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Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Emer Brennan argues in Daily Ireland that there is no alternative for the British government but to accept the pain of holding a public enquiry into the murders of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson:
The Finucane and Nelson murders were also world news; the fact that they were both lawyers crystallized minds, for if legal representatives cannot operate without threat what chance have the rest of us?
Tony Blair’s government wants to see the killers of Robert Mc Cartney brought to justice quickly. They should practice what they preach and help the Finucane family and many other families find some kind of closure too. In some cases it may be difficult, if not impossible, but that is no reason not to try.
Yes, inquiries are expensive, long winded and can often be ultimately disappointing and inconclusive, but what cost is too great for truth, for justice and ultimately for peace?
Wrap up...
Mick Fealty @ 09:13 AM
Alisdair McDonnell has accused Sinn Fein of being up to its neck in a cover-up for the murder of Robert McCartney:
“While pretending to help the McCartneys, Sinn Fein has been up to its neck in covering up this murder. They give out about manipulation by others but nobody has been more manipulative than they have.” Dr McDonnell said the key questions still unanswered pointed not to a few individuals refusing to hand themselves in “but to a large scale cover up by Sinn Fein”. He said Gerry Adams needed to clarify whether the expulsions from the IRA had been genuine or had since been rescinded, and also asked: “How many of the members expelled from the IRA and Sinn Fein were election workers for former Belfast Lord Mayor Alex Maskey?”
Wrap up...
Mick Fealty @ 09:04 AM
UTV also reports that an arson attack in Derry has wrecked a new Renal unit being constructed at altnagelvin hospital. Damage is estimated at at least £250,000 and the opening of the dialysis unit will be considerably delayed, meaning that patients will have to continue to be treated at Omagh. It’s difficult to comprehend the mentality of the people involved in this.How do we begin to address the issue of vandalism?
Ambrose Uprichard @ 08:48 AM
We don’t know the detail of this story, other than what Jim Cusack reports. But on the face of it is it quite shocking. It concerns a vendetta killing of a young man in Castlewellan, Matthew Burns. There is no mention of the details in Burns’s dispute with a local IRA OC, although he carries the family’s denial that he had been involved in drug dealling. The rest of the story is becoming depressingly familiar.
Adds: The Down Democrat covered it thus at the time. Thanks to reader Observer for the heads up.
Mick Fealty @ 08:40 AM
UTV carries a report, based on a story in the Irish Times, that an Irishman in his thirties, left severely handicapped after an accident, has flown to Switzerland with his family where Dignitas, a charity, helped with an assisted suicide. This is, like abortion, another difficult issue. How do contributors feel about this story and the issues it raises ?
Ambrose Uprichard @ 08:40 AM
Henry McDonald broke the news on Sunday that Fortnight magazine is getting squeezed simultaneously by two separate funding organisations, the Arts Council and the Community Relations Council. Fortnight has been around almost as long as the troubles themselves. Even in the darkest periods it has often been the only sane place were public enemy could converse intelligently and take soundings when there seemed little possibility of finding a lasting solution to Northern Ireland’s apparently intractible problems. Now, the loss of the relatively small amount of subsidy seems certain to threaten the paper’s immediate future.
Declaring my own interest. I’ve been an irregular contributor to Fortnight, and the magazine and its editor, Malachi O’Doherty, have been nothing but supportive of Slugger, right from its early days.
Northern Ireland has developed a habit of undervaluing its genuine public goods. The genuinely politically detached is routinely viewed with suspicion. It still makes me smile when I think of the response I got from one public funder when I asked about the possiblity of Slugger attracting a subsidy. I was told it was ‘too overtly political’.
We don’t know what criteria the funding bodies have used to make this decision. There is no doubt that there is a constant pressure to review and renew such criteria to match the needs of a changing society.
But, given the paucity of such spaces even today, at the very least it might come to be seen as careless inattentiion to have lost such an institution.
Wrap up...
Mick Fealty @ 07:19 AM
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Congratulations to Holywood boy Rory McIlroy on winning the West of Ireland Open Amateur Golf Championship at Rosses Point in Sligo, at the grand old age of 15. Last time I saw him, he’d just flown back from Florida with his dad (where they’d been reccying a course in preparation for the the World Under Tens Championship) in time to grab a bite to eat and up and out onto the Holywood course. At the time his golf bag was longer than he was tall. It seems he’s grown: in stature as well as in years!
Mick Fealty @ 04:16 PM
In a letter to the Newsletter, Dr. Kieran Deeny has said he is not a single issue candidate and that rather than trying to score political points over the UUP, the DUP would be better advised to acquaint themselves with his political health objectives.
He also calls for both the UUP and DUP to stand down and allow him run on his own against the “abstentionist MP”.
Deeny claims the DUP have misrepresented him by implying that he is seeking “to acquire modernday health care for the people in Tyrone by denying the Fermanagh population these same health care rights”.
“Secondly, and to both unionist parties - I will not be a single issue candidate in the forthcoming election and so let me bury this allegation now.
“It is fine to focus completely and entirely on a single issue when aiming for one of six Assembly seats. As an MP comes added responsibility and I will not shirk that responsibility and will extend my agenda and objectives to well beyond a single issue.
“I have many unionists on my campaign team and others who have pledged their support. Knowing that a vote for their usual party may help re-elect the present MP, it still has been described to me by many of the unionist tradition as a “win-win” situation where unionist voters in West Tyrone can vote for the person most likely to acquire modern-day health and hospital services for their families and, at the same time, be able to remove the present abstentionist MP.
“Indeed, many people from right across the whole community are saying that we must now have representation for West Tyrone in Westminster.
“Unionists in Omagh and West Tyrone, overall, would understand it if both unionist parties stood down in West Tyrone for this election.
“The two unionist parties have it within their power to help all of the people in West Tyrone by standing down and contributing in a major way to the full and professional representation of all of our people in Westminster.”
Related Slugger threads:
Single issue candidates can be successful
Unionist co-operation still in play?
Unionist pact could end Sinn Fein veto
Wrap up...
George @ 01:32 PM
I had thought this idea had drifted away [sorry, again]... but no, according to this Guardian article Rita Duffy is still trying to persuade everyone that towing an iceberg from the Arctic to Belfast would be an artistic triumph - and, reportedly, has already convinced some of the merits of her proposal.
Not everyone is convinced though -
But Una Reilly, co-founder of the Belfast Titanic Society, said it was too soon after the tragedy for this kind of art.
“I can understand why Rita wants to develop the symbolism of an iceberg,” Ms Reilly said. “But to bring the cause of the disaster into Belfast is not the message Belfast wants to send out to the rest of the world in relation to the Titanic.”
Too soon eh?
The plan didn’t make it into the official list of planned events.. running all this week.
It’s an ambitious project, certainly, and that, by itself, may be enough to make it worth attempting. But I do have a problem with the literalness of it all, as described in the article -
For Rita Duffy, Northern Ireland’s foremost artist, mooring an iceberg off Belfast and allowing it to melt is about “thawing” a place locked in a political and emotional deep freeze where divisions are firmer than ever.
“A huge big mountain of ice seems to be the most eloquent way of describing where we are. There is a certain type of madness in Northern Ireland society, a denial of what has happened to us. Maybe it’s time to come out of denial and confront what has sunk us.”
Well, yes it is..
But… Perhaps we shouldn’t be trying to make a worthy statement.. maybe that too has been devalued along with everything else? Just a thought, but maybe what we should instead be attempting is to create a huge artistic event and celebrate it as an amazing, quirky and joyous thing to do.. without insisting that it must say something profound - Something along the lines of Christo’s The Gates in NY, perhaps?
Wrap up...
Pete Baker @ 12:14 PM
That’s the charge levelled at the Irish government by Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams. He went on to resist the (increasing popular) formula that the only substantial block on progress is the mere existence of the IRA. He went on to ask, “What about policing? Demilitarisation? Human rights and Equality? The political institutions?”
Mick Fealty @ 11:23 AM
As spotted by the ever observant Irish Eagle, and to follow up our own mention of the site in question, Ratemyteacher is causing a bit of a stir.. It seems that teaching unions are seeking legal advice about the site - “Jim Dorney, General Secretary of the TUI said the site was ‘worthless’, since anybody can log on anonymously and say whatever they like…”.. *ahem*.. while Oisin O’Reilly, vice-president of the Union of Secondary Students, sets out the case for the defence. Interestingly, perhaps, the site appears to be most popular with students in Ireland, where 7 schools have blocked access to the site.
Pete Baker @ 11:16 AM
Well, I’m not sure how to treat this, but according to an Irish government source, the IRA is ploughing untraceable bank notes from the Northern job into property in Britain. The same report also clais that a large amount of stolen cash was laundered at the recent Cheltenham Festival - despite heightened police surveillance at the time.
Mick Fealty @ 11:11 AM
Eoghan Harris is in top form this week, not least concerning his barney at the launch of the Lives Entwined book in Dublin last week. We hear from independent witnesses that he’s as formidable an opponent in the flesh as he is in print. But what’s really fascinating about this week’s column is his contrast between the Aristotelian and Platonic world views, although in a very particular sense.
He lays out what he means:
Platonists think you can talk meaningfully about “crime” or “Christianity” or “republicanism” in the abstract, cut off from the actual actions of living men and women. Aristotelians think you cannot separate the singer from the song - crime is what criminals do, Christianity is what Christians do, republicanism is what republicans do.
Then moves swiftly to the sting in the tail:
That means that if republicans are murderous thugs then republicanism is what they do and nothing else - it does not exist in pristine purity somewhere else. So if republicans are good people - in the sense that my grandfather’s selfless generation were good people, in the sense that the brethren in Bandon are good people - this will animate the abstraction called ‘republicanism’ and bring it to vibrant life, but only for as long as republicans are virtuous.
Wrap up...
Mick Fealty @ 04:39 AM
Interesting line in the Daily Telegraph’s editorial yesterday, which echoes Michael Howard’s recent statement and argues that banning Catholics from becoming head of state is an anachronism that could and should be reformed.
Mick Fealty @ 04:34 AM
Eddie McGrady argues that criminality has long been an integral part of the Sinn Fein and IRA project, suggesting that it differs from Loyalist gangsterism only insofar as it is not open about the nature and the extent of its activities.
Mick Fealty @ 04:27 AM
 One of the sad things about Internet discussion is the reluctance of people to use their real names. In the context of Northern Ireland it is eminently understandable why people choose to remain annonymous. However, Sockpuppets take annonymity a step further. They are false, false identities if you like, often used by someone who is already posting under a ‘proper’ identity.
They can be fun and entertaining. Occasionally they can be vicious, often being used as an attack vehicle: ie, not merely for anonymity. In the context of Slugger, sockpuppets are not against the rules. However should a sockpuppet character be seen to serially play the man not the ball, you may find that your alter ego is suddenly (and without warning) curtailed from play.
Mick Fealty @ 04:01 AM
Supplanting democracy in place of dictatorship appears to be one of the cornerstones of current US/UK foreign policy. But, argues Geoffrey Wheatcroft, if you do that you must be ready for a few nasty surprises. He cites the collapse of the ‘moderate middle’ in Northern Ireland, and the victory of the extremes.
Mick Fealty @ 03:47 AM
Speaking at the weekend, Gerry Adams called Robert McCartney’s killers cowards. He colleague Martin McGuinness also argued that the IRA’s offer to shot the killers as a mistake. It detracted, he said, from the IRA’s stance that it would not tolerate a cover up. However the McCartneys believe that it’s simply “not good enough for witnesses to issue statements through their solicitors, arguing they should go directly either to the police or the Ombudsman’s team who have the proper investigative skills to establish what happened”.
Mick Fealty @ 03:32 AM
Monday, March 28, 2005
AT first I thought this comment on Daily Ireland’s fonts was going to be a spoof, but no… apparently there really is a Canadian company that designs typefaces called Shinntype. The company’s site tells us that Daily Ireland is the first newspaper to use the new ‘Nicholas’ fonts. “Nicholas will be released later this year” it adds without irony. You couldn’t make it up…
Belfast Gonzo @ 11:09 PM
I have been accused of unfairness towards Daily Ireland. In the spirit of fair play it is only right to record that aside from the McCartney bashing it does include this interesting critique by Mark Langhammer of the SDLP’s recent unification proposals and which appears to highlight a significant lacuna in the plan.
Jimmy Sands @ 04:08 PM
LOOKS like the McCartney campaign is about to go online, although I don’t know if this site under construction or its associated forum are officially linked to the family.
Belfast Gonzo @ 12:41 PM
DOES the Government follow or lead public opinion in Northern Ireland? Mark Devenport wonders if we are being consulted too much by Ministers who are supposed to be taking decisions as well as finding out what every special interest group, lobbyist and crank thinks. Is the electorate just a big focus group for the Direct Misrulers… or do they even listen anyway? Leave your considered views below - someone might be reading…
Belfast Gonzo @ 12:16 PM
AFTER much apparent progress to kick sectarianism off the terraces at Northern Ireland football matches, it looks like some fans just can’t keep their bigotry to themselves outside the stadium. Many fans have voiced their disgust at some of the singing in the Botanic Inn and elsewhere, and the whole sorry episode has caused a stir in Our Wee Country.
Getting off a flight at Aldergrove yesterday, there were a few NI supporters just arrived back from Manchester and in fine voice. However, they stuck to the traditional songs from the glory days of NI’s infamous world record losing streak - ‘It’s just like watching Brazil’ and that other classic, ‘We’re going to win 5-4’.
It’s a shame this good-natured and often self-deprecating humour isn’t setting the standard everywhere, though the sectarianism seems (from what I can tell) to be largely gone from the ground during matches. Has the IFA taken it’s campaign to tackle bigotry as far as it possibly can? It looks like the responsibility rests pretty much entirely with the fans from here on. But what can genuine supporters do? Would telling the Bot what you thought of the singing make any difference?
On a lighter note, not everyone was singing - anyone care to name and shame the ‘talented’ lady who has become known as ‘The Baps in the Bot’ on the BBC?!
Wrap up...
Belfast Gonzo @ 11:40 AM
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Balrog has to be one of the most welcome developments in the NI blogosphere in the last few months. It’s intelligent, particular and partisan. And an example of why blogs are there to be enjoyed!
Mick Fealty @ 09:35 PM
The Sunday Tribune, who published a nice little piece about us today. I’ve typed it out in full for those of you that are interested..
“Slugger O’Toole has far and away the most wide-ranging coverage of Northern Ireland, and has tracked the follow-up from last week, including the backlash from the McCartney family, with a decent respect for both sides. For sheer entertainment value, however, just pick one of the postings with the maximum number of comments.
But the most passionate debate of the week on that site (and the Irish blogosphere) came on Wednesday, on the proposal by George Best for an all-Ireland soccer squad. One reader kicked off a storm by posting his reaction: ‘oh dear. Look like it’ll be the Derek Dougan treatment for George from now on. He should realise this is Ireland and you aren’t supposed to make such logical points as that!’”
That’ll be PS enjoying the press treatment..
Wrap up...
Aaron Scullion @ 07:19 PM
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