Profile for Old Mortality
This user has not yet written a description
Latest comments from Old Mortality (see all)
Old Mortality has commented 199 times (25 in the last month).
Advertise
-
Books
-
Total Politics: Top 20 NI Blogs…
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] read our review »
-
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 » -
“It was a trivial problem that… occurs every year”
Just your average family gathering at Christmas, with a bit of an argument about the seating cleaning arrangements… Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics over a turf war in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the [...] read our review »
-
Comment on Masterplan for Girdwood: “back to the sectarian drawing board…”
on 24 May 2012 at 10:52 am
andnow what
‘Maybe our communities should become basket cases like in GB and become a maze of sink estates, bereft of any cohesion?’
Aren’t they there already? How would some mobility have an adverse effect?
Bangor dub
I suspect that you’re of the view that lving exactly where you want at public expense is a human right (at least in NI), in which case there is no basis for dialogue.
Go to comment
Comment on “The boom years were the dream. Hard work and tighter belts are the new reality.”
on 23 May 2012 at 10:21 pm
‘Another reason this idea is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the median American, but we don’t buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff.’
In which case they’re saving an awful lot, (unless they’re giving it away which is encouraged by US tax law). It would have been more helpful if Hanauer had told us what he does with his savings. He might well be investing a good chunk of it in high-tech start-ups. On the other hand he might bet it all on property as his Irish counterpart almost certainly would.
Go to comment
Comment on Masterplan for Girdwood: “back to the sectarian drawing board…”
on 23 May 2012 at 9:45 pm
Bangordub
‘Where to start, OK, you are saying that if people can’t afford to buy then there is no housing need?’
It’s got nothing to do with buying. Where did I indicate that?What exactly is housing need? Are people sleeping on the streets in north Belfast? Whatever the housing need is, could that need be met elsewhere or do those perceived to be in housing need have some material need to live there such as convenient access to their place of employment. If not then why can’t they be unemployed where housing is already available. Wanting to live across the road from mammy is not a valid cause of housing need. If people can uproot themselves from Lithuania and Poland to work here, surely it’s not asking too much of locals to move a few miles.
Go to comment
Comment on Masterplan for Girdwood: “back to the sectarian drawing board…”
on 23 May 2012 at 5:33 pm
Bangordub
Indeed you did. If Nevin is correct about poorish economic prospects in North Belfast, then it is irrational to give anyone encouragement to live there.
Go to comment
Comment on Masterplan for Girdwood: “back to the sectarian drawing board…”
on 23 May 2012 at 4:25 pm
Nevin
‘North Belfast is a patchwork of small communities with opposing national aspirations and poorish economic prospects’
Then why not encourage them to move where economic prospects are better rather than build shiny new houses for people to sit around doing nothing in.
And if you have to build houses on the site, how about making them available only to families who do not depend on the state for sustenance. If you can’t fill them on that basis, they’re not needed.
Go to comment
Comment on Grammar schools and social mobility: a Northern Ireland contribution to the debate
on 21 May 2012 at 3:33 pm
Mick
‘School leavers on free school meals are twice as likely as other pupils to go into employment or training (40 per cent of boys and 20 per cent of girls on free school meals do so).’
It’s my experience that some parents in that social bracket don’t want their children to attend selective schools, sometimes on the grounds that not all their children will be selected: ‘what’s good enough for one is good enough for them all’.
It would be useful to discover if the correlation between free school meals and academic failure was so pronounced in non-selective schools, especially the few which are genuinely comprehensive.
Go to comment
Comment on The withering of Irish Catholicism sees Sunday attendance plummet in the cities…
on 19 May 2012 at 11:38 am
Thomas Mourne
‘..the improvement in education in recent years – not just in schools, but through television, internet and other media. The myths and superstitions of organised religious groups are more unlikely to be accepted by an open and educated mind.’
By that standard, the proles of Poleglass are the most highly educated Catholics in the Belfast area.
Go to comment
Comment on The withering of Irish Catholicism sees Sunday attendance plummet in the cities…
on 18 May 2012 at 2:11 pm
Ulick
‘but surely most people now go to the vigil Mass on Saturday evening’
You’re onto something there. In rural parishes at least, it’s a nightmare if you happen to be driving past an RC church when the Saturday evening mass is ending.
However, this preference for Saturday evening may itself be a sign of weakening allegiance. In the village where I was brought up, the PP would not admit people to mass on a Saturday evening unless they could prove to him that it would be impossible for them to attend on Sunday morning. That was some time ago, needless to say.
Nowadays, few people can be bothered to get up on a Sunday morning, if the survey is to be believed.
Go to comment
Comment on #EUREF: Souveraineté ou survie du déluge?
on 17 May 2012 at 3:45 pm
Mick
‘There is an important point of principle here, but no one who ‘supports’ it wants to come out and say what it is…’
What is it, then?
Go to comment
Comment on #EUREF: Souveraineté ou survie du déluge?
on 17 May 2012 at 10:37 am
The Republic is a very open economy, heavily dependent on exports, most of which are generated by multinationals. That is why fiscal stimulation makes little sense for Ireland — most of it woudl be dissipated on imports. Therefore, the treaty is no threat to Irish economic well-being whereas the risks from rejection are considerable, if only to the extent that it might call into question Ireland’s membership of the Eurozone, not to mention an escalacting cost of debt.
Go to comment