Culture – Slugger O'Toole

Exploring cultural peace work in Northern Ireland

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on May 31, 2025, 2:54 pm

| Readers 1087

Cultural peace work entails using creative and cultural practices to foster peace and reconciliation, particularly in post-conflict societies. In Northern Ireland, various organisations and individuals are harnessing the power of arts and culture to address deep-seated issues from a history of sectarian violence. In a recent session centred on cultural peace work and the dynamic of creativity in peacebuilding, various experts shared their insights. Their discussions delved into the importance of cultural spaces, the challenges faced in creative practices, and the significance …

Quality working class drama is alive and well and living in East Belfast…

Ian Clarke on November 22, 2024, 7:00 am

| Readers 2258

For many years now the bulk of what is passed off as “working class” based drama in Belfast makes my skin crawl. Not to mention “comedy”. It is so often middle-class people writing and performing a caricature of how South Belfast or Ballyhackamore sees the working class, replete with irreformable, irrational bigotry and mispronunciations of words to generate a laugh from an audience heavily bought into the caricature. There is rarely any empathy shown towards the characters and even less …

The Department of Infrastructure is to blame for Belfast’s traffic problems

Brendan Heading on October 27, 2024, 1:11 pm

| Readers 4513

It’s not been a good few weeks for Belfast visitors and commuters. Not only are key arterial routes more packed than ever with traffic jams during most of the day, but the bus and train systems have been up the swannie too, especially on Thursday and Friday last week. This issue hasn’t escaped the notice of local politicians. In the assembly, during Infrastructure questions on October 1, the Minister, John O’Dowd, seemed to suggest that Belfast representatives Philip Brett and …

Is it now the case that music and politics don’t mix?

Ian Clarke on September 14, 2023, 7:46 am

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I was going to write this piece a couple of weeks ago when the hysteria over the Wolfe Tones at Feile had settled down. But it didn’t. So I didn’t. Then last week it was worse than ever with their appearance and apparent triumph at the Electric Picnic Festival. But probably better timing for me. Leaving aside the embarrassing spectacle of thousands of young people singing along to a dirge in tribute to sectarian terrorism, it raised a bigger question …

A celebration of unionist culture

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on August 26, 2023, 6:36 pm

| Readers 3854

A showcase day of unionist culture was held at 2 Royal Avenue, Belfast, with activities of a cultural identity video; a “living library” event; a talk by historian and broadcaster, Dr David Hume; an exhibition of archival footage by NI Screen of cultural events; and music performances. The event was organised by Belfast City Council, through its Good Relations Action Plan, Cultural Inclusion and Co-Design. This programme has been running since June 2022, with participants engaged in a process to …

The impermanence of land and legacy

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on July 29, 2023, 7:12 am

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Impermanence is a collection of essays by writers from or living in Northern Ireland. Its co-editor, Neil Hegarty led a discussion at a John Hewitt International Summer School event, with contributors Jan Carson, Susan McKay, and Nandi Jola, reflecting upon the book’s themes and suggesting ways of looking at our past, present, and future. Neil Hegarty provided context for the book. He was in Paris and witnessed the burning of Notre Dame, which made him think about the loss of …

What Have You Been Up To Jonty?

Dan McGinn on May 1, 2023, 9:58 pm

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So here we are – the final episode of this series of ‘Blue Lights’. And again, it only seems fair to fire another warning shot to those reading this review to expect a lot of spoilers from previous episodes. So if you’ve not yet seen all five episodes preceding this one, you should probably watch them first before reading this. With viewers still reeling from the events of last week’s episode, ‘Blue Lights’ immediately thrust its audience into the mania …

Try Talking to People for a change…

Ian Clarke on August 25, 2022, 7:14 am

| Readers 4517

There have been a number of posts here recently about the unionist community, its failings (real and unfairly accused), its difficulties and most recently its need to “embrace its Irishness” as if it was a straightforward and simple issue. Too many of the comments thet followed them are generally well off the mark and border on the obsessive about the Unionist mindset from people outside that community with little grasp or genuine interest in its complexities. And little sympathy for …

Politics is becoming the new religion, with all the militancy of old. But in Ireland….

Brian Walker on August 19, 2022, 6:47 pm

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A sign displayed outside McQuiston Memorial Presbyterian Church in East Belfast in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Again, the mythological symbol of the rainbow is used.

Well meaning people in Ireland often like to claim that politics and religion are separate and that religion is all about love, reconciliation and goodness. We know what they mean but of course they’re wrong. From time immemorial politics has been about power and religion about controlling people’s minds, “the opium of the masses” But Marx’s line underestimated the powers of its ideas to create an alternative social bond against an oppressive state and finally an identity. And so religion …

Zines, baggage, othering words and lots more from Second Collective at #imaginebelfast

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 18, 2022, 10:00 am

| Readers 417

Art is political. It can be provocative and challenging. It can help us understand society as much as reading the newspaper or reading a book … or a blog post. But do the public take it seriously? Second Collective are running a series of exhibitions, workshops and events across the week of Imagine! Festival. I recently spoke to its cofounders, Cathy Scullion and Sinead O’Neill Nicholl. Graduating as mature students, they set up Second Collective in 2017. Today it’s based …

Bring back Londonderry Feis!

Brian Walker on March 6, 2022, 3:36 pm

| Readers 2664

Good on the Derry Now website for going to town to commemorate the centenary of Fheis Dhoire Cholmcille Derry Feis is celebrating its 100th birthday this Easter. To mark the special occasion, we are publishing a series of articles titled: Mo thuras go Fheis Dhoire Cholmcille 2022. Today, Fearghal Mag Uiginn, head of the Irish at Thornhill College and presenter of BBC Radio Ulster’s Blas Ceoil, describes his personal journey to Derry Feis 2022. Describing Feis Dhoire Cholmcille as the …

Big Albert shines his light/ casts his shadow across the pond

Brian Walker on January 22, 2021, 12:33 pm

| Readers 1446

I knew nothing of Under the Albert Clock until I spotted a review of the podcast in the New York Times no less. Creativity and performance defies the lockdown. American sponsorship and other interest is very welcome. Any reaction? The New York-based Origin Theater Company commissioned the series, asking five female playwrights in Northern Ireland to use as inspiration Belfast’s landmark Albert Memorial Clock (a monument to Queen Victoria’s husband, and thus a symbol of Britishness), and to place their …

How Derek Mahon caught our attention

Brian Walker on October 2, 2020, 5:10 pm

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Derek Mahon struggled with an intellectual ambition unexcelled by his Ulster contemporaries, elevating the commonplace into grandeur and striking the contemporary notes of recognition that draw us in. It’s uncanny how that late poem “Everything is Going to All Right,” has shed light on darkness during the pandemic, just as it has been adopted to ease the first shock of suicide for the bereaved. In hands such as Mahon’s, the commonplace phrases are the hand holds that begin to pull …

What is to be the message of Northern Ireland 100?

Brian Walker on August 26, 2020, 2:51 pm

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Ulster 71 (archive) Does anybody out there know how plans to mark Northern Ireland’s centenary are progressing? To try to find answers, I’ve been combing the websites and having a few chats, without much luck. Last month, following a few bumbled sentences from Boris Johnson it seemed that the UK government with due regard to the “sensitivities”, were taking the initiative, thus avoiding the potential for another Stormont deadlock. The SoS Brandon Lewis looked forward to.. Following formal acceptance of …

Shared or united island? The Greens called it right.

Sarah Creighton on July 16, 2020, 2:16 pm

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The new banter coalition in the Republic has got off to a dramatic start. Ministerial sackings! A tax ruling from the ECJ! Infighting! It’s everything we could have hoped for. Among the chaos of this week came an interesting titbit from Green Party leader Eamon Ryan. According to Ryan our own Clare Bailey, the party leader in Northern Ireland, was behind the decision to rename the ‘united island’ unit in the Department of the Taoiseach to the ‘shared island’ unit. …

How much of the extra £33m dividend from UK Culture Secretary will be spent on NI arts? (updated with response from Communities Minister and Arts Council NI)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 5, 2020, 11:15 pm

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A major injection of £1.57bn into the cultural sector by the UK Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden may prematurely raise the hopes of Northern Ireland artists that their industry is finally set to receive the relief and attention that many other areas of business have already enjoyed. The question for the NI Executive is how much of the expected £33m (via Barnett consequentials) will be spent on the cultural sector? Northern Ireland already spends less than half what England, Scotland and Wales spend on arts per head of population.

Anti-racism must not become a new form of cultural oppression

Brian Walker on June 13, 2020, 3:21 pm

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Laurence Oliver’s Othello ( 1965) Although from today we in England can create our own family bubble of different households, it’s still not too late to enter the lockdown confessional. I am not for a moment about to challenge the central aims of Black Lives Matter, or persistent discrimination at work or even what seems to me to be the intractable problem of race as an identifier of knife crime suspects in stop and search. I hope I’m sensitive to …

Removing statues is a revolutionary gesture. Is that what’s needed?

Brian Walker on June 9, 2020, 4:52 pm

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Queen Victoria being removed from the front of the Dail Fergus on Monday nailed it. In the current atmosphere the statue of Oliver Cromwell speaks for itself. Perched in front of Westminster Hall the Victorians who erected it were celebrating the victory of Parliament over the royal tyrant Charles 1. But even leaving aside the massacres of Drogheda and Wexford, this distorts Cromwell’s record. He sent the troops in to expel Parliament not once but twice and instead ruled …

Normal People depicts an Irish generation to appreciative millions that is at last growing up normally

Brian Walker on May 5, 2020, 4:57 pm

| Readers 3131

Irish pornhub or a touching rite of passage? Critics are divided and that may be an age thing. But there’s no doubt that the TV series based on Sally Rooney’s rather minimal novel about the relationship between Sligo teenagers is a smash hit. This boomer old enough to be their grandparent is still getting over the fact that a drama about relationships set in a C21 Irish high school and small town has not a hint of Girl With Green …

The RIC commemoration is off. Was it a bridge too far to unionists?

Brian Walker on January 7, 2020, 8:36 pm

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Newstalk If you’re going to do a U turn, getting it over quick limits the damage (even to bloggers like me). It’s remarkable how long politicians usually take to face up to the inevitable. Wisely not this time. With only 10 days to go, it had to be quick, with only a weasel word “ “deferred” substituted for “ cancelled.” Was holding a commemoration in Dublin Castle for the RIC and the Dublin Metropolitan Police a revisionism of history too …