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Books
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Ex- Combatants, Religion and Peace in Northern Ireland: Book Review
Tweet It’s probably safe to assume that most people in Northern Ireland would not associate religion either with ‘peace’, or with ‘ex-combatants.’ But a new book by John Brewer, David Mitchell and Gerard Leavey, Ex-Combatants, Religion and Peace in Northern Ireland: The Role of Religion in Transitional Justice (Palgrave, 2013) fruitfully brings the three together [...] read our review » -
Debating the Churches’ Role in the Peace in Northern Ireland
Tweet 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 [...] read our review » -
A New Vision for the Catholic Church – Book Review
Tweet The oft-quoted verse from the book of Proverbs, ‘where there is no vision, the people perish,’ (chapter 29, verse 18) opens a new book by Gerry O’Hanlon, A New Vision for the Catholic Church: A View from Ireland (Columba Press, 2011). That verse could be considered an apt summary of the current state of [...] read our review »
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Comment on Tweet like a politician … ideally, thinking about how it’ll be read and misread
on 15 April 2013 at 7:34 am
“Got on bike today. Got soaked. Changed. Got in car. Billy Bragg. Meeting. Got back in car. Elvis Costello. Thatcher’s legacy?”
More honest Tweet would be
“Got on bike, Got in car……Jumped on Political Bandwagon..”
No fan of career politicians like Conall, obvious question to him is how did Thatcher affect you growing up in Spain?
Had he had success in getting his career of the ground with the Irish Labour Party his Tweets would more than likely have been the opposite in tone and content. and aimed at a different audience
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Comment on A LAST PLEA FROM SIR GEORGE QUIGLEY FOR MORE NORTH-SOUTH COOPERATION
on 27 March 2013 at 5:35 pm
Where does cooperation end and competition begin.
Does NI produce anything that Ireland doesn’t or can’t?
Single Electricity Market, not really, NI businesses pay pretty much the highest price for electricity on Europe.
Desiring to match Ireland’s CT rate is not cooperation, it’s competition.
It’s likely that in the near future the £ will drop to match the € and/or cutbacks will make NI labour cheaper. It won’t be cooperation when NI can undercut Ireland it will be full-on competition.
What makes it interesting is that GB is now Ireland’s BFF so I wonder would they hand over NI to keep everything sweet or would indeed would the Dail suddenly go all republican and push for unity to get rid of the competition.
On things for sure this isn’t cooperation!
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Comment on Corporation Tax is not Northern Ireland’s elephant in the room…
on 27 March 2013 at 1:26 pm
The 23Billion is a bigger elephant in the room, tiny NI’s contribution is circa One Billion for defence and another Billion on interest.
The UK is banjaxed financially, come 2015 it will be the most indebted state in western Europe owing £1.4 trillion.
The people paying the piper (even after 80 billion in cuts) are German and French banks, lending HM Treasury about 120 billion this year.
So I think Merkel will have the last say on NI’s budget in a few years time,
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Comment on “Already, two Sinn Fein special advisers have been submitted to vetting procedures put in place by Sammy Wilson, the finance minister, as a condition for paying them.”
on 27 March 2013 at 10:20 am
Speaking of jailbirds,
I see Francie Malloy is being replaced by one,
SF are going to have the TUV and DUP slugging this out for a while, where’s me popcorn
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Comment on “Already, two Sinn Fein special advisers have been submitted to vetting procedures put in place by Sammy Wilson, the finance minister, as a condition for paying them.”
on 27 March 2013 at 10:17 am
What in God’s name could a jailbird advise anyone on except the best way to eat porridge?
Dunno, lets ask Nelson Mandela
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Comment on Theresa Villiers: “I’m extremely pleased that we were able to answer the Agriculture Minister Michelle O’Neill’s request for a military helicopter…”
on 27 March 2013 at 10:14 am
Good grief, first the cops stop belonging to unionism and now the army, can only hope unionists are keeping careful count to ensure that the same number of unionist sheep get fed as fenian ones or the DUP will have the foot soldiers out….again
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Comment on FM and dFM troubles: “a lot more work to be done before there’s true unity…”
on 26 March 2013 at 9:56 pm
iirc during the outbreak of Foot & Mouth in GB it was claimed NI livestock was Irish (and not British) so surely they should have called the Irish army
Was the RIR involved, how many medals have they put in for?
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Comment on “Already, two Sinn Fein special advisers have been submitted to vetting procedures put in place by Sammy Wilson, the finance minister, as a condition for paying them.”
on 26 March 2013 at 10:36 am
“Fair play to Jim Allister.
Is he the only person actually working at Stormont?”
a question that will be much more widely asked in unionist circles than nationalist ones.
So this will cost who votes?
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Comment on “Already, two Sinn Fein special advisers have been submitted to vetting procedures put in place by Sammy Wilson, the finance minister, as a condition for paying them.”
on 26 March 2013 at 6:32 am
The other point is, does SF care,
there are only 19 SpAds in Stormont
they have people with a ‘past’ in lots of elected and unelected positions.
Is there anyone left with a ‘past’ to get on the political ladder. The IRA moved to Spectaculars in the 80′s so less vols went to prison. Kavanagh has a ‘past’ and was made a SpAd in 2012, he’s in his 50′s.
All in all, it’s bolting the stable door…….
on the flipside, Nelson Mandela would be barred from being a SpAd. Crazy huh!
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Comment on “Already, two Sinn Fein special advisers have been submitted to vetting procedures put in place by Sammy Wilson, the finance minister, as a condition for paying them.”
on 25 March 2013 at 5:58 pm
Very surprised to hear that SF submitted to Sammys vetting procedure.
this only happened about 9 months ago, the ‘special’ vetting was IIRC made up by Sammy as one of several solo runs he’d gone on (trying to micro manage every depts budgets being the others) SF refused to submit as the ‘special’ vetting was not legal in any way.
So even more surprised that they submitted because the TUV Bill was on the way, I would have thought it would have been the SF sting. That once the Bill was passed a SF SpAd would get a large amount of cash as backpay, very much putting the cat among the pigeons.
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Comment on “At the time Sinn Féin condemned the arrest and subsequent charges and pointed to a political motivation behind the entire episode…”
on 10 January 2013 at 11:10 am
or indeed when unionists complain about the lack of convictions of IRA volunteers, they can at least be point to this case to show where police resources are being tied up
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Comment on “At the time Sinn Féin condemned the arrest and subsequent charges and pointed to a political motivation behind the entire episode…”
on 10 January 2013 at 11:07 am
worthwhile finding out the cost of this conviction for a 16 year old mortgage fraud, just so it can be compared to the cost of any murder inquiries when unionists start whining about wasting money
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Comment on “At the time Sinn Féin condemned the arrest and subsequent charges and pointed to a political motivation behind the entire episode…”
on 10 January 2013 at 9:56 am
Bet Matt Baggott is hoping that Ian Hislop doesn’t read Slugger or the PSNI may replace Neasden Police Station on Private Eye’s funny pages.
This example along with Lennons £120,000 (+costs) payout (allowed to go uncontested despite legal advice to the contrary) really shows that Unionism is the gift that keeps on giving, do republicans need to do anything more to destroy NI than to let unionism get on with the job.
Anywhere else the public would cry WTF, but stick a republican in the frame and it gets lapped up in NI.
Really it is like unionist turkeys voting for Christmas ‘cos fenian turkeys are going to cop it…hahahaha
I mean feeling good that the cops have secured a conviction in 2012 on someone falsifying a mortgage application in 1996, you really have lost the run of yerselves.
So next time someone complains about the lack of police action on the riots or parades or all the various murders, rapes, mugging etc that they don’t have the manpower to act upon just remind them about this case
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Comment on #Flegs: Small scale, disruptive, contained and with few options to grow…
on 9 January 2013 at 1:23 pm
whoops
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Comment on Conall McDevitt has left the SDLP with some explaining to do.
on 9 January 2013 at 1:21 pm
I see Conall’s Wikipedia profile has been rewritten, it’s good that someone has such an interest in him to take the time to write and rewrite it.
I only popped on it to check up on his career prior to co-option to the assembly.
I’d find it hard to believe at least some of his previous jobs didn’t come with private medical as part of the benefits package.
I also note that one previous company advertises for Interns, could he confirm if he ever hired unpaid employees?
But I do get the feeling that all this is merely Conall trying to find a PR angle before attempting to get re-elected, I see he no longer claims to be a republican, doubtless a huge loss to the republican family
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Comment on #Flegs: Small scale, disruptive, contained and with few options to grow…
on 9 January 2013 at 12:52 pm
“that thrives on petty fictions…….”
“A battle a day” I believe is what Peter Robinson promised unionists, and unionists duly lapped it up, guess you should be careful what you wish for.
Speaking of Peter, how come his (and her’s) little bit of (alleged) surgery in the US isn’t deemed worthy of discussion on Slugger and Gerry’s is?
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Comment on #Flegs unrest, protest and threats are the price we pay for not giving moderates a voice
on 14 December 2012 at 3:11 pm
SDLP supporter, when you get thro suing all the results for ‘joe hendron’ and ‘UDA’ on Google feel free to come a knockin,
Not really sure what the rest of your post means, but I’m old enough to remember the Graham Bookies footage on the news at the time
So keep your threats and your man-playing to yerself and engage in the conversation or go away
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Comment on #Flegs unrest, protest and threats are the price we pay for not giving moderates a voice
on 14 December 2012 at 3:01 pm
Go back another few years and you’ll find The Doc and Robo in Raspberry Berets and a wee bit further back you have Trimble and Empy in Ulster Vanguard, Nevin.
Speaking of Trimble, don’t think nationalists ever considered him moderate (nor a good dancer doing the Tango in Portadown with the Doc) and I don’t think that opinion will change no matter how often the claim is repeated
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Comment on The Curious Case of a Nationality Without a Name
on 14 December 2012 at 1:54 pm
Nevin, TBF finding a term in Irish for an English one is not like Ulster-Scots ie you can’t just say the English one with a Ballymena accent.
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Comment on #Flegs unrest, protest and threats are the price we pay for not giving moderates a voice
on 14 December 2012 at 1:49 pm
Not forgetting that anything OO related is banned from Scottish schools and their marches in Scotland have been severely curtailed, I imagine his opinion of a moderate unionist differs quite a lot from Sluggers.
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