sinn fein
“Adding more weapons to this volatile situation could destabilise the entire region…”
Tweet The Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers were in a sunny Downing Street garden yesterday, welcoming that suspect package, and extolling the virtues of demonstrating “peacefully, positively, constructively” [Is that with, or without, a Thompson sub-machine gun? - Ed] Without, probably… ANYhoo, on the same day Sinn Féin released the text of what appears [...] more »
For the sake of the future, the Assembly needs reform
Tweet You could be forgiven for failing to notice that the Assembly’s Assembly and Executive Review Committee has been holding a review on “D’Hondt; Community Designation and Provisions for Opposition” over the past four months. As the committee is due to report about now we’ve not got long to contain our excitement. The sweeping nature of the inquiry contrasts [...] more »
“still much to be done in those communities that have not previously, or only partially, engaged in peace building and reconciliation activities…”
Tweet The Irish Times reports on, what would appear to be, the International Fund for Ireland’s (IFI) response to the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers bullshit distraction about ”Building a United Community”. From the Irish Times report “The community transformation strategy recognises the new reality on the ground and looks to support communities that are still [...] more »
SDLP “A party not sure of where it is going or who it wants to take with it…”
Tweet When ‘talking’ by email last night, a friend who is far from unsympathetic to the SDLP remarked “you know you’ve a problem in politics and life when its your own efforts that afflict you most!” Alasdair McDonnell has just had a fortnight from hell, and for the most part the hell his party has [...] more »
“…no amount of conflict transformation rhetoric can plaster over the bloodied past”
Tweet Guesting on Eamonn Mallie’s blog, Cillian McGrattan points out that the past is not a good place for Sinn Fein to picking fights. And he also hints that the media and others have been rather too indulgent in the party’s own peculiar doublethink on the past, if for understandable reasons… …indulging the party may [...] more »
According to Question Time, SF=IRA, DUP=Goodies
Tweet Great bit of on the spot photojournalism from Simon Whittaker. During the filming of last nights Question Time by Mentorn Media for the BBC, he captured the notes attached to the television camera. It gives affiliations for four of the six panellists with an additional note below two, IRA below ‘Sinn Féin’ for the [...] more »
End now the old pretence that we want to deal with the past
Tweet Another conference, another raking over old ground? Perhaps – but the DPP Barra McGrory made an interesting speech at the well-cast transitional justice conference in Belfast. “I think society has got to make a choice. Either it decides now to go down the route, the very difficult route, of determining that we are going [...] more »
Why any near term coalition between FF and SF is unlikely…
Tweet World By Storm has come to the following conclusion... …it is very very unlikely that while the FF party has a heartbeat, so to speak, that it will enter into a unity government with FG. Indeed the very most that might occur would be a sort of reverse ‘Tallaght strategy’. And as demonstrated by [...] more »
Sinn Féin: Hyde Park bomb charges “vindictive, unnecessary and unhelpful”
Tweet Reports that John Anthony Downey, 61, from County Donegal, has been charged with the murder of four members of the Royal Household Cavalry in the 1982 Provisional IRA bombing in Hyde Park, London – he was arrested on Sunday at Gatwick Airport - has prompted a statement from Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly, MLA and member of the Northern Ireland [...] more »
OFMdFM: “as open and transparent as possible”
Tweet After much foot-dragging, the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers have released the cost [to date - Ed] of their 12-day March junket trip to Brazil and the USA to “Develop and promote political, investment, trade, university and tourism links” – an eye-watering £155,509. As Mark Devenport tweeted So were FM and DFM’s recent [...] more »
Taking years off your life – NI life expectancy deprivation gaps show increase over last decade
Tweet When I asked Billy Hutchinson on Wednesday about the lack of publicity around any PUP campaigning on health and life expectancy, I was thinking about the kind of life expectancy figures that have been released yesterday by the Department of Health in their Inequalities Monitoring System/Life Expectancy Decomposition comparative report: Chapter 4 deals with [...] more »
“creating consistency between each of the devolved institutions across the United Kingdom”
Tweet While the bullshit distraction that is the DUP/Sinn Féin “Building a United Community” paper [pdf file] was being paraded across the airwaves last week - Think of it as a revamped Contested Space Programme [Don't tell the International Fund for Ireland - Ed], pre-empting consultation on area-based planning, and Girdwood times 10. [And another non-working [...] more »
Seize the opportunities opened up by the Good Relations strategy. Don’t write it off
Tweet Mick’s last post is probably representative of the muted reaction to the long awaited initiative. All the same I’d rather take a more positive approach and - yes!- begin with accepting it at face value. So I’m asking: are critics justified in writing off already the Cohesion Sharing and Integration statement ( not yet a strategy and [...] more »
“during the Derry visit, Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson were nowhere to be seen, surely mindful of their upcoming trade mission to China.”
Tweet According to an Irish News report today …OFMDFM has refuted any suggestion that the Stormont leaders snubbed the Dalai Lama when he visited Derry last month. A spokesperson for OFMDFM said the ministers were unable to attend “due to prior diary commitments”. Which is fine… After all, “diary pressures” was the same excuse Tony Blair [...] more »
OFMDFM spokeswoman: “The Defamation Bill was never considered by the Executive”
Tweet In the Belfast Telegraph, Liam Clarke has a glimpse behind the curtain at ministerial manoeuvring around the failure to consent to the UK Defamation Bill. From the Belfast Telegraph article UK-wide legislation like the Defamation Bill can be extended to here by a motion of ‘Legislative Consent’ passed at the Assembly. A minister, though, must [...] more »
Adams’s extended RTE interview on political murder turns the southern clock right back for Sinn Fein…
Tweet On Twitter last night the jury was split over Gerry Adams’ performance in a Prime Time interview with Miriam O’Callaghan. It wasn’t an elegant affair by any means. But then again, nor was the subject. No matter how well he handled it, it was always going to go badly with potential future voters and [...] more »
Canning pleads guilty on 2011 Easter Monday charges
Tweet The BBC has a report on the on-going trial of one of the three Londonderry men charged, along with Marian Price, in relation to a 32 County Sovereignty Movement Easter Monday parade in the city in 2011 – the charge is of managing a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation, the IRA. And we [...] more »
“they have failed to adopt the responsibility and transparency which goes with power”
Tweet In his Irish News column on Saturday, Patrick Murphy identified three “explanations for the failure of Stormont”. That’s all he had time for… From the Irish News article The first is the catch-22 analysis, based on the novel by Joseph Heller. In it, US pilots in the Second World War were deemed crazy to [...] 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 »
“They’ve had the time, they’ve had the money, they’ve had the opportunity…”
Tweet Refreshing to hear someone call it as it is.. and John Cunningham of the Camlin Group certainly laid it on the line last night on The View... “It’s like watching children argue, arguing at school. What relevance does it have? Why don’t they put it all behind and really look and address the problems [...] more »
-
Books
-
Ian O’Riordan’s Miles to Run: An invitation to madness?
Tweet Ireland is in the middle of a boom – a running boom. Chances are, even if you have never run a step yourself (apart from some painful P.E. classes many moons ago), someone you know has taken up running over the last little while. Road races in Northern Ireland and in the Republic have [...] read our review »
-
Belfast port celebrated as hopes rise for lower corporation tax
Tweet The House of Lords was the suitably grand venue for the London launch of Alf McCreary’s magnificently illustrated tome Titanic Port, a history of Belfast Harbour. Before I got a chance to take a good look at my copy, my ears pricked up when the chairman of the harbour commissioners Len O’Hagan said hopes were [...] read our review » -
Friday afternoon thread: Why confession works in a world of ‘cheaters’…
Tweet This is really worth watching… It suggests the very Catholic option of opening a new page by having a confession process does in the longer term help people to behave better… Presented by Dan Ariely, author of The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves. read our review »
-