Awards
Slugger Awards: MLA of the Year…
There are 108 of them. Some of them household names across Northern Ireland, some better known in the local corner of their own constituencies. Some have made (or tried to) their mark as party leaders, others as ministers, or as one of the team working out of the Speakers Office, who have tried in some [...] more »
Slugger Awards: Keep the nominations coming in!
If you’ve missed any of the previous categories so far they are all still open and we’ll continue taking nominations in all categories until just before the judging panel convenes… So, just to remind you there are: Up and Coming Politician; Best Political Blogger; Best Local Newspaper; Best Councillor of the Year; Participation and Involvement [...] more »
Slugger Awards: Best Stormont Committee Chair
In a year when the Executive has spent a significant amount of time not actually working, and where the Assembly’s plenaries have struggled to gain and then sustain the Northern Ireland public’s attention, the committees have been probably been responsible for some of the most useful work done. Albeit most of it unacknowledged and therefore [...] more »
Slugger Awards: Best Council of the year…
For years, despite their limited powers, councils were the only democratic representatives you could reasonably expect would retain their jobs from one election to the next. In two years time, 26 councils will be slimmed down to 11, and with it will come considerable responsibilities . The new responsibilities will require a new calibre of [...] more »
Slugger Awards: Participation and Involvement Award…
That this award only had one nomination last year tells its own story about public participation in Northern Ireland. And yet, as more and more citizens find their voices online, it is crucial that public institutions turn and face the concerns of the public they seek to serve, before rather than after their plans take [...] more »
Slugger Awards: Councillor of the Year?
Given there are 582 councillors in 26 councils in Northern Ireland, our problem here should be an embarrassment of riches. Local councillors are often the workhorses of democracy, often undertaking work with the minimum of resources. The majority of them working hard far beyond the metropolitan attention of the Belfast bubble. And yet it is [...] more »
Slugger Awards: Best local newspaper nominations so far…
So before we open nominations on the new category, let’s review what we have for local newspapers: - An Druma Mor, not exactly local, but an Irish Language portal which has a heavy emphasis on politics and current affairs… Not absolutely sure it fits the category, but perhaps it should be… (what do you think??) [...] more »
Slugger Awards: Best Local Newpaper…
This award is primarily aimed at those often hard pressed newspapers which serve the hyper local needs of communities, both inside Belfast and far beyond its bounds. At the beginning of the Troubles, some forty years ago, there were more than fifty of them, and they provided the real news for the bigger regional and [...] more »
Slugger Awards: Best Political Blog 2009…
It’s our view that the real nexus of political debate is moving inexorably online. In the US and the UK, the line between what’s become known as the commentariat and the bloggertariat is rapidly blurring. We hope our political blogger of the year Award will play a role in identifying (and encouraging) the next generation [...] more »
And the front runners for Up and Coming are…
After a week of nominations in the Up and Coming category of the Slugger Awards, it is interesting (and perhaps instructive) that the two front runners come from outside the main ‘government’ parties, and neither are MLAs, and one is not even a councillor. Ian Parsley started the week as the face of the Alliance [...] more »
On Slugger, politics online and the Slugger Awards…
I called into NVTV last Tuesday, just after the launch of their new Blogtalk TV show, and recorded an interview with Carl Boyle… on Slugger, it’s politics and why we decided to run the Slugger Awards… This is the preview… If you’re a blogger and you want to join Carl and the team on the [...] more »
Up and Coming Politician of the Year…
With the Assembly moving into its third year of operation, perhaps now is a strange point to ask for nominations for the most up and coming politician. But as all politicians know the future health of any political party depends on their ability to connect with a new generation who have new sets of needs [...] more »
Launching the Slugger O’Toole Politicial Awards 2009…
Today we launch the Slugger O’Toole Political Awards for 2009. After last year’s roaring success, this is looking like it’s going to be Slugger’s big annual social (we’re holding the awards night on the 24th November), and we’ll be publishing the award categories gradually over the next few weeks. As with the 2008 awards, we [...] more »
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Books
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“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 » -
Review: To Kill a Mockingbird
Somehow I escaped reading this essential school text, with its story of racism in 1930s American South. Living in Northern Ireland, I draw parallels with sectarianism, with its similar bigotry and prejudice. To Kill a Mockingbird was part of a Unite Against Hate campaign event at Parliament Buildings in Northern Ireland, which I’ve written [...] read our review »
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Turas, by Colin Neill – a story of strangers in a strange land
Colin Neill’s first novel Turas peeks into a world in which many Ulster Protestants feel uncomfortable. It’s 2020 and the Irish unification that unionists and loyalists confidently predicted would never happen has become a reality. President Adams is ensconced in Phoenix Park. The newsreader reported that … a short ceremony at Stormont had confirmed the [...] read our review »
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