obituary
Malcolm Brodie the magnificent
Tweet To a younger generation the spate of tributes to Malcolm Brodie, for a lifetime the sports editor of the Belfast Telegraph, may be a bit of a puzzle. “One of the greats,” a legend “ and so on may not be descriptions that you would easily associate with someone who gloried in the minutiae of [...] more »
Did Christopher Hitchens have a Big Idea?
Tweet Lunching with an agreeable friend last Friday -and what better way to mark Hitchens’ death? – I was momentarily stumped by my companion’s confession. He didn’t believe Hitchens had left any particular idea that helped illuminate the world in a clearer way and he challenged me to prove otherwise. David Frum’s summary of Hitchens [...] more »
Christopher Hitchens, 1949 – 2011
Tweet Writer Christopher Hitchens has died aged 62. He was as contrary as he was brilliant. Here is a brief In Memoriam from Vanity Fair (his outlet of choice since 1992) and, here, a longer tribute from his friend Christopher Buckley Stanley in The New Yorker. Better, perhaps, though to post one of Hitchens’ own writings [...] more »
So long Garret: A bloggish round up…
Tweet Kicking off with Bock, who rarely has a kind word for any politician… He was naive, he was fussy. He was occasionally pedantic to the point of idiocy. He wasn’t always right, but he was sincere and his principles derived from careful thought, not from slogans. In the 1980s, he articulated the almost unthinkable [...] more »
“If Herivel had not been recruited in January 1940, who would have thought of the Herivel tip?”
Tweet There’s a lovely piece of biographical detail in The Guardian‘s obituary of Belfast-born science historian, and former World War II codebreaker at Bletchley Park, John W. Herivel who died on 18 January 2011, aged 92. From The Guardian obituary Born in Belfast, Herivel had a civil servant father and was educated at Methodist College, from where, [...] more »
Obituary: Professor Kevin Boyle
Tweet Many in Northern Ireland and much further afield will be deeply saddened to hear news of the the death of Professor Kevin Boyle, who passed away yesterday. Prof. Boyle was one of the UK and Ireland’s leading human rights academics, as founding director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI Galway and [...] more »
Obituary for Willie Thompson
Tweet William Thompson former MP for West Tyrone died on Sunday. Most of the great and the good of unionism turned out for his funeral. There are tributes to him here and here in the Newsletter. He was a man of firm unionist principles but more than that an utterly decent individual who also had [...] more »
More Alex Higgins
Tweet Further to Eamonn’s tribute to Alex Higgins, David Gordon has posted this video on Facebook and I thought it deserved a wider airing here. On a weekend when so many people – bafflingly – are glued to the awful pointlessness of Formula One, this is a reminder of what a decent spectator sport looks [...] more »
The other side of Alex Higgins.
Tweet I am not claiming to have known Alex Higgins in any meaningful way. That said I had three or four conversations with him in the past decade born out of pure accident. He had returned to Belfast and lived in an apartment in Osborne Park at the back of Arizona cafe. He was a regular presence [...] more »
Horseman RIP…
Tweet I was very sad to learn yesterday of the death last Monday of Horseman, the blogger behind the brilliantly named Ulster’s Doomed blog… He was tenacious, intelligent, probing and utterly committed to bringing about the end of Northern Ireland by peaceful and largely intellectual means. I never knew him personally, even though he was a [...] more »
A young protestant genius with no talent for guff
Tweet Great piece on George Best by Eammon McCann in today’s Irish Times. He mentions two of his cohorts, Alec Higgins and Van Morrison who have also famously wore their celebrity uncomfortably. By Eammon McCann It was Van Morrison who put George Best into proper context, which was apt. “Too long in exile,” sang the [...] more »
-
Books
-
Robert Kee, hero of journalism and the television history of Irish nationalism
Tweet Slugger should note the passing of Robert Kee, historian, TV and print journalist and RAF bomber pilot, who has died aged 93. In this age of revisionist debate, his TV history series first shown in 1981 and The Green Flag, the written history of Irish nationalism which accompanied it, were well timed and still stand [...] read our review » -
Titanic: was it all right when it left here?
Tweet Not according to metallurgists Tim Foecke and Jennifer Hooper McCarty whose research has suggested that dodgy Harland and Wolff rivets were at fault for allowing the Titanic’s hull to be ripped apart by the pressure of the iceberg impact. With six of the hull’s chambers exposed to the Atlantic waters, the “unsinkable” ship lasted [...] read our review »
-
O’Toole’s New Republic – unfinished business or just a dream?
Tweet More as a trailer than a review – as it’s out on Thursday– I draw attention to Fintan O’Toole’s latest polemic “Enough is Enough – how to build a new Republic“. Fintan has been promoting the book vigorously on this side of the water, on Radio 4’s Start the Week and here at greater [...] read our review »
-