If “Others” have the casting/blocking vote, both nationalism and unionism need to show they are open for development
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Fintan O’Toole yesterday (or at least his headline writer does) poses a useful question: What if Sinn Féin makes Northern Ireland viable? But to that hypothetical I would add another: What if Northern Ireland already is viable? This is a non …
NI born Catholics account for just 26% of PSNI officers…
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Bill Breathnach is Writer and TV researcher based in Connemara. Interested in economics, politics and all things cultural… Catholics presently make up 31.7% of PSNI officers. This figure comes from statistics provided as part of a response from the force …
Soon there will not be enough priests to say funeral masses…
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Bishop Donal McKeown has alerted parishioners that the massive decline in priest numbers has started affecting services and will only worsen. From the BelTel: In Down and Connor, 84 priests manage 86 parishes and 146 churches. But, according to Bishop …
Does a symbiotic relationship suit the DUP and Sinn Féin?
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Symbiosis – A symbiotic relationship more or less means a mutually beneficial relationship between different species or groups. You will have seen examples of this on nature programs with birds such as oxpeckers perched on the backs of large grazing mammals such …
Analysing the 2023 Local Elections: Part 3: identity bloc performance, estimated six-county vote, SDLP and UUP decline, spoiled votes.
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(Part 1 can be found here.) (Part 2 can be found here.) Identity bloc performance The nationalist bloc is the largest in 13 of the 15 border EAs (excepting Erne North and Cusher), having overtaken the unionist bloc in Faughan …
A response to Andy Pollak’s post about the southern media…
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My friend Andy Pollak has written long and eloquently about the ignorance of the southern electorate of all things north of the border, and delights in quoting academics who share this view. Academic disdain for the ignorance of the masses …
“An 80-year-old waiting five to seven years for a hip will not get that hip replacement. A child on a waiting list waits so long that they are transferred to the adult waiting list.” This is why the Assembly must come back – now
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photo: Royal Victoria Hospital Belfast When so much comment has been preoccupied with squeezing out yet another fine point about the council election results, rumbling on in the background has been another squeeze, the Barnett squeeze which has the effect …
Open Sunday – discuss what you like…
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The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing.
Open sunday – politics free zone…
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In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics.
Ssshhh…Let’s Take a Beat…
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There was something striking about the reaction to this excellent BBC NI story by Robbie Meredith about the brave stance taken by school student Angel Mhande, who spoke up about her personal experience of a specific book being used as …