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Books
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A poem for the day – Launching the Whaler Juan Peron
A Belfast epic, and one of my oldest poems, the opener of my first collection, Grub. The gist of the story was found in Moss & Hume’s Shipbuilders to the World: 125 Years of Harland and Wolff, Belfast, 1861-1986, which tells how Eva Peron was due to launch a huge whaling vessel in Belfast, built [...] read our review » -
Do Words Matter?: Book Review of Political Discourse and Conflict Resolution – Debating Peace in Northern Ireland
I share many of the concerns of Andy Pollak, whose recent post ‘My Response to the Slugger Begrudgers’ zeroed in on the ‘relentless flow of negativity’ of some Slugger commentators. Pollak’s post was largely concerned with the medium of the blog. Indeed, I think the anonymity of the online world encourages extreme discourse and allows [...] read our review »
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“You can see Newton’s mind at work…”
To add to the open access treasure trove at the Royal Society, Cambridge University Library is putting online some of its collection of books, maps, manuscripts and journals. We have called the first phase of our work on the Cambridge Digital Library the Foundations Project, which runs from mid-2010 to mid-2013 and has been made possible [...] read our review »
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Comment on SWOTing the parties: Strengths of the SDLP…
on 11 February 2010 at 11:27 pm
1. Patsy McGlone, whilst not vocal on Irish language issues, nor active on the ground on Irish language issues according to my sources, is an excellent Irish speaker. Some Irish speakers would vote for him on that basis alone.
2. Dominic O Brollachain / Bradley is both an excellent Irish speaker and a radical and hard-working activist on the ground. He gets the support of Irish speakers at election time – even those who are actually Sinn Féin supporters.
3. They (the SDLP) are not Sinn Fein.
4. They have the support of the GAA
5. They have the support of the Catholic Church
6. They have the unquestioning support of the Irish News, known to them as ‘The Truth’.
7. They are at least percieved as exclusively middle class and therefore ‘decent’.
8. As they dont have any real aim, no one is ever disappointed
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Comment on For the benefit of the monoglot majority
on 10 February 2010 at 12:12 am
I should point out also that I surveyed the Slugger readership and around 50 regulars (pre-registration regime) declared that they could read and engage with Irish content. Not bad.
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Comment on For the benefit of the monoglot majority
on 10 February 2010 at 12:10 am
Slugger may be a ‘public space’ but it is in fact privately owned.
The proprietor positively welcomes input in Irish, hence his invitation to me to post in Irish. He also posts in Irish occasionally.
It is rare that people post in Irish on an English thread.
It should be pointed out that most threads in Irish link to material in Irish, therefore even if they were written in English it would be of little benefit, surely no-one suggests that we should not link to material in Irish.
On the question of terminology, most people (when speaking English) call the language Irish. Radicals tend to call the language Irish Gaelic. Calling the language ‘Gaelic’ is restricted to some Republicans (as they are refering to Irish by its Irish name in English), opponents of the language and purists who do not believe in ‘Irishness’.
I have no difficulties with any of the discriptions.
Expect to see more Gaelic posts, if not from me, from someone else as a number of Irish language media projects are about to get up and running.
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Comment on Bloggers v Journalists redux
on 9 February 2010 at 8:22 pm
“but it would be clever enough not to be there in the first place.”
Surely they were clever enough to leave land in the first place?
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Comment on George Lee resigns from Fine Gael
on 8 February 2010 at 8:17 pm
“Make a public complaint about clamping in Churchtown.”
All politics is local.
None of his qualities matter Mack if he cannot get power in his party.
Maybe they were afraid of him? maybe they thought – where have you been up to now?
I am not a FG supporter, I have just seen countless ‘stars’ failing in political parties as they could not adapt to the game that is politics.
Not defending it.
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Comment on George Lee resigns from Fine Gael
on 8 February 2010 at 8:06 pm
“He wasn’t yer average clientelist yokel TD, he shouldn’t have been treated as such..”
I disagree. He entered politics, he became a politican. Degrees etc. mean nothing in the game.
Politics is a craft in itself, a trade. His expertise would count for nothing if he could not consolidate power in his party.
A lesson hard learned.
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Comment on BBC and RTE to share public service digital platform in the Republic
on 8 February 2010 at 3:48 pm
http://tinyurl.com/yl6nvtq
Well David McNarry seems none too pleased.
He really makes me want to vote for the new force! Not.
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Comment on Margaret Ritchie elected as new SDLP leader
on 8 February 2010 at 2:10 pm
Does anyone know what Margaret Ritchie’s stance s on Dominic Bradley’s / SDLP’s Irish language bill?
McDonnell gave it a few mentions and incorparated some Irish in his site, there was no evidence of this on Ritchie’s site.
Any insider knowledge??
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Comment on For the benefit of the monoglot majority
on 7 February 2010 at 2:56 pm
Joe,
I have a small and little updated blogeen on the Gaelic on Antrim.
http://rathlingaelic.blogspot.com/
Maybe you will enjoy it – some of it is written in Antrim Irish but and Google translate just can’t cut the mustard!
All,
I only linked to the Nuacht 24 story. I cannot confirm the source of their story nor if the understood that these matters would be included in the agreement.
That said, as has been pointed out the agreements between the two governments on TG4 and RTÉ are clearly significant.
“Hardly sinister, but hardly noticed.”
David McNarry certainley noticed.
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Comment on For the benefit of the monoglot majority
on 7 February 2010 at 2:50 pm
Brian,
Google translate allows material written in Irish to be at least partially translated so I do not feel it was hidden in anyway.
It was a post written with my left had only in seven minutes and I am quite surprised it has been noticed!
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Comment on How are people ever going to face up to their responsibilities as elected representatives
on 30 January 2010 at 10:11 pm
All,
This is just a pet hate of mine.
The other is that ‘there is no-one to vote for’, even though we have a huge selection of parties here.
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Comment on How are people ever going to face up to their responsibilities as elected representatives
on 30 January 2010 at 9:33 pm
“It might also give the governments time to listen to the views of the ordinary people of the North.”
This ridiculous idea infects both the voluntary blogatariat and the paid opinionater. The idea that politicans in the North are somewhat appointed by a committee from the planet zog.
Politicans here are elected and they reflect those views.
If they fail to take account of those views they will not be re-elected.
Pretending that political representation is unrelated to the views of ‘ordinary people’ is quite unrealistic.
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Comment on “…republicans are in a rather worse position than the SDLP”
on 29 January 2010 at 5:06 pm
What has he put his finger on?
I hear constantly this claim from unionists ” the unwillingness of nationalists to concede that unionists are British”.
Yet I do not hear nationalists ever saying that. To may mind nationalists confronted with a plethora a unionist identities simply refer to them as Unionists.
I accept without question that these people are British, however people will come back and say – ‘o you are saying we are not Irish now’.
It is school yard stuff and not something I believe that nationalists should express an opinion on for it will have no realistic result.
To put the question back, you are British – And?
How or why should this effect nationalist claims for equality and for political freedom? Why should one people’s identity automatically cancel anothers?
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Comment on “…republicans are in a rather worse position than the SDLP”
on 29 January 2010 at 4:50 pm
” the unwillingness of nationalists to concede that unionists are British.”
It is rare to read a piece of with such a breath taking lack of self-awareness.
This is a sentence which one could simply switch the world nationalist with unionist.
There are dozens of them on Slugger. i.e ‘Unionist will never be forced into a united Ireland’.
Again, you could simply switch the terms and say that nationalist (judging by who they vote for, for we can do no other) will never be forced to remain indefinitely to remain in the UK, at least in the NI sense of the UK.
The chap seems to be miffed that nationalist remain nationalists despite of the GFA and despite the apparent lack of the prospect of Irish unity.
But of course the aim of Irish nationalism is the survival of the Irish nation.
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Comment on As unionist plans for consolidation, nationalism drifts towards complacency…
on 26 January 2010 at 3:11 am
“you would still insist on trying to force 1 million British citizens to live in a country they have no allegiance to?”
This sentiment always amazes me, given that the numbers of nationalist are not much less than unionists.
Can no unionist see that the sentence would work just as well if you switched the word British with Irish?
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Comment on 70 sign up for classes!
on 21 January 2010 at 1:56 am
try this website http://www.daltai.com, they might be able to help you more that I can.
Conradh na Gaeilge may also know if their is a class.
The Raidió Fáilte classes are very good.
Not much help, sorry.
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Comment on Talks and the ILA
on 15 January 2010 at 5:36 pm
http://www.acgmod.org/nationalmod/history
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Comment on Talks and the ILA
on 15 January 2010 at 5:33 pm
“The despised English dont give a monkeys which language the Irish speak.”
Hence most Irish speakers I know want the assembly to collapse.
Most British people in Britian have different attitude to minority and indigenous cultures than British people here.
Indeed the British Royal family patrons and supporters of the Gaelic language and culture in Scotland.
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Comment on Talks and the ILA
on 15 January 2010 at 1:29 am
Mark,
I never write anything in English that I have not already written in some form in Irish.
Occasionally, I will write a post in English on Irish for the purposes, I hope of information and debate.
I would dearly love to be blogging about a host of issues here in Irish but I am extremely busy and Slugger does not pay, others can and do.
That is just the truth.
I cannot say why Mick does not publish more in Irish that is a matter for him.
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Comment on Talks and the ILA
on 15 January 2010 at 1:17 am
oneill,
On a point of information I believe that the Irish language should be promoted without regard to class, religon or political view.
Some activists and organisations engage in that and far play to them – I have done the work myself, but for its own sake – not because I buy into any narrative that it is necessary.
I do not believe that we should hold ourselves back in fear of unionist sensititives and I believe that it up to unionists to do the outreach to Irish speakers not the other way round.
Frankly, the biblical story of casting your seed on stoney ground springs to mind when I think of all that I have witnessed and heard from unionist parties on the language question.
They have gone out of their way to express hatred in the strongest and most offensive way possible, even in private. Therefore to me they have but themselves out of the debate and certainely I give their concerns no thought whatsoever.
Frankly, the work is to be done on the ground and their is little unionism can do to stop that.
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