Archives
#DigitalLunch short: Seanad Reform…
Tweet It’s rare I’d pull out a leader for the subject of a blog, but this morning’s editorial in the Irish Times is also a useful reader for those who’ve missed the intricacies of the debate on the future of Seanad Eireann. And not least its shifting loyalties on the benches of Dail Eireann. When [...] more »
PSNI: “if the NCA is unable to operate fully in Northern Ireland, this will have a detrimental impact on our ability to keep people safe”
Tweet With continued political deadlock here over the new UK National Crime Agency (NCA) the PSNI have issued a statement warning of potential problems ahead, and proposing a suggested solution to complaints about accountability. From the PSNI statement Criminality has no respect for boundaries. It is therefore vitally important that the PSNI can access both [...] more »
Drama shows best how much Northern Ireland has changed
Tweet The distinguished Arts commentator Mark Lawson has an interesting blog post in the Guardian pegged to the new BBC2 thriller series “The Fall,” set in Belfast and launched on Monday night. He uses it to discuss the impact of ”British ” in the BBC. He rightly observes the big change, that it’s now Scotland with its independence debate where the [...] more »
Beware politicians shutting down their own public accountability mechanisms
Tweet I was a little buried in the day job yesterday, so did not get to put a blog out on Slugger. I was pulling together a report on a great gig in London on Tuesday night for a new not for profit organisation called Lobbi… The experience confirms for me that all politicians and [...] more »
55 Hours Part Two: Monday 6 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 [...] more »
Increasing numbers of passengers let the train take the strain … apart from a 10 year decline on the Enterprise
Tweet Monday morning’s Belfast Telegraph splashed with the front page story that passengers numbers have fallen by 22% on the Belfast-Dublin Enterprise train over the last decade. The ‘exclusive’ – based on figures in DRD’s Future Railways Investment consultation document [pdf] that was published in January – was picked up by Talkback at lunchtime as [...] more »
55 Hours Part One: Sunday 5 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 Biting at [...] more »
“creating consistency between each of the devolved institutions across the United Kingdom”
Tweet While the bullshit distraction that is the DUP/Sinn Féin “Building a United Community” paper [pdf file] was being paraded across the airwaves last week - Think of it as a revamped Contested Space Programme [Don't tell the International Fund for Ireland - Ed], pre-empting consultation on area-based planning, and Girdwood times 10. [And another non-working [...] more »
British Labour contemplating a radical change agenda?
Tweet Of Irish Labour can offer a cautionary tale to its British cousins it is, that whatever you do do not land yourself in government without a credible plan of action in a time of internationally imposed austerity. Perhaps looking for strategic gains in tackling some of the long term damage of the Thatcher era [...] more »
“…go around to every fool on this planet and open their eyes to the mountains that surround them in life.”
Tweet And as much as I’d love to go around to every fool on this planet and open their eyes to the mountains that surround them in life, I can’t. But maybe if I shout from mine they’ll pay attention. The words of Donal Walsh who passed away yesterday at the age of 16. If [...] more »
Team Jasil – that’s John and Basil – say: “Get off your backsides and vote for people that are trying to make a difference”
Tweet Basil McCrea and John McCallister were the invited guest speakers at a Friday lunchtime Politics and Change in Northern Ireland seminar run by the Institute for Research in Social Sciences at UUJ. The room was mostly full of academics and postgraduate researchers. It was an opportunity to hear John and Basil deliver what might [...] more »
Three Years of SDO Data – Narrated
Tweet If you enjoyed the recent video from Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) - “Three years in three minutes” – but would have liked more of an explanation of what was going on with our own local star… here it is again! This time, though, extended, and narrated by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center heliophysicist Alex [...] more »
Seize the opportunities opened up by the Good Relations strategy. Don’t write it off
Tweet Mick’s last post is probably representative of the muted reaction to the long awaited initiative. All the same I’d rather take a more positive approach and - yes!- begin with accepting it at face value. So I’m asking: are critics justified in writing off already the Cohesion Sharing and Integration statement ( not yet a strategy and [...] more »
Death of CSI: If we can’t have a strategy what about asking better questions?
Tweet I have some sympathy with OFMdFM for the cold reception for their announcement that their CSI strategy document is dead, but long live CSI. Promising that peace walls will hauled down within 10 years is laudable, but how likely is it since the core constituency of both parties don’t want it (and what they [...] more »
Ferguson’s departure: Rivals must work to burst “the incumbency bubble” of the EPL
Tweet I always had it in mind to write something about three exceptionally long term and successful leaders in three very different fields. Now Alex Ferguson has gone, here’s the gist in short blog order… - Gerry Adams, who came to lead his political party from the fringes of constitutional politics in Northern Ireland to [...] more »
It’s Derry again – with London and Liverpool, commemorating the Battle of the Atlantic
Tweet From the Dalai Lama to a “ VVIP” at the weekend, Londonderry is proving quite a venue, one of three for commemorating the Battle of the Atlantic this weekend. Good to see the UK City of Culture grafting this on to the programme and the recognition given to its role as a major port [...] more »
“during the Derry visit, Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson were nowhere to be seen, surely mindful of their upcoming trade mission to China.”
Tweet According to an Irish News report today …OFMDFM has refuted any suggestion that the Stormont leaders snubbed the Dalai Lama when he visited Derry last month. A spokesperson for OFMDFM said the ministers were unable to attend “due to prior diary commitments”. Which is fine… After all, “diary pressures” was the same excuse Tony Blair [...] more »
UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
Tweet Last night’s piece is well worth watching through to the end… Here’s the money quote from Barney Rowan in the third section… “You put Special Branch in the dock, and they will put the State in the dock…” …and possibly more than the state. more »
Cleveland rescue: “I barbecued with this dude, we ate ribs and listened to salsa music…”
Tweet An amazing video interview featuring Charles Ramsey one of those who rescued the three women held captive in Cleveland, not least at the end when he says, “Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead give away. Dead give [...] more »
Referendum proposing the abolition of the Seanad just weeks away…
Tweet In his op ed in the Irish Times recently, Conor Brady noted: It is limiting and dangerous to have a single, received orthodoxy when there is fear and suffering all about. Yet ironically, as one part of the Oireachtas (the presidency) finds its voice, another (the Seanad) may be about to be silenced permanently. [...] more »
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Books
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Stay out of Libya: counterinsurgency doesn’t work
Tweet A moment of some significance in journalism perhaps, as the New York Times reviews the current talked about book, The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan by Bing West. The author is no bleeding heart but a former assistant Defense Secretary from the Reagan era who stomped his way round the [...] read our review »
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Ian O’Riordan’s Miles to Run: An invitation to madness?
Tweet Ireland is in the middle of a boom – a running boom. Chances are, even if you have never run a step yourself (apart from some painful P.E. classes many moons ago), someone you know has taken up running over the last little while. Road races in Northern Ireland and in the Republic have [...] read our review »
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Johnston McMaster’s Overcoming Violence – Book Review
Tweet In his latest book, Overcoming Violence: Dismantling an Irish History and Theology – An Alternative Vision (Columba, 2012), Rev Dr Johnston McMaster offers a challenge to everyone living on this island: Entering into the increasingly talked about ‘decade of commemorations,’ how might we remember our painful past together, in order that we might walk [...] read our review »
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