“the current system is inefficient and we need to examine the case for reform of teacher education provision”
Tweet The BBC reports on the latest attempt by the Northern Ireland Employment and Learning Minister, the Alliance Party’s Stephen Farry, to reform the teacher training system here. It follows the publication of a report on the first stage of the Study of the Teacher Education Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. From the ministerial press release “The [...] more »
Ann Travers: “If had joined the IRA or a loyalist paramilitary and killed someone, I would be being listened to…”
Tweet Ann Travers talks to Wendy Austin earlier on Talkback on the SDLP’s petition of concern that will finally kill the Civil Service (Special Advisers) Bill. I’ll try and get a better quality recording as and when it becomes available, since for a number of reasons, I think this is an important interview. I’m going [...] more »
Gove calls for a split with Wales and NI on GCSE and A Level reform…
Tweet Here’s one to put on the long term forecast. Michael Gove was over last week (not that our Education Minister was very forthcoming on what they actually talked about)… and now he has announced there is such a gap between his reforms in GCSE and the way it is done in Wales and Northern [...] more »
The PUL Community and the Peace Process: An Audit
Tweet The third session of the all day PSA/Fellowship of Messines workshop – Has the Protestant Working Class lost out in the Peace Process? – looked at the peace process through the eyes of two loyalist leaders and an academic. Strong views on the Social Investment Fund, how paramilitary actions gave unionists confidence in the [...] more »
Azerbaijan Presidential Inquiry over Eurovision Vote
Tweet Denmark may have won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, due to last year’s winner, held in Malmö, Sweden, but Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev is reported to have ordered an inquiry into why his country, apparently, failed to provide any points to their neighbour, Russia. Russia gave maximum points, 12, to the Azerbaijan entry. From [...] more »
Taoiseach could do with answering some of the questions he once aimed at Michael McDowell?
Tweet Funniest moment of the weekend was when Sean O’Rourke took the sugar off Willie O’Dea’s wee bun when he mentioned Michael McDowell’s behaviour (blogged by George for Slugger at the time) over his intervention under remarkably similar circumstances to Alan Shatter’s stroke against Mick Wallace on last Thursday’s PrimeTime (12 minutes in)… Though, as [...] more »
“Republicans should remember that the third colour in the Irish flag is Orange…”
Tweet Last Thursday’s The View gave most of the programme over to the vexed issue of parading. It includes a number of noteworthy points. Neil Jarmin points out that the Parades Commission has missed an opportunity offered it by Paddy Ashdown’s Strategic Review of Parading to give it a more robust set of processes (that [...] more »
After the political victory of the GFA is Northern Ireland slipping back into another ‘big sleep’?
Tweet Men it has been well said, think in herds. It will be seen that they go mad in herds while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one. Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841) Speaking of Fionola, her essay in an excellent collection from the British Council, gets a mention [...] more »
Fionola Meredith: Can what has been divided by language also be brought together by it?
Tweet This week (May 20-26) is Community Relations Week, with over 180 events across Northern Ireland. Below, Fionola Meredith provides her thoughts as part of her involvement in the Community Relations Council Policy Conference which she was contributing to. One of the most singular ironies of living in Northern Ireland is that language – the [...] more »
Challenges for Protestants in “Dealing with the Past”
Tweet The second session at the all day PSA/Fellowship of Messines workshop – Has the Protestant Working Class lost out in the Peace Process? – looked back at some of the events and experiences that shaped loyalism. It didn’t particularly address “dealing with the past” in terms of societal remembering, truth commissions etc. (Yesterday’s post [...] more »
“…the only thing that’s real…”
Tweet Apropos of nothing… more »
55 Hours Part Four: Wednesday 8 July 1981
Tweet A day-by-day account of the events of early July, 1981. Sunday ● Monday ● Tuesday ● Wednesday Using the timeline created with documents from ‘Mountain Climber’ Brendan Duddy’s diary of ‘channel’ communications, official papers from the Thatcher Foundation Archive, excerpts from former Taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald’s autobiography, David Beresford’s Ten Men Dead, Padraig O’Malley’s book [...] more »
Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography. Discuss.
Tweet To mark its 30th anniversary, Belfast Exposed has organised an extensive exhibition of photographic work, displayed both at its premises on Donegall Street as well as at The MAC. The exhibition — Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography — “focuses on the growth of new, fine art documentary practices, more often produced for the [...] more »
Flaws in Enda Kenny’s case on abortion exposed as the hierarchy brings out the ex factor
Tweet The next Catholic primate of Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin has told the Sunday Times( £ ) “You cannot regard yourself as a person of faith and support abortion,” Martin said in an interview with The Sunday Times. “You cannot believe you are with your church and directly help someone to procure an abortion. This [...] more »
Has the Protestant Working Class lost out in the Peace Process?
Tweet That’s the title of a workshop that brought together working class loyalist representatives with some peers from other communities, interested academics and a small number of journalists. The day long event was organised by Dr Aaron Edwards and supported by the Political Studies Association’s Irish Politics Specialist Group and the Fellowship of Messines Association. [...] more »
OFMdFM: “as open and transparent as possible”
Tweet After much foot-dragging, the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers have released the cost [to date - Ed] of their 12-day March junket trip to Brazil and the USA to “Develop and promote political, investment, trade, university and tourism links” – an eye-watering £155,509. As Mark Devenport tweeted So were FM and DFM’s recent [...] more »
Radical Independence & The Jamaican, Ugandan & Pakistani UKIP candidates
Tweet With all the furore over the Radical Independence protest at the UKIP press conference in Edinburgh (ahead of the Aberdeen Donside Scottish by-election on June 20) I couldn`t help but notice the rather vociferous use of the words Nazi, Racist, Bigot, Scum & Fascist aimed at Nigel Farage. The Belfast News Letter website has a [...] more »
Micheál Martin “there is a grave danger that policing in the North will be compromised because of this activity”
Tweet I’ve alluded to this in a post earlier in the week, but the Oireachtas record gives Deputy Gerry Adams a voice not captured on the Dail video. The exchange between himself and the leader of Fianna Fail is very instructive, not least as we face into another summer of discontent… The relevant section begins [...] more »
UKIP: We’ve proved we can get votes in Wales, England and Northern Ireland…
Tweet Fascinating little line here (h/t Malc) from Nigel Farage: “We’ve proved we can get votes in Wales, England and Northern Ireland. We’re still untested in Scotland,” he [Farage] said. “We’ve not had an opportunity to test Ukip policies with the Scottish people for a very long time.” Asked about Ukip’s chances, he was optimistic. [...] more »
Taking years off your life – NI life expectancy deprivation gaps show increase over last decade
Tweet When I asked Billy Hutchinson on Wednesday about the lack of publicity around any PUP campaigning on health and life expectancy, I was thinking about the kind of life expectancy figures that have been released yesterday by the Department of Health in their Inequalities Monitoring System/Life Expectancy Decomposition comparative report: Chapter 4 deals with [...] more »
Billy Hutchinson: talking at rallies and protests doesn’t necessarily make you a leader
Tweet Billy Hutchinson – leader of the PUP – said during a workshop on Thursday that the media often used the word “loyalist” as a shortcut to mean “criminal”. He quoted the example of a DUP councillor up in court for some misdemeanour who was described in a newspaper as a “loyalist” rather than a [...] more »
Gerry Adams (and Sammy Wilson) putting on a Poor Mouth over £4 Billion of ‘elusive’ cuts?
Tweet “At a public meeting discussing disruption as a result of the G8, an official from the British Foreign & Commonwealth claimed that the summit would bring in up to £700 million into the local economy. “This is a figure that has been plucked from thin air, for no other reason but to deal with [...] more »
And the most racially intolerant country is…
Tweet Intriguing wee study reported in today’s Washington Post (and Daily Dish) comparing racial tolerance attitudes worldwide. From the WaPo: The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose “people of a different race.” The more [...] more »
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Books
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Children of the Revolution (Bill Rolston)
Tweet What was life like for children of political activists during the Troubles? A new book by Bill Rolston and published by Guildhall Press during the summer has collected together the stories of twenty Children of the Revolution whose parents’ activities – and in many cases, imprisonment – had a significant affect on childhoods and [...] read our review »
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Roddy Doyle’s Two Pints: An epic tale of modern Ireland in less than 90 pages..
Tweet Less than 90 pages long, Roddy Doyle’s latest book sounds like a must have… I must admit I have never heard three reviewers so obviously break down in laughter over just one book as on Saturday Review (12.02 in) this weekend. This extract from the Irish Times Review section is all I have to [...] read our review »
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Ulsters Last Stand?: Can Unionism Move Beyond Insurance Policy Politics?
Tweet How has Ulster unionism arrived at where it is today – fractured and uncertain, yet dominated electorally by the DUP, a party that tells us it offers unionists sure footing in uncertain times? In his latest book, Ulster’s Last Stand? Reconstructing Unionism after the Peace Process (Irish Academic Press, 2010), Prof. James McAuley from [...] read our review »
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