Society and Culture
Stormont’s falling turnout is the reason it is losing touch with wider public opinion
Tweet This is David McCann arguing that the current malaise in Northern Irish politics has its roots in the fact that no less than 160,000 people stopped voting after 1998. From June 1998 to March 2011 electoral turnout dropped from 70% to 54.5%. Whilst the UUP and the SDLP lost a staggering 84,000 votes each, SF only picked up [...] more »
UNESCO pitches golf ball into Runkerry bunker
Tweet It took a long time to work through the planning process, but in February 2012 the Bushmills Dunes Golf Resort and Spa finally received planning permission. A year later in February 2013, the National Trust lost its judicial review of the decision and have not appealed. Minister of the Environment Alex Attwood invited Unesco [...] more »
Ní Chuilín stops (unexplained) HET blocking move on release of inquest documents to relatives
Tweet It’s hard to disagree with Brian when he says there is no real serious attempt to deal with the past. On the Republican side, the understanding is that that is not possible until everything is dealt with. But in the meantime some families have been trying to use the mechanisms of the state to [...] more »
“Where do the Swedes go to let out their aggressions?”
Tweet At a time of unrest in Sweden, I picked this sideways take on the communitarian social model from a good Swedish friend (almost completely proving the national cliche in the video)… more »
Ulster People’s Forum plans denial of service attack on PSNI and Parades Commission
![ulsters people forum [sic] leaflet](http://sluggerotoole.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ulsters-people-forum-leaflet-e1369348731511-160x61.jpg)
Tweet A News Letter online article explains that the Ulster People’s Forum is taking a leaf out of the Anonymous movement’s hacktivism playbook and are planning to flood the PSNI and subsequently the Parades Commission with spurious 11/1 forms. The article quotes Ulster People’s Forum chair John Wilson: The groups have decided to ask all [...] more »
AG tells Allister his bill is NOT in breach of the ECHR…
Tweet Now this Letter to Mr Jim Allister MLA dtd 22 May 2013 from the Attorney General for Northern Ireland has just been released to Slugger, and it contains some interesting information. It relates to a number of talking points and concerns raised about the competence of the bill itself and specific concerns that it could be [...] more »
Bad news for Sweden as the social model slowly unravels…
Tweet One of the big challenges for all the Scandinavian countries (or at least those without oil reserves to fall back on) has been how to cope with waves of immigration. It’s particularly challenging for what has been remarkable homogenous societies like Sweden. Now it seems a politically unwatched pot is boiling over. Really, not [...] more »
IPSOS/MORI poll on Good Friday Agreement: Scepticism on Stormont’s ‘progress’ on sectarianism
Tweet Some interesting polling figures on Nolan last night regarding the long term effects of the Good Friday Agreement. Stand out difference is that whilst 78% of nationalists would still vote Yes, 41% of unionists would. There’s no way of really measuring that against the original poll, but Wesley Johnston estimates that 60% unionists voted [...] more »
Zero sum game over parades continues between OFMdFM parties…
Tweet Here’s a good one, the DUP Minister at Social Development has commissioned a report (original here, courtesy of Morpheus below) that says that parades bring in £55 million a year [there's a surprise - ed]. Except that the former Lord Mayor of Belfast says what it does not take account of is: …the mass [...] more »
How well does the Catholic church understand its own teaching on abortion?
Tweet This is well worth noting before it passes over us, on the question of abortion in the south. James P Mackey is visiting professor at the school of religions and theology at Trinity College. And he’s been looking back at some of his old Catholic textbooks from Maynooth: The Roman Catholic hierarchy has formally [...] 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 »
“culture wars and shared futures make very uneasy bedfellows”
Tweet This final post in this series about last week’s PSA/Fellowship of Messines workshop – Has the Protestant Working Class lost out in the Peace Process? – looks at the fourth session of the day which asked about the place of the PUL community in a shared future. Once again, the opening remarks by the [...] more »
“the current system is inefficient and we need to examine the case for reform of teacher education provision”
Tweet The BBC reports on the latest attempt by the Northern Ireland Employment and Learning Minister, the Alliance Party’s Stephen Farry, to reform the teacher training system here. It follows the publication of a report on the first stage of the Study of the Teacher Education Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. From the ministerial press release “The [...] more »
Ann Travers: “If had joined the IRA or a loyalist paramilitary and killed someone, I would be being listened to…”
Tweet Ann Travers talks to Wendy Austin earlier on Talkback on the SDLP’s petition of concern that will finally kill the Civil Service (Special Advisers) Bill. I’ll try and get a better quality recording as and when it becomes available, since for a number of reasons, I think this is an important interview. I’m going [...] more »
Gove calls for a split with Wales and NI on GCSE and A Level reform…
Tweet Here’s one to put on the long term forecast. Michael Gove was over last week (not that our Education Minister was very forthcoming on what they actually talked about)… and now he has announced there is such a gap between his reforms in GCSE and the way it is done in Wales and Northern [...] more »
The PUL Community and the Peace Process: An Audit
Tweet The third session of the all day PSA/Fellowship of Messines workshop – Has the Protestant Working Class lost out in the Peace Process? – looked at the peace process through the eyes of two loyalist leaders and an academic. Strong views on the Social Investment Fund, how paramilitary actions gave unionists confidence in the [...] more »
Azerbaijan Presidential Inquiry over Eurovision Vote
Tweet Denmark may have won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, due to last year’s winner, held in Malmö, Sweden, but Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev is reported to have ordered an inquiry into why his country, apparently, failed to provide any points to their neighbour, Russia. Russia gave maximum points, 12, to the Azerbaijan entry. From [...] more »
Taoiseach could do with answering some of the questions he once aimed at Michael McDowell?
Tweet Funniest moment of the weekend was when Sean O’Rourke took the sugar off Willie O’Dea’s wee bun when he mentioned Michael McDowell’s behaviour (blogged by George for Slugger at the time) over his intervention under remarkably similar circumstances to Alan Shatter’s stroke against Mick Wallace on last Thursday’s PrimeTime (12 minutes in)… Though, as [...] more »
“Republicans should remember that the third colour in the Irish flag is Orange…”
Tweet Last Thursday’s The View gave most of the programme over to the vexed issue of parading. It includes a number of noteworthy points. Neil Jarmin points out that the Parades Commission has missed an opportunity offered it by Paddy Ashdown’s Strategic Review of Parading to give it a more robust set of processes (that [...] more »
After the political victory of the GFA is Northern Ireland slipping back into another ‘big sleep’?
Tweet Men it has been well said, think in herds. It will be seen that they go mad in herds while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one. Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841) Speaking of Fionola, her essay in an excellent collection from the British Council, gets a mention [...] more »
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Books
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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 »
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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 » -
Sunday Supplement
Tweet It being Sunday, we’ve all got time to consider and ponder things at greater length than during the working week, yes? If it’s good enough for the Sunday papers, it’s good enough for this guest blogger. So here’s the review section… Actually, it’s my introduction to a book published last year, Goin’ Down Slow: [...] read our review »
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