Government
Euro crisis: You have six days to comply…
That’s the message to Greece from Germany the EU finance ministers. Despite initial reports, prompted by the Greeks themselves, what was agreed yesterday between the party leaders there fell short of what was required – by some €300-odd million. From the Irish Times report The ministers imposed a six-day deadline on Greek authorities to comply [...] more »
Fianna Fail will vote Yes in a referendum on Fiscal Compact…
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 »
Red Squirrels of Prehen Woods: Under imminent threat from planners and developers?
During the 2005 Slugger live coverage of the Westminster elections, I overheard a fairly senior Sinn Fein representative being candid enough to admit that there were no votes in the Environment. That’s not to pick on that particular party any more than any of the others. It’s a fact of life in Northern Irish electoral [...] more »
Belfast peace walls: A paradox of leadership
Audio – UU Peace Walls 01 – Dr Jonny Byrne: http://mrulster.podomatic.com/player/web/2012-02-08T08_59_57-08_00 At a seminar hosted by the Institute for Research in Social Sciences and the Inter-Institute Peace and Conflict Cluster, Dr Jonny Byrne of the University of Ulster presented his findings of three years of research in regards to public policy on peace walls (interface [...] more »
Media, new media and the problems of regulation in a globalising media market…
On Monday I was at a conference on Media Diversity run and funded by Labour MEP Nessa Childers. It was probably one of the best roster of speakers I’ve heard on the subject on that side of the Irish Sea, even if there was barely time to talk, or ask questions. Then yesterday, Paul Staines, [...] more »
Carwyn Jones looking for a national senate to replace the Lords…
A couple of weeks ago, on the sidelines of the newly revitalised Scottish Question, Carwyn Jones, the Labour leader in the Welsh Assembly made some remarks that have created some ripples in his own back yard: Asked how Wales would fare if Scotland voted for independence, he said: “I think we need to start thinking [...] more »
Bill Clinton to host “Invest in Ireland” event in New York
As the BBC reports Former US president Bill Clinton is to host an “Invest in Ireland” discussion in New York on Thursday. Well, he’ll ”attend for the beginning of the event where he will make some opening remarks”. You get the point. *sniff* He used to have such big [economic] ideas for here… The Merrion Street [...] more »
Euro crisis: “We are not fully in control of the sequence of events…”
Having watched as yesterday’s ‘deadline’ went whooshing past their heads, Greek party leaders are due to meet later tonight to consider another draft bail-out deal – once it’s been translated into Greek… You can follow events as they unfold at the Guardian’s live-blog. Meanwhile, as promised, Frau Bundeskanzlerin has joined Nicolas Sarkozy on the campaign trail [...] more »
Contested Space Programme: “What’s strange is that we haven’t heard anything about this until now…”
On 22 January, after the International Fund for Ireland (IFI) announced their £2million Peace Walls Programme, I asked about the absence of OFMdFM’s £4million Contested Space Programme – announced in March last year. On 27 January the Northern Ireland Executive Junior Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson, launched the Early Years Faces and Spaces – Children’s Shared [...] more »
Long to Reign Over Us.
Congratulations to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth on achieving the milestone of 60 years devoted service. Sixy years ago a young woman was high up in an African tree watching the wildlife, when many miles away her father passed away, beginning the reign of one of the most devoted heads of state the world has known. [...] more »
How ‘conservative’ Unionism lost its footing in Scotland?
Graham Walker’s been reading beyond the reported remarks of Reg Empey in the Lords recently: Indeed, the part of his comments given less attention concerned the need for Unionists to get the ‘tone’ of their contributions right, and to avoid appearing to ‘bully’ or ‘hector’ the Scots. Amen to that. And, yes, people in Northern [...] more »
Is Crotty killing off any sane domestic consideration of Irish foreign policy?
Before the landmark Crotty vs the Taoiseach judgement in 1987, the Irish Constitution had amassed nine amendments in the previous fifty years of its existence. In the twenty five years since it has scored another seventeen. Some of those were responses to the massive social changes the country has undergone in those years. Three originate [...] more »
Where would a No vote for the ‘Fiscal Compact’ leave Ireland?
Apparently, according to economist Jim Power in today’s Irish Examiner, in a very odd place indeed: It is intended that 12 out of the 17 eurozone member states would be sufficient to ratify the treaty. It appears this will be achieved easily enough. Consequently, unlike the case with the Lisbon Treaty, if Ireland were to [...] more »
Advocate General to take up case for NI students going to Scots Universities?
Interesting snippet from across the water regarding the £9k fees students from Northern Ireland now have to pay if they want to follow what’s become for many a traditional route to graduation at Glasgow, Edinburgh, or St Andrews. Dundee even runs a fairly successful degree course in Northern Irish law. The Rutherglen Reformer reports a [...] more »
A call for mentoring support @SOEtrust Together conference #SOEconf12
In a work capacity, I was invited to attend the Spirit of Enniskillen’s annual Together schools conference at the Wellington Park Hotel, which brought together over 100 Year 13 pupils from 20 schools across Northern Ireland, to explore and discuss 6th Form leadership for the Sharing in Education programme that is supported by the International [...] more »
Odyssey Marine to recover Victory, but lose ‘Black Swan’ treasure
Last seen somewhere off the Irish coast, US company Odyssey Marine Exploration have announced that they have “executed an agreement with the Maritime Heritage Foundation for the financing, archaeological survey and excavation, conservation and exhibit of HMS Victory (1744) and artifacts from the shipwreck site.” That’s Admiral Balchin’s HMS Victory - a 100-gun first-rate ship of [...] more »
What’s in Belfast City Council’s draft investment programme?
Belfast City Council launched their 2012-2015 Draft Investment Programme (PDF) this morning. The 44-page colour brochure is packed with optimism, bullet points and potential. But away from the headline £233m figure and the photocall with Peter Robinson, Martin McGuinness, Niall Ó Donnghaile and Deirdre Hargey, what’s the real story? It should be recognised as a [...] more »
Northern Ireland’s never had it so good?
Leo Tolstoy began his novel Anna Karenina with the memorable assertion that “happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Last night even the Belfast City Council was a fount of brotherly love. In the Bel Tel, Lindy McDowell has been counting the ways in which Northern Ireland’s been [...] more »
“This is a read-back into the so-called ‘dirty war’…”
In yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph, Brian Rowan attempted to explained the thinking behind Sinn Féin’s expressed concerns about the “Dark Side” [It's "a sound working partnership and one that is to be commended" - Ed] Indeed. From the Belfast Telegraph article …this is not a row for the sake of being awkward. It is a serious [...] more »
Sarkozy: “I did not know she voted in France…”
At the Guardian’s Politics Blog, Michael White has some fun with reports that Nicolas Sarkozy has enlisted Frau Bundeskanzlerin in his French presidential re-election campaign. Although this post’s title quote, from the Wall Street Journal blogs, suggests he may already be having second thoughts… ANYhoo… From Michael White’s post We can assume that pollsters have advised [...] more »
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Books
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Debating the Churches’ Role in the Peace in Northern Ireland
This morning’s Sunday Sequence featured a substantial debate (about 35 minutes into the recorded programme) on a new book,Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press 2011), written by sociologists John Brewer, Gareth Higgins and Francis Teeney. The debate was framed in an opening vignette by presenter William Crawley in uncompromising terms, [...] read our review » -
Stay out of Libya: counterinsurgency doesn’t work
A moment of some significance in journalism perhaps, as the New York Times reviews the current talked about book, The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan by Bing West. The author is no bleeding heart but a former assistant Defense Secretary from the Reagan era who stomped his way round the Afghan [...] read our review »
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Spare us a phoney row about racism, we’ve got enough on
A silly media row about racism just had to figure in the riots’ post mortem. Was the Tudor history expert David Starkey racist on Newsnight when he said: The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in [...] read our review »
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