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Jake Okane

Jake Okane

__The Irish News

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The earlier your diagnosis, the better the prognosis

The sun has begun to make an appearance in our skies which means it’s time for my annual warning to cover up and smack on some sunblock to avoid...

01.06.2024 20

The Irish News

Jake Okane

I’m not cynical, just realistic

“What happened that left you such a cynical old man?” was the question a friend asked me recently. Initially I laughed as it was a pretty good...

26.05.2024 30

The Irish News

Jake Okane

GAA hugs, Edwin Poots and my fear of being rammed up the Aurora Borealis

I was filling my hot water bottle around 1am last Saturday – I know that sounds sad but at 63, but that’s my version of late night revelry –...

19.05.2024 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

Even Cliftonville’s cup win hasn’t converted me to soccer

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a soccer fan. I will, on occasion, watch big set pieces such as the early stages of the World Cup if only to see...

11.05.2024 50

The Irish News

Jake Okane

‘Alex Higgins was a genius who needed three Valium just to sit still’

When I was a boy the local snooker hall was called the Patrickville. I was only in it a couple of times as it was a place we were warned to stay out...

05.05.2024 30

The Irish News

Jake Okane

Angela Rayner house sale ‘scandal’ and William Wragg ‘honeytrap’ shows importance of reading between the lines of the news agenda

So, have you heard the news? If you haven’t, you’re probably living in an isolated house high in the mountains with no electricity, although even...

27.04.2024 20

The Irish News

Jake Okane

‘My Dad was such a prodigious smoker he would have needed a chimney on the top of his head’

Plans to ban anyone born in or after 2009 from legally buying cigarettes easily passed their first hurdle in parliament this week. Championed by PM...

20.04.2024 20

The Irish News

Jake Okane

‘Wearing casual clothes at funerals remains a peculiarly Catholic phenomena - I’ve yet to see anyone wearing a soccer top at any Protestant funerals’

The photograph above is of my dad’s darts team heading off on their annual outing to Blackrock, taken outside his pub on New Lodge Road, Belfast in...

14.04.2024 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

‘Big Brother has found a home in Scotland thanks to its new Hate Crime Act’

Haters are gonna hate. I doubt a week has gone past where I haven’t been insulted or even occasionally threatened on anti-social media, yet I...

07.04.2024 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

I can see clearly now, thanks to my cataracts

Last December I noted in this column some of the memorable things which had occurred the previous year. Not surprisingly considering my age a couple...

31.03.2024 4

The Irish News

Jake Okane

What has Tribeca ever done for Belfast?

My comments in last week’s column around Belfast City Council’s dereliction of duty regarding the city centre, particularly the Tribeca...

23.03.2024 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

Belfast is a dirty slum which reeks of decay and dereliction

I hate people who say, ‘I told you so’, as they invariably turn out to be narcissistic bores. I’d ever say such a thing, no, I would however...

18.03.2024 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

At least there's one unionist politician with a sense of humour

Like most of you, I have a love/hate relationship with what I call ‘antisocial media’. At its best, it reaches the ambitions proclaimed by John...

09.03.2024 20

The Irish News

Jake Okane

The Earl of Shaftesbury should give us back our lough

We’ve seen many recent examples of people and nations claiming ownership where none rightfully exists. For instance, the plight of Ukraine has never...

02.03.2024 8

The Irish News

Jake Okane

Pleasure Boys should man up

When it was announced the Irish government are to invest €800m in the north, I was half expecting a cacophony of unionist objections to interference...

26.02.2024 8

The Irish News

Jake Okane

Fraud was Dante’s eighth circle of hell, and we’re carrying it around in the smartphones in our pockets

In Dante’s Inferno, hell is divided into nine circles. On the eighth, penultimate circle sits fraud, just above the ninth circle where Satan is to...

17.02.2024 20

The Irish News

Jake Okane

King Charles deserves our sympathy but does his cancer deserve more coverage than the suffering in Gaza?

You’d need to be a complete ogre not to feel sympathy for King Charles following reports he’s being treated for an undisclosed form of cancer....

10.02.2024 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

XL bully ban needs brought in ASAP

There are times when local politics becomes so surreal that all a satirist can do is admit defeat and leave the field for more serious writers to do...

03.02.2024 20

The Irish News

Jake Okane

These days I don’t bounce, I break

At the time of writing, we’ve had 10 named storms this season; a record, which, I suspect, will soon be surpassed due to global warming. The latest...

26.01.2024 9

The Irish News

Jake Okane

Our politics is so deeply dysfunctional that it’s beyond satire

I’m presently out on my comedy tour, and this is the first time in 10 years where I’m doing virtually no political satire. I’ve decided things...

20.01.2024 9

The Irish News

Jake Okane

British ‘justice’ destroyed my dad’s reputation

As the cost-of-living crisis continues to impact society, one of the first victims of government cuts is invariably the arts. Some argue at such times...

13.01.2024 40

The Irish News

Jake Okane

Carnage on roads means we need to slow down

I’m back out on the road at this time of the year, both figuratively and literally, in that I’m on tour and driving around the country. One of my...

05.01.2024 8

The Irish News

Jake Okane

While nationalists were responsible for making the north unworkable in the last century, that torch has now passed to the DUP

As we face a new year, our dysfunctional politics has us trapped in a NI version of Groundhog Day. Whilst our truanting politicians feast on the...

30.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

My resilient Catholic constitution is keeping Covid away - isn’t it?

The dreaded Covid made a return visit to the O’Kane household, having laid my wife low for the past week. I’ve so far remained unaffected,...

29.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

Why I’m going to have start watching the news in my garden shed

My wife recently informed me that the people on the television can’t hear what I’m shouting. I don’t know when I started shouting at the news,...

16.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

I might be a buck eejit but at least I'm not a rage farmer like Conor McGregor

My Spotify account recently reviewed my year’s listening and I was shocked to learn I’d a preference for what they called ‘Adult...

09.12.2023 7

The Irish News

Jake Okane

Jake O'Kane: I might be a buck eejit but at least I'm not a rage farmer like Conor McGregor

My Spotify account recently reviewed my year’s listening and I was shocked to learn I’d a preference for what they called ‘Adult...

09.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Jake Okane

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