Ambivalenters
The ‘Ambivalenters’: Who exactly are the Northern Irish people now?
Tweet Two main things to say after a great day of observations from Slugger readers and looking through some of the detail in the #Census2011. One is that the idea that Northern Ireland is a Protestant state, that can be held exclusively for a Protestant people now rests (in peace let’s hope) in the trash [...] more »
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Books
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Lessons in Cute Hoorism: “Graft was accepted, for you were taking from the British…”
Tweet 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 [...] read our review »
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Books: Listening to Van Morrison…
Tweet Great little review of Listening to Van Morrison by Griel Marcus… It’s a short book, not a biography or a career survey, but an attempt to follow those moments in Morrison’s music, as he’s made it from his first records with Them, from Belfast in 1965 to the present day, when something happens that [...] read our review »
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What Ireland did right (and what it needs to do)…
Tweet It is difficult to believe now that one country recently sent 19 delegations to Ireland to study how well our economy was managed. The revelation that our model of economic management featured positively in political and economic discussion in countries including Estonia, Greece and Scotland may also come as a surprise. As we survey [...] read our review »
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