Profile for Billy Pilgrim
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Billy Pilgrim has commented 596 times (17 in the last month).
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Books
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Debating the Churches’ Role in the Peace in Northern Ireland
This morning’s Sunday Sequence featured a substantial debate (about 35 minutes into the recorded programme) on a new book,Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press 2011), written by sociologists John Brewer, Gareth Higgins and Francis Teeney. The debate was framed in an opening vignette by presenter William Crawley in uncompromising terms, [...] read our review » -
A Political History of the Two Irelands competition…
It’s not often we get free things to give away to our readers, but courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan we have a nice paperback copy of Brian M Walker’s excellent history of partition of the island and how identities shifted in both the north east and the south and west: as most of the territory that [...] read our review »
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Lessons in Cute Hoorism: “Graft was accepted, for you were taking from the British…”
I’ve been catching up on some reading, recently. Most pleasantly surprised by John Drennan’s latest opus from Gill and Macmillan, Cute Hoors and Pious Protestors… It’s early days yet, but I was struck by this paragraph, part of a dissection of Fianna Fail near the beginning: One of the more fatal consequences of our colonial [...] read our review »
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Comment on Leinster would probably win 9 times out of 10, but…
on 17 May 2012 at 2:22 pm
Great preview, Michael.
Come on Ulster!
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Comment on “I do apologise for anyone who misunderstood the way I was using the metaphor…”
on 16 May 2012 at 9:21 pm
It’s unfortunate that Jonathan Bell has allowed himself to be bullied into retracting what was a perfectly straightforward and scarcely disputable observation. It’s to Martina Anderson’s credit that she is resisting such bullying.
Quite obviously, the point made by both junior ministers relats to middle-class sectarianism, with ‘golf clubs’ and ‘dinner parties’ being easily understood by everyone as metaphors for particular social classes. It’s an important observation, made by both junior ministers, that extreme sectarianism thrives in these classes, just a much as in their kerbstone-painting counterparts.
It’s interesting to see the way the middle classes, and the media (drawn overwhelmingly from their ranks) have reacted, in slapping down the two ministers – not by actually disputing the truth of their remarks, but by resorting to flagrant dishonesty, pretending to believe the remarks were actually about GOLF, and that Mr Bell and Ms Anderson were having a go at the Golfing Union of Ireland.
Most of the worst bigots I’ve ever met are from relatively privileged and highly-educated backgrounds, and usually take grave (and genuine) offence at the idea that they have a sectarian bone in their bodies. It’d be nice to think that education always lifts people from the mire of prejudice – and often, it does – but it can also have the opposite effect, equipping bigots with the intellectual tools to rationalize their bigotry, and persuade themselves and others that it’s just ‘common sense,’ or whatever.
This kind of bigotry is far more intractable than the working class variation – where people are more likely to admit to their sectarianism, and know, deep down, that it’s not a good thing.
To paraphrase the line from the Usual Suspects: the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was in convincing the Northern Irish middle classes that their bigotry doesn’t exist.
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Comment on Cardinal Brady should go – in charity
on 4 May 2012 at 6:06 pm
Wild Turkey
To paraphrase the joke Vonnegut made at the funeral of a former president of the American Humanist Society, ‘he’s looking down on us now…’
Vonnegut didn’t have much time for organised religion. Nor did he have much time for hypocrites.
To assume he would have sided with, say, Eamon Gilmore, or various media institutions, against the Catholic Church, is as perverse as assuming he would side with the Church.
I daresay he’d marvel, once more, at the bottomless wickedness and stupidity of humans.
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Comment on Cardinal Brady should go – in charity
on 4 May 2012 at 3:13 pm
Good posts from Henry and Alias.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs, my prediction is that Brady will not go. He may well wish to, but the Pope will not accept his resignation.
Basically, there’s a hard man in the Vatican, who doesn’t care a jot for media pressure, for the (inappropriate) interjections of political leaders, nor even particularly for the opinions from the pews.
Benedict’s view, by all accounts, is that a time of crisis is no time to show weakness. Expect iron defiance from that quarter, until the heat of the controversy cools.
Poor Sean Brady will remain in post until either:
a) death; or
b) it’s possible for him to retire without any suggestion that he has been forced to do so by external pressures.
The latter may never be possible, which leaves only the former.
But an important principle (from the point of view of the hierarchy) will have been upheld: public opinion, and professional ‘opinion formers,’ may make and break other public figures, but the Vatican is above being coerced by such forces.
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Comment on Cardinal Brady should go – in charity
on 4 May 2012 at 1:37 pm
Sorry, just couldn’t resist pointing out the towering idiocy of the line from the BBC report to which Nevin refers:
‘Three out of the four main parties in the Republic of Ireland and the Northern Irish Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness have called on Cardinal Brady to consider his position.’
Which of the ‘four main parties in the Republic’ has NOT called on the Cardinal to ‘consider his postition,’ one may wonder?
Why, SF, of course.
Except that, in the very same sentence, it’s reported that Martin McGuinness has called on the Cardinal to do so.
What party does Robert Piggott think Martin McGuinness is a member of?
In fact, all four of the main parties in the Republic have called on the Cardinal to ‘consider his position’.
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Comment on “Over the next fortnight the black flag of anarchy will fly over Free Derry Corner…”
on 3 May 2012 at 2:08 pm
Ouch!
Poor Pete is getting quite a spanking here.
Characteristically lamentable stuff.
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Comment on Derrytresk GAC call off police road safety event under local public pressure…
on 27 April 2012 at 4:24 pm
A lingering distrust of the police, perhaps?
It’s hardly difficult to understand, or empathise with such a lingering distrust, especially in that particular area.
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Comment on Derrytresk GAC call off police road safety event under local public pressure…
on 27 April 2012 at 4:23 pm
Between the Bridges
‘…it’s symptomatic of a community (CNR) that castigates ‘others’ as backward looking…’
Your sentence is grammatically incomplete. You have to make clear what you believe this incident is symptomatic of, within the community in question.
Symptomatic of what?
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Comment on Derrytresk GAC call off police road safety event under local public pressure…
on 27 April 2012 at 12:55 pm
Cynic
‘…who is afraid of a little local picket?’
I’d say the fear was more that it might cause a split in the club. And I suppose those in favour of the event decided it wasn’t worth splitting the club, over the police.
Coalisland is quite possibly the single most staunchly republican town in Ireland. It’s hardly surprising that there was opposition to the police there: what’s surprising, and encouraging, is that there is a degree of support for the police there.
Seriously: not so long ago, opposition to the police in Coalisland would’ve been 100%. Today, it’s news that relations between community and police there are not quite fully normalised yet.
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Comment on Sinn Fein cut quotes from three Economists who believe “there is little to be gained from rejecting the Treaty…”
on 27 April 2012 at 11:07 am
Alas it has, as always, been far too long…
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