Profile for Andrew Gallagher
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Latest posts from Andrew Gallagher (see all)
Andrew Gallagher has posted 5 times (0 in the last month).
The moment of quickening
Tweet Patsy McGarry has an interesting article in the Irish Times today on the surprisingly fluid nature of the Catholic Church’s stance on abortion: … some of the church’s greatest teachers and saints believed no homicide was involved if abortion took place before the foetus was infused with a soul, known as “ensoulment”. This was [...] more »
A historic vote just took place in the USA. Oh, and Obama won too…
Tweet I’ve no idea how this flew under the radar, but the outside world (bar the BBC) has largely ignored the most historic American plebiscite since the 1950s. Obama’s re-election, important though it is in itself, might find itself eclipsed by what just took place in Puerto Rico – a clear popular vote in favour [...] more »
“Just following orders”: SF Ministers are subordinate to their own command structure
Tweet Tuesday night’s Spotlight on the killing of Mary Travers was indeed fascinating, not so much for the story of the ambush itself – although I had never seen the family members speak on camera before, and their continuing suffering was palpable – but for its insights into the inner workings of Sinn Féin. SF’s [...] more »
The Assembly’s looming crisis of legitimacy
Tweet For me, the second most interesting result from the last General Election (after Long’s defeat of Robinson, of course) was the turnout figure. 57% is a far cry from the 70% turnout at the first Assembly election. Although a turnout of 57% would be considered respectable for, say, Scottish Parliament elections, hyper-political NI can’t [...] more »
The Maori and the Pakeha: Why can’t it work for us?
Tweet I recently had the pleasure of visiting New Zealand, and was quietly impressed by the way in which the minority Maori culture has been embraced by the majority Pakeha (i.e. white) population. That is not to say that NZ is blissfully free of ethnic tension, but such tensions seem to revolve around affirmative action [...] more »
Latest comments from Andrew Gallagher (see all)
Andrew Gallagher has commented 915 times (0 in the last month).
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Books
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Friday afternoon thread: Why confession works in a world of ‘cheaters’…
Tweet This is really worth watching… It suggests the very Catholic option of opening a new page by having a confession process does in the longer term help people to behave better… Presented by Dan Ariely, author of The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves. read our review »
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What Ireland did right (and what it needs to do)…
Tweet It is difficult to believe now that one country recently sent 19 delegations to Ireland to study how well our economy was managed. The revelation that our model of economic management featured positively in political and economic discussion in countries including Estonia, Greece and Scotland may also come as a surprise. As we survey [...] read our review »
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Manchán Magan’s ‘Oddballs: A Novel of Affections’: Book Review
Tweet A skilled chronicler in travel narratives and documentaries of those who wander the fringes, Manchán Magan’s debut novel follows four characters on the fringe. Two of them, teenaged Rachel and her quasi-aunt Charlotte, collide after a long estrangement in New Hampshire, and take off on Charlotte’s Wiccan pilgrimage to ye olde England of, as [...] read our review »
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Comment on Taking down walls not popular in interface areas…
on 7 May 2013 at 12:25 pm
On the other hand, you can’t lob a golf ball over a wall that isn’t there. Building sites learned that putting up a palisade actually invited trespassing, because it made the other side mysterious. Now we see increasingly that hoardings have viewports in them so that curious youngsters don’t have to climb them to see what’s going on. A peace wall doesn’t protect adults from unruly youths – it protects unruly youths from adults. They can’t chase you if there’s a wall in the way.
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Comment on “they have failed to adopt the responsibility and transparency which goes with power”
on 22 April 2013 at 6:31 pm
Currently, the balance of power between catholics and protestants is only enforced at the top table of the executive. But the people at the top rely on a communal party political system to put them at the top table in the first place. The only way to cure this is to enforce fairness at a lower level. If it’s legitimate to propose gender quotas for political parties, then it’s legitimate to propose religion (or community) quotas.
We already monitor community membership for fair employment purposes. Time to start monitoring it for political parties, and require that parties stand an equal number of fair-employment-protestants and fair-employment-catholics (Others would not count towards either total).
But it will probably have to be imposed, because turkeys won’t vote for christmas. Time for a mass movement?
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Comment on What does the Irish flag mean to you?
on 2 April 2013 at 11:58 pm
A vague sense of discomfort, thankfully easing over time and repeated exposure. Time was I would have said worse.
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Comment on Ireland and the Commonwealth: “Our door is always open…”
on 15 March 2013 at 11:17 am
Gesture of good will for a start. Staying out when other countries with as much if not more reason to hate the Brits (India?) are happy members comes across as petty. And then there are the networking opportunities. Yeah, they’re just junkets but when everyone else is at the table it’s in your interest to be there too. And believe it or not, doing something concrete to show the unionists you’re willing to move in their direction might even contribute to peace. And it wouldn’t even cost that much.
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Comment on The inequalities of same sex marriage
on 26 February 2013 at 10:55 pm
I’m confused. Do you want the state to define marriage, or not ? If not then aren’t you suggesting that it should be disestablished completely as a piece of civil law ?
An interesting question. I would err towards the latter – marriage is at root a private contract between two people (note to the naysayers above: dogs and stones cannot sign contracts). However, the state does have a role to play as the arbiter of contract law. Any inheritance rights or parental duties can be formulated in terms of either the marriage contract or the legal responsibilities of parents and guardians regardless of marital status.
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Comment on Time for Unionism to find a place for the Irish National flag in Northern Ireland
on 24 February 2013 at 11:55 pm
As far as I can tell, the only difference between the designated days policy in Lisburn and the designated days policy in Belfast is that in Lisburn the unionists did it of their own accord. Is this whole flegs fiasco just a case of bruised egos?
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Comment on Time for Unionism to find a place for the Irish National flag in Northern Ireland
on 22 February 2013 at 8:08 pm
IJP,
You’re straying uncomfortably close to this fine flag
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Comment on Time for Unionism to find a place for the Irish National flag in Northern Ireland
on 22 February 2013 at 7:54 pm
GF,
I’m talking about the widespread idea that either the Republic of Ireland or Irish Nationalism can be equated with the island of Ireland as a whole. I’m not sure why we’re arguing here as you’re making most of my points for me…
IJP, Otto,
Nice flags. But they’re not NI-specific. Green = Ireland. St. Patrick = Ireland. I take the point that the red hand = Ulster rather than NI. So do we have NI-specific symbols? Actually, we do. Take a look around the Assembly and Executive websites. Flax flowers and hexagons everywhere. Could this be a starting point for further non-tribal NI symbolism?
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Comment on Time for Unionism to find a place for the Irish National flag in Northern Ireland
on 22 February 2013 at 2:15 pm
The fact that almost the entire population of the Republic of Ireland and almost half the population of Northern Ireland wave the tricolour at international sporting occasions -parades etc is just a fact of life -so get used to it .
There are more of us than there are of you, so tough? That’s hardly constructive. And I’m glad you brought up the USSR and the UK, because confusion between the whole and the largest constituent part was/is at the root of the centrifugal forces at work in both.
The problem is that there are two definitions of “Ireland” – the geological one, and the ethno-nationalist one. One of them has to give, and geology is slow. So the only question you have to answer is whether you want to give up your ethno-nationalist project in favour of an inclusive sense of common Irishness, or keep it and renounce sole ownership of “Ireland”. Anything else is self-deception.
And again I state: just because lots of people believe it, doesn’t make it true.
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Comment on Time for Unionism to find a place for the Irish National flag in Northern Ireland
on 22 February 2013 at 7:52 am
Ghobsmacht,
Yeah, it’s far from obvious. Slugger (and many other sites) match your email address against the database at gravatar.com
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