo. Nothing like a quick hop over to the European mainland for a check on reality or as my spiritual mentor St Ignatius would put it ‘discernment’. Flying in over the spectacular sweep of the snow covered Alps, I overheard some excited Brits exchanging tips about the best ski slopes. Arrival at the small but welcoming airport servicing north and southern Europe was a doddle. A charming policeman took me to on …
The Lost Leader
I am thinking Brexit- or not. In moments of doubt and darkness, I find myself not for the first time rereading Graham Greene, a fellow Catholic who struggled throughout his life with no small number of existential and political crises of his own, and yet still managed to draw sufficient creative inspiration and faith in God and humanity as an author and journalist. In a review of Postscripts published in the Spectator on the 13th December 1940, Greene paid tribute to the way the novelist J.B. Priestley’s broadcasts lifted the …
The shame of Argentine Football
In the Paraguayan Capital of Asuncion , hardly an icon of historic accountability, a group of South American football executives will meet tomorrow (Tuesday) to decide when and how, if at all, the second leg of the continent’s club championship Copa Libertadores final between River Plate and Boca Juniors of Argentina will be played. This is no routine meeting. It comes after the match initially scheduled for last Saturday was cancelled twice over the weekend as a result of a violent attack in Buenos Aires on the Boca team bus …
How Catalonia is not Scotand
How Catalonia is not Scotland (First published on the 5/October/2017) I have come to visit the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, an elegant, relaxed and welcoming city of the world heritage, which has left me impressed by the tranquility and civility of the Scottish political process in comparison with the disaster that has come to characterize the Catalan issue in Spain. In the impressive and historic Edinburgh Castle, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Scotland, there is a sense of cultural identity that is …
England vs Spain Football
Nothing like being a bicultural (British-Spanish) European citizen in a rowdy pub in south London to experience the high and lows of an England-Spain football match at Wembley. Let me say from the outset that my well-known enthusiasm as an author for Spanish football had me in a minority of two in a pub that last Saturday was packed to the rafters with mainly young well tanked English males determined to drink as much beer as possible and back the home team. The pub and most of Wembley were of …
Messi’s Rites of Passage
We have grown used to Messi speaking through his football, but on Tuesday night against Nigeria he showed a less typical, for him, capacity to play the leader. While his opening goal showed the vision, touch, composure and accuracy that has marked his genius for more than a decade, as illustrative of personality was his talk to his team-mates at half time, and the celebration of Argentina’s second goal. The talk just before Argentina walked out for the second half, by all accounts, involved not a huge speech but a …
The noble Jesuit
Today marks the death in 1591 of the Jesuit saint Aloysius de Gonzaga . The first-born of a numerous Italian aristocratic family . He grew up amid the violence and brutality of the Renaissance and witnessed the murder of two of his brothers. He gave up his inherited wealth and privileged status to work in as a volunteer in Jesuit hospital i Rome among the sick and dying of a major epidemic. He became infected, and died aged 23 . The mystic Carmelite , Maria Magdalena de Pazzi had a …