Profile for Antain Mac Lochlainn
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Antain Mac Lochlainn has commented 17 times (0 in the last month).
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Books
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Christopher Hitchens, 1949 – 2011
Tweet Writer Christopher Hitchens has died aged 62. He was as contrary as he was brilliant. Here is a brief In Memoriam from Vanity Fair (his outlet of choice since 1992) and, here, a longer tribute from his friend Christopher Buckley Stanley in The New Yorker. Better, perhaps, though to post one of Hitchens’ own writings [...] read our review »
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Hearing the Other Voice from the Grave: Why Should we Listen to David Ervine’s Stories?
Tweet Ed Moloney’s Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland has received considerable attention in the press and in the public realm since its publication earlier this year. Although the book relates the experiences of the Provisional IRA’s Brendan Hughes and the PUP/UVF’s David Ervine, much of the discussion has focused on Hughes’ [...] read our review » -
The ANC, the IRA and the rise of influence of the left within Sinn Fein…
Tweet World by Storm has a nice piece up on the IRA’s role in helping MK, the armed wing of the ANC, in the 1980s. In particular he sees a strange alchemy at work there: …if one can think of a clearly legitimate contemporary struggle it was that against apartheid and it is to the [...] read our review »
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Comment on One more domino for Labour: Nessa Childers’ ‘resignation’…
on 5 April 2013 at 1:24 pm
Cynics might suggest that the time to walk was the last budget (not that she had a vote, but she could have supported Keaveny’s anti-budget stance). It’s hard to accept that she only now realises that this Government is ‘hurting people’. Maybe Meath East opened her eyes to at least one future job loss.
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Comment on Basil and John need a name for their New Party: Can you help?
on 28 February 2013 at 12:26 pm
Think of the comic potential if Ian Parsley and Basil were in the one party. I suggested ‘Unity’ as a joke, but who knows?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they include ‘Northern Ireland’ in the moniker, rather than ‘Ulster’. Reaching out to the Catholics who are ‘Northern Irish’ don’t you know.
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Comment on Do all Nationalists believe in “what’s bad for you is good for us…”
on 27 February 2013 at 3:46 pm
I detest the Orange Order. They’ve been on the wrong side of every cultural, political and societal debate from Catholic Emancipation to Gay Marriage. But I remember that forlorn fly on the wall documentary the BBC did in Ballysally in Coleraine last year, and how a newly formed flute band gave young unemployed men something to get out of bed for. It’s a pity that there isn’t a nonsectarian equivalent but let’s face it, there isn’t.
Re. a name for Basil’s party, I suggest ‘Unity’ – that way even SF supporters could vote for it.
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Comment on The shrinking heart of the UUP: A lucky 13?
on 20 February 2013 at 2:25 pm
I can’t really agree that Nesbitt put in a good performance on Spotlight. Positioning himself against gay marriage, saying that all the deaths of the Troubles were down to Nationalists being unhappy about the recognition given to their cultural identity – if that’s one of his better outings I’d hate to see his disasters.
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Comment on #Gay Marriage: Who says you can’t have religious symbols? The Law
on 20 February 2013 at 12:36 pm
Far be it from me to defend Arlene Foster, but I thought that Stephen’s point was a strange one. He said something like ‘an atheist hetrosexual couple can have a religious ceremony but a Christian gay couple can’t.’
But why would an atheist couple want such a thing? I think the implications for adoption are a much more serious issue, but they were hardly mentioned.
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Comment on Time for Unionism to find a place for the Irish National flag in Northern Ireland
on 19 February 2013 at 11:16 am
“Hard to get past that 17% figure though.”
Not so very hard – the 2011 Census showed 25% of the population opting for an ‘Irish only’ identity. That’s plus 8% without even venturing into what ‘Northern Irish’ means.
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Comment on Nesbitt: “change happens and if you don’t roll with it then you’ll be left behind”
on 18 February 2013 at 4:47 pm
My hope is that Will Farrell will reprise his Newsreader role to play Mike in the biop. I wonder who will play Lynda?
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Comment on #Flegs: They haven’t gone away you know…
on 18 February 2013 at 2:26 pm
“protestant streets”
Jesus wept.
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Comment on “They can take whatever they can, but Northern Ireland is still going to be British whether they like it or not”
on 7 February 2013 at 10:34 am
Antain Mac Lochlainn: I thought the key quote was: ‘They have no right whatsoever’. ‘They being a majority of democratically elected Councillors in Belfast.
You’ll have had no problem with Stormont pre-1972 then, will you?
UPC, Stormont’s distain for Irish Catholics went a bit further than banning the tricolour.
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Comment on Farewell to Gaelscéal
on 7 February 2013 at 10:30 am
Mainland Ulsterman: as regards English being ‘a perfect language to sell pigs in’ – I’ve always felt uneasy about that line myself. In fairness though, the poet Hartnett wasn’t so much attacking English as responding to a familiar jibe against Irish: that’s it’s no good for practical purposes, commerce etc. He’s standing the argument on its head by painting ‘practical purpose’ as a bit grubby, like Yeat’s ‘fumbling in the greasy till’. Romantic, yes but not racist. He expressed the same idea in a better line from the same poem: ‘Irish is our final sign that we are human and therefore not a herd.’
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