Jeffrey Donaldson is not impressed with the Irish government’s plans to offer a ‘centenarian’s bounty’ of £1,700 to anyone in Ireland reaching the age of 100. The DUP MP believes there is a political agenda at work, though his call for Dublin to be “more sensitive about unionist feelings” could be an early contender for MOPE comment of the year- how more sensitive can you get than to offer someone seventeen hundred pounds???
Somehow I escaped reading this essential school text, with its story of racism in 1930s American South. Living in Northern Ireland, I draw parallels with sectarianism, with its similar bigotry and prejudice. To Kill a Mockingbird was part of a Unite Against Hate campaign event at Parliament Buildings in Northern Ireland, which I’ve written [...] read our review »
World by Storm has a nice piece up on the IRA’s role in helping MK, the armed wing of the ANC, in the 1980s. In particular he sees a strange alchemy at work there: …if one can think of a clearly legitimate contemporary struggle it was that against apartheid and it is to the credit [...] read our review »
Northern Ireland’s peace process has been promoted as an international success story. The Republic’s Department of Foreign Affairs has its Conflict Resolution Unit, which aims to disseminate the ‘lessons’ of the Northern Ireland peace process. And some of the prominent players in our peace process have travelled abroad to other troubled spots to share their [...] read our review »
Pid, if you listen to older people on the Leitrim / Fermanagh border there isn’t that much difference in dialect but there’s a huge difference between younger people in the two counties. Maybe this difference will decrease as the effect of the roads opening up again becomes apparent.
Keith M, treat yourself to a map – there’s no such thing as the ‘Donegal/Sligo’ boundary.
Keith M, treat yourself to a map – there’s no such thing as the ‘Donegal/Sligo’ boundary.
lol
Stick up for Leitrim, Tochais Siorai!
Though I do know what Keith M was (ineptly) trying to say. There is a region of mountains and lakes stretching from Lough Erne across to the Atlantic that would have made communications difficult in the past. The only ‘easy’ route was around Ben Bulbin’s bare head, with only a single crossing point of the Garavogue river between Lough Gill and the sea (now occupied by Sligo town). It was certainly not a natural communication route, and very different to those provided by navigable rivers and lakes elsewhere in the country.
Interesting discussion this.
I’m a relative newcomer to the south Down area and was struck almost immediately by an anomaly. In the Dundalk area the folks have trouble with their th’s (dese and dose etc) but not in the Newry area.
This has me baffled. As far as I’m aware, they are from the same “stock”. It’s almost as if the border created a different speech pattern, an unlikely scenario.
No, David, it’s not unlikely. In many cases, the communities on each side of the border were completely cut off from each other as the roads were blown up by the British Army in the early period of the troubles.
But all the way back to partition, towns have been seperated from their hinterlands and also
people have tended to socialise on their own side (not much fun getting stopped by the UDR, Specials etc. and more chance of meeting the Guards as well)
Probably most importantly, students have gone to schools on their own side of the border with a greater chance of their friends being from miles away but on their side of the border than from from a few fields away but in the other state.
Tochais Síoraí.
I absolutely concur with what you say about the younger people having accents which differ more sharply than their grandparents along the border. I hear young people from Ballyconnell, and they speak the greater Dublin lingo which is taking over nearly all the ROI.
Briain Ó Sé tracked Irish dialects and as expected they change(d) gradually across the country, but more sharply at provincial boundaries. These, in the most case, reflected coincident provincial, county and baronial boundaries, the boundaries of ancient population groups.
I know this is a long way from centenary money and I hope my point is not lost that NI’s border with Connacht has more legitimacy than it’s border with Ulster counties, and the old Oriel.
I think it goes to the heart of the NI problem. NI was not designed on the basis of natural division of old territory. This would be just so much history if it were not for the fact that question of NI’s constitutional position, and it’s relationship with the rest of Ireland, remains after 84 years, the only show in town.
If you promise to be healthy, and not drink or smoke or do any ultra-skiing so that you have a reasonable chance of living a long life, can you get the 2500 euro in advance
?
Tochais Síoraí.
What you say is about schools makes a lot of sense. I recall a similar situation on the US/Canadian border. All the Canucks had that funny way of pronouncing “out”, whereas the Americans, living only a couple of miles away, did not.