Ireland
End now the old pretence that we want to deal with the past
Tweet Another conference, another raking over old ground? Perhaps – but the DPP Barra McGrory made an interesting speech at the well-cast transitional justice conference in Belfast. “I think society has got to make a choice. Either it decides now to go down the route, the very difficult route, of determining that we are going [...] more »
Why any near term coalition between FF and SF is unlikely…
Tweet World By Storm has come to the following conclusion... …it is very very unlikely that while the FF party has a heartbeat, so to speak, that it will enter into a unity government with FG. Indeed the very most that might occur would be a sort of reverse ‘Tallaght strategy’. And as demonstrated by [...] more »
How well does the Catholic church understand its own teaching on abortion?
Tweet This is well worth noting before it passes over us, on the question of abortion in the south. James P Mackey is visiting professor at the school of religions and theology at Trinity College. And he’s been looking back at some of his old Catholic textbooks from Maynooth: The Roman Catholic hierarchy has formally [...] more »
Sinn Féin: Hyde Park bomb charges “vindictive, unnecessary and unhelpful”
Tweet Reports that John Anthony Downey, 61, from County Donegal, has been charged with the murder of four members of the Royal Household Cavalry in the 1982 Provisional IRA bombing in Hyde Park, London – he was arrested on Sunday at Gatwick Airport - has prompted a statement from Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly, MLA and member of the Northern Ireland [...] more »
GFA Referendum +15: Remembering ‘the People’ and Renewing Fundamentals
Tweet By Colin Harvey Dates matter on this island. None more than 22nd May 1998. Our shared and collective act of self-determination pointed to a constitutional future where we now rely only on each other. A future where persuasion counts; and people matter more than flags and territory. Readers of Slugger will need no reminding [...] more »
Taoiseach could do with answering some of the questions he once aimed at Michael McDowell?
Tweet Funniest moment of the weekend was when Sean O’Rourke took the sugar off Willie O’Dea’s wee bun when he mentioned Michael McDowell’s behaviour (blogged by George for Slugger at the time) over his intervention under remarkably similar circumstances to Alan Shatter’s stroke against Mick Wallace on last Thursday’s PrimeTime (12 minutes in)… Though, as [...] more »
After the political victory of the GFA is Northern Ireland slipping back into another ‘big sleep’?
Tweet Men it has been well said, think in herds. It will be seen that they go mad in herds while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one. Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841) Speaking of Fionola, her essay in an excellent collection from the British Council, gets a mention [...] more »
Fionola Meredith: Can what has been divided by language also be brought together by it?
Tweet This week (May 20-26) is Community Relations Week, with over 180 events across Northern Ireland. Below, Fionola Meredith provides her thoughts as part of her involvement in the Community Relations Council Policy Conference which she was contributing to. One of the most singular ironies of living in Northern Ireland is that language – the [...] more »
“…the only thing that’s real…”
Tweet Apropos of nothing… more »
Flaws in Enda Kenny’s case on abortion exposed as the hierarchy brings out the ex factor
Tweet The next Catholic primate of Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin has told the Sunday Times( £ ) “You cannot regard yourself as a person of faith and support abortion,” Martin said in an interview with The Sunday Times. “You cannot believe you are with your church and directly help someone to procure an abortion. This [...] more »
Micheál Martin “there is a grave danger that policing in the North will be compromised because of this activity”
Tweet I’ve alluded to this in a post earlier in the week, but the Oireachtas record gives Deputy Gerry Adams a voice not captured on the Dail video. The exchange between himself and the leader of Fianna Fail is very instructive, not least as we face into another summer of discontent… The relevant section begins [...] more »
Gerry Adams (and Sammy Wilson) putting on a Poor Mouth over £4 Billion of ‘elusive’ cuts?
Tweet “At a public meeting discussing disruption as a result of the G8, an official from the British Foreign & Commonwealth claimed that the summit would bring in up to £700 million into the local economy. “This is a figure that has been plucked from thin air, for no other reason but to deal with [...] more »
Drama shows best how much Northern Ireland has changed
Tweet The distinguished Arts commentator Mark Lawson has an interesting blog post in the Guardian pegged to the new BBC2 thriller series “The Fall,” set in Belfast and launched on Monday night. He uses it to discuss the impact of ”British ” in the BBC. He rightly observes the big change, that it’s now Scotland with its independence debate where the [...] more »
Beware politicians shutting down their own public accountability mechanisms
Tweet I was a little buried in the day job yesterday, so did not get to put a blog out on Slugger. I was pulling together a report on a great gig in London on Tuesday night for a new not for profit organisation called Lobbi… The experience confirms for me that all politicians and [...] more »
Increasing numbers of passengers let the train take the strain … apart from a 10 year decline on the Enterprise
Tweet Monday morning’s Belfast Telegraph splashed with the front page story that passengers numbers have fallen by 22% on the Belfast-Dublin Enterprise train over the last decade. The ‘exclusive’ – based on figures in DRD’s Future Railways Investment consultation document [pdf] that was published in January – was picked up by Talkback at lunchtime as [...] more »
Ferguson’s departure: Rivals must work to burst “the incumbency bubble” of the EPL
Tweet I always had it in mind to write something about three exceptionally long term and successful leaders in three very different fields. Now Alex Ferguson has gone, here’s the gist in short blog order… - Gerry Adams, who came to lead his political party from the fringes of constitutional politics in Northern Ireland to [...] more »
“during the Derry visit, Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson were nowhere to be seen, surely mindful of their upcoming trade mission to China.”
Tweet According to an Irish News report today …OFMDFM has refuted any suggestion that the Stormont leaders snubbed the Dalai Lama when he visited Derry last month. A spokesperson for OFMDFM said the ministers were unable to attend “due to prior diary commitments”. Which is fine… After all, “diary pressures” was the same excuse Tony Blair [...] more »
Referendum proposing the abolition of the Seanad just weeks away…
Tweet In his op ed in the Irish Times recently, Conor Brady noted: It is limiting and dangerous to have a single, received orthodoxy when there is fear and suffering all about. Yet ironically, as one part of the Oireachtas (the presidency) finds its voice, another (the Seanad) may be about to be silenced permanently. [...] more »
Irish Justice Minister: “a tribute to how far we have come as a society”
Tweet As promised by the Irish Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, in June last year, legislation has been passed by Dáil and Seanad providing for the granting of an amnesty and apology for the way the Irish State treated members of its Defence Forces who left to join the Allied Forces during World War II. I’ve noted previously the historical [...] more »
Manchán Magan’s ‘Oddballs: A Novel of Affections’: Book Review
Tweet A skilled chronicler in travel narratives and documentaries of those who wander the fringes, Manchán Magan’s debut novel follows four characters on the fringe. Two of them, teenaged Rachel and her quasi-aunt Charlotte, collide after a long estrangement in New Hampshire, and take off on Charlotte’s Wiccan pilgrimage to ye olde England of, as [...] more »
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Books
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The First Shades of God (Jamie Bryson): unremarkable theology, but an insight into the mind of the protest-organiser
Tweet Jamie Bryson has come to prominence recently as one of the leaders of the flag protests across Northern Ireland. As Chris Donnelly pointed out in his post (and was echoed later in the Belfast Telegraph), Jamie Bryson is a well known loyalist in North Down where he unsuccessfully stood at the council elections under [...] 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 » -
A flexible library service for the 21st century?
Tweet Following Alan’s piece on libraries, I picked this ‘advertorial’ from Google plus this evening… about how a US county library system is cutting costs and improving flexibility in their free at the point of delivery services by enabling the whole library service act as a functioning unit as opposed to the one discrete library… read our review »
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