The University of Ulster has announced the plan to study the impacts of second and holiday homes. In Portballintrae, permanent residents believe they know what the impacts are, priced out of the housing market and pollution from over-development. Meanwhile the UUP’s Sammy Gardiner has called on planners to seek inspiration from Bessbrook as a model for rural development.
Great little review of Listening to Van Morrison by Griel Marcus… It’s a short book, not a biography or a career survey, but an attempt to follow those moments in Morrison’s music, as he’s made it from his first records with Them, from Belfast in 1965 to the present day, when something happens that breaks [...] read our review »
The oft-quoted verse from the book of Proverbs, ‘where there is no vision, the people perish,’ (chapter 29, verse 18) opens a new book by Gerry O’Hanlon, A New Vision for the Catholic Church: A View from Ireland (Columba Press, 2011). That verse could be considered an apt summary of the current state of the [...] read our review »
John Laird (Lord Laird of Artigarvan) is unionism’s jester. His memoir A Struggle To Be Heard ” by a True Ulster Liberal” (from Slugger’s shop on Amazon here) might serve more as a heavy stocking filler than anybody’s idea of a main present. In it he wears the masks of comedy and tragedy to turn the [...] read our review »
Holiday homes are a blight and should be taxed out of existence. I live in a rural village which has been destroyed by these things and am moving out simply because of them. Surrounded by holiday homes is the worst of both worlds – no neighbours and no fields, just empty badly maintained houses.
And the owners when they turn up occasionally the odd weekend spend feckall money locally either. The damage has been done to many communities in Ireland already – stop it now. Rant over.