Is remembrance always good for society (or sound history)?

Fascinating piece in the Guardian  …in the American south after 1865, after the guns of the civil war fell silent, another form of battle raged over whose version of the conflict – the victorious Union or the defeated Confederacy – would prevail. As the recent debate in the US over the Confederate flag demonstrated, that battle over memory, though diminished, still goes on today. And just as collective historical memory blighted the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, today the same …

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Subdued Alliance say it’s “time to get Northern Ireland moving forward, faster” #ap2016

SUBDUED & LIBERAL – Today’s Alliance Party conference was subdued compared with last year’s ‘Long election rally’. Delegate numbers were stable, but the palpable passion of 2015 was muted. Liberal values were emphasised as much as sharing and reconciliation, with several speeches mentioning the party’s support for LGBT rights and limited reform of abortion.

BAFTA nominee Stephen Fingleton on life as a filmmaker in world-class NI

When Northern Ireland-based filmmaker Stephen Fingleton, the multi-award winning writer and director of acclaimed feature The Survivalist, talks about working as a film professional in Northern Ireland he describes a life of stark contrasts: from enjoying praise from the likes of Time Out, Mark Kermode and The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw to working from an office in Enniskillen; from sitting alongside Quentin Tarantino at a premiere to dealing personally with poor support from cinemas, and; from observing how the societal divides …

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Complaints “not upheld” against Basil McCrea who “exercised poor judgement”

DOCTORED PHOTOGRAPHS were ignored in last night’s uncomfortable interview between Mark Carruthers and Basil McCrea on The View. It should have been the Lagan Valley MLA’s opportunity to quickly draw a line under the last two years of allegations, accept that he could be more patient with staff and pivot the narrative back onto the electoral hopes for himself and his party.

Spotlight NAMA investigation finds Cushnahan playing both ends off the middle…

Mandy McAuley’s Spotlight documentary on Monday is well worth watching in full. It does an excellent job of decyphering some of the Chinese whispers that have been running since independent TD Mick Wallace set a number of hares running last July. But for me this is the absolutely critical passage in the documentary… Most of the critical evidence appears to relate to the failed sale of the portfolio to PIMCO. The sale failed when NAMA learned that its advisor Frank …

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When the Saints go Marching – On the Trail of Columbanus by Barry Sloan: Book Review

Last November marked the 1400th anniversary of the death of Saint Columbanus, the Ulster monk whose missions on the continent have made him the patron saint of all those who now seek to build a united Europe. This anniversary was marked in various ways on the island of Ireland and in Europe, including a joint BBC/RTE documentary titled ‘Mary McAleese and the Man who Saved Europe.’ The Mary McAleese documentary gave some flavour of the sights and sounds of the …

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Willie Penrose displaces Bannon and wins Labour speaking rights

Literally the last man through, at 5.30 this morning Labour’s Willie Penrose snatches a victory of sorts for Labour from an otherwise black abyss of utter defeat… …chief returning officer Imelda Brannigan gave the latest results and Bannon with 7,081 was six behind Penrose. Following his elimination a devastated Bannon told reporters that given the close margin he will have to take careful advice on “whether or not to purse a legal option”. Notwithstanding any appeal, with seven deputies now …

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Why are NI schools sitting on £50 million of unspent money?

Great story from Simon Doyle over at the Irish News. To quote: It shows that of the north’s 814 primary schools, 617 ended 2014/15 with a budget surplus. Christ the Redeemer in Lagmore, which received an annual budget of £1.8 million, ended the year more than £375,000 in the black. St Patrick’s PS in Armagh, which had a budget of £1.2m, ended with a surplus of about £342,000. Grange Park PS in Bangor’s surplus was £310,000 while Holy Trinity PS …

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Sticking to the facts on Europe?

“On-balance” to use the first Minister’s language, the DUP’s call to vote to leave the EU is likely to be largely cost-free for her party. The vote which is now set for 23 June will come just seven weeks after the Stormont Assembly elections, will mark the end of a three year cycle of elections; local Councils, Westminster and the Assembly. The EU ballot may well therefore strike voters as an epilogue or afterthought to a 3 act play, rather …

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Soapbox: As a decent human being it is beholden upon Sammy Wilson to defy these views

Chris Eisenstadt is a US citizen who has been living in Northern Ireland. He is also a member of the Ulster Unionist Party. Here he considers the controversy over Sammy Wilson’s engagement captured by BBC reporter, Conor Spackman. Northern Ireland isn’t a racist place. Sure, it has issues with racism, and a few racists live here, but fundamentally it isn’t a place where racism is part of the fabric of society. It isn’t a place where causal, ignorant and lazy …

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The success of women in this election has done more than rock the system

Suzanne Collins is the Director of Operations and Campaigns for Women For Election. She writes for us about the success of female candidates in the 2016 General Election. In 1990, the newly elected Irish President Mary Robinson who was the first woman to be elected to the office, thanked her voters the ‘women of Ireland, Mná na Éireann, who instead of rocking the cradle rocked the system.’ The system may have been rocked but it another 26 years and a …

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