Micheál Martin
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 »
Micheál Martin: Legacy of 1916 is to build rather than to divide the Irish nation…
Tweet Just out of embargo, here’s today’s speech from the Fianna Fail leader made just now at Arbour Hill church, where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were buried. The added emphases are mine: Every state should take time to commemorate and celebrate the people and events of their founding. This commemoration is organised [...] more »
Micheal Martin: NI’s ‘establishment parties’ are failing the Belfast Agreement
Tweet So Micheal Martin’s speech last night, revisited with my own analysis appended. First the word cloud (kindly generated by John) of Micheal Martin’s speech has one word which stands far out above any other. And it’s Agreement. Not surprising perhaps since the speech was themed around the coming 15th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement. [...] more »
Micheál Martin in Belfast: “There is nothing inevitable about peace and progress”
Tweet This evening, Micheál Martin gave the following speech to Queens University Politics Society and Ógra Fianna Fáil in the Canada Room that was by all accounts was pretty packed to the gills. It’s long and detailed, and picks out some policy areas (not least north south development) where Martin argues there has been a shortfall [...] more »
Micheál Martin – opportunism and cynicism of the very worst kind
Tweet The award for opportunist of the week must surely go to Micheál Martin. His hastily written opinion piece in Wednesdays Irish News was a timely reminder of Fianna Fáil’s cynical approach to both the peace process and to politics. For weeks Belfast city centre has been brought to a standstill by illegal loyalist blockades. [...] more »
Micheál Martin: “If the Executive is not making progress on child poverty, or economic inactivity, or sectarianism”
Tweet Okay, so one of the good things about a political crisis in Northern Ireland that it draws a multiplicity views on our general situation (riots will always divide opinion). Not all of that has been bad by any means. Allan Massie in the Scotsman is generally sanguine about Northern Ireland’s future, if not David [...] more »
Martin: “flags and emblems tacitly encouraged as a distraction from fact politicians are not delivering”?
Tweet If you have not read it yet, check out Brian Walker’s analysis last night on how Stormont’s incumbents are failing the populations of Northern Ireland by leaving the real and contentious business of politics to a small band of hyperactive terror merchants. The leader of Fianna Fail, Micheal Martin has a few similarly hard [...] more »
Micheál Martin: “As a Republican I feel an obligation to make my contribution to the debate…”
Tweet Micheál Martin’s interview with Mark Carruthers on The View last night is interesting viewing. Not least at the point (about here) where Carruthers mentions Gerry Adams’ dismissal of the Fianna Fail’s interventions as being driven by a concern for politics in the south. I’ve no doubt that the general thrust of Adams statement is [...] more »
“The peace process was always intended to be about more than an absence of violence…”
Tweet Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin’s criticism of the Irish Government’s ‘complacency’ over Northern Ireland echoes that of the Labour Party’s Vernon Coaker in regard to the UK Government. And that was more a disagreement on strategy, rather than a difference of opinion on the problems with the NI administration – as outlined in July by former NI [...] more »
“…this DUP attempt to shift responsibility to Dublin, is a fiction too far.”
Tweet Fascinating OpEd in yesterday’s Irish News from Fianna Fail leader Micheál Martin. It’s the first time since I remember that a senior political leader in the Republic has taken the gloves off with anyone in Northern Ireland, let alone the First and deputy First Minister. So what is it that’s got his goat? Nothing [...] more »
Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein battle it out for title of leader of the Irish opposition
Tweet So did anyone see the great Micheal V Gerry fight on PrimeTime last night? RTE billed it as the ‘who truly is the leader of the Opposition?‘ gig. But at the end of the day it turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. As Mary Murphy notes in the pre roll [...] more »
Martin asks who on the No side will fill Ireland’s €18 billion shortfall?
Tweet A broadside from Micheal Martin the Irish Times today… He warns the Yes campaign not to get bogged down in a rebuttal game, but instead make its own case for a yes vote: namely that “for Ireland to recover we need Europe’s support”… And he explains why he thinks that: Any alternative funding would [...] more »
“But throughout, his government and party turned a blind eye…”
Tweet In the Irish Times the peerless Miriam Lord tackles Micheál Martin’s “swift and decisive” response to the Mahon Tribunal report. From the Irish Times article SPARE US your indignation, Micheál Martin. Button your disgust, Fianna Fáil. We don’t want to hear it. You had your chance and you chose to do nothing. So don’t [...] more »
“One step forward. Two steps back. Very awkward.”
Tweet In the Irish Times, the peerless Miriam Lord with a useful corrective to more enthusiastic witnesses of the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis at the weekend. From the Irish Times article. IT WAS all terribly awkward. An excruciating comedy of manners where the anxious principals were petrified they might say the wrong thing and upset the [...] more »
Fianna Fail will vote Yes in a referendum on Fiscal Compact…
Tweet Having made the point that calling a referendum on matters that don’t sort out the underlying problem is less than meaningful, Micheal Martin announced yesterday that he would be backing the Fiscal Compact in any forthcoming referendum… Hmmmm… not exactly shadowing Sinn Fein then Eoghan? more »
Yes Taoiseach, but if we’re going to have a Referendum why not have a meaningful one?
Tweet So, it’s official. The Irish people want a referendum, whether the Constitution says they need one or not? Micheal Martin thinks it’s overblown, and that the real problem is that the current treaty does not actually address any of the real problems facing the Irish (nay, the European) economy: For all of the fighting [...] more »
No official Fianna Fáil candidate for Irish Presidential election
Tweet As recommended by the party’s six member sub-committee on the issue, and with Gay Byrne not accepting the invite [and Micháel Ó Muircheartaigh? - Ed], Fianna Fáil have confirmed they will not be putting forward a candidate in this year’s Irish Presidential election. But they reserve the option to back someone else. [If anyone [...] more »
Judge Smithwick: “I think this was singularly ill-advised.”
Tweet I had mentioned the apparent disagreement between the chair of the Smithwick Tribunal, Judge Smithwick, and the Irish Justice Minister, Alan Shatter, over the latter’s proposed ‘deadline’, of 30 November, for the Tribunal’s final report. And in correspondence from the time, just released to the Oireachtas along with the Tribunal’s interim report [pdf file], Judge Smithwick made clear the [...] more »
“Gerry Adams has given his answer and that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned.”
Tweet The Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, has been in Dublin, wearing one of his other hats ahead of the Irish general election. And he’s been getting outraged on behalf of the still Crown Steward and Bailiff of Northstead, his party’s president, Gerard Adams, at questions over his credibility. Oh, and on behalf of [...] more »
Micheál Martin: “I think there is a huge problem for Gerry Adams in a credibility sense”
Tweet The Sinn Féin president, and still Crown Steward and Bailiff of Northstead, Gerard Adams has taken exception to Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin raising the credibility question in relation to the SF leader’s murky past. [added final link] From the Belfast Telegraph report “There is a fundamental problem for Gerry when he continues to deny his membership of [...] more »
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Books
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Learning from 1798?: Northern Ireland’s Upcoming Decade of Commemorations
Tweet Last year, the Lilliput Press released a new extended edition of Tom Dunne’s Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize winning book, Rebellions: Memoir, Memory and 1798. First published in 2004, Dunne’s book provoked considerable controversy with its critique of the ‘commemorationist’ history that Dunne believed dominated the 1998 commemorations of the 1798 Rebellion. The book blasted the [...] read our review » -
…if University education were universally available and availed of, the country would collapse in one generation
Tweet The words of Brian O’Nolan, variously Brian Ó Nualláin, Myles na gCopaleen, Myles na Gopaleen and, of course, Flann O’Brien. That O’Nolan was referencing his own dissolute student days at UCD only mildly distracts from the prophetic undertone of his words: I paid no attention whatsoever to books or study and regarded lectures as [...] read our review »
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The ANC, the IRA and the rise of influence of the left within Sinn Fein…
Tweet World by Storm has a nice piece up on the IRA’s role in helping MK, the armed wing of the ANC, in the 1980s. In particular he sees a strange alchemy at work there: …if one can think of a clearly legitimate contemporary struggle it was that against apartheid and it is to the [...] read our review »
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