Following the historians’ pitch from Arkiv, it’s the turn of the lawyers. Prof Kieran McEvoy in the Irish Times makes the case I agree with, for a conditional amnesty as part of truth recovery. He makes the telling point that the historical cases review is unlikely to lead to more than a handful of prosecutions. more…
Archive | October, 2013
Soapbox: A conflict of interest in CCEA’s dual role in education?
By Niall Boyd and Chris Colvin Intentionally or by accident of history, England’s secondary-level education examination system operates as a quasi-market. Ofqual, the government’s regulator, sets down a national curriculum. A host of competing examination boards then set tests that examine this curriculum in subtly different ways. While universities do not tend to differentiate between school-leavers with different boards’ more…
Time for political nationalism to ‘man up’ on law and order?
There are no end of northern nationalists prepared to resort to law when it suits their cause. Equality laws for instance provide a ready stick to beat the backwoods men of the DUP when it comes to some socially conservative policy. Yet so far only a nationalist minister, Conor Murphy, has been brought to book more…
“People are being treated differently in NI because of their sexual orientation & that cannot be acceptable”
After a long period of reflection and internal discussion The Equality Commission today published a policy document on Promoting Sexual Orientation Equality: Priorities and Recommendations. The Chief Commissioner Michael Wardlow said: People are being treated differently in Northern Ireland because of their sexual orientation and that cannot be acceptable in the 21st century. In summary, more…
From Arkiv to Haaas. A way out of the deadlock for dealing with the past
It’s heart warming to find some of the ideas I’ve been grappling with being taken forward with real authority and integrity. As reported in the Newsletter a firm and positive set of proposals for dealing with the past has been submitted to the Haass talks by a group of historians calling themselves Arkiv. The idea more…
BBC Spotlight on how the peace process continues to cover for the ‘bad’ UVF
Spotlight last night, if you missed it, is well worth a catch up. Ostensibly about the resurgence of the UVF, particularly in east Belfast, in the process it also exposed some of those poisonous foundations of the Peace Process™ era. Stephen Dempster claims he spoke to two dozen people all of whom were too afraid to more…
The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there #spotlightNI
If you have not watched last night’s Spotlight programme I would strongly urge you to do so. In our drive to project a modern and peaceful Northern Ireland, we sometimes forget about some of the criminality that still plagues our province. Stephen Dempster’s report leaves a lot of questions for the PSNI, politicians and the more…
Liam Adams his brother and the real damage to his party
A roughly scrawled graffito has appeared in Beechmount Avenue in the Falls area of Belfast, which reads: ”Gerry tell the truth?” It’s a rare public challenge to the hegemony of Sinn Fein’s power base. The party hold five out of the six Assembly seats in West Belfast. It sits around the corner from one of the more…
Post Troubles Derry cheer on Grayson Perry. There is another world
As an occasional live attender in the past, for me this was a first for the BBC’s Reith Lectures, normally an austere and rather forbidding event. Whoops, cheers and whistles greeted the cross dressing artist and potter Grayson Perry in Londonderry Guildhall for the third in this year’s series, Nice Rebellion Welcome in! (text pending on more…
Shankill bomb: As the fog of war lifts welcome to the hall of smoke and mirrors
In all the understandable controlled angry over destruction the Shankill bomb wrought, both on the day and the weeks after, Anthony McIntyre, then an IRA volunteer, reminds people his organisation was on a war footing at the time, and no amount of hindsight can change the circumstances under which Kelly and Begley planted that ill more…
“an unforgettable journey across the Red Planet.”
Curiosity may have been on the surface of Mars for over a year, but ESA’s Mars Express has been in orbit around the Red Planet for almost a decade. It’s one of a number of ways Mars is being observed, up close and personal. And, like the Hi-RISE camera on Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Express has some specialised instruments more…
(UPDATED) How will the Irish Govt. respond to NSA spying?
(Update below) This would be different… The Irish govt. takes its citizens’ right to privacy extremely seriously; consequently, we have requested a full explanation from the United States… But let’s speak plainly: As a friend and partner of the US, we, like many other countries who expect and rely on the United States taking on more…
Westminster not Stormont has the power to answer the collusion charges and should use it
When Alastair Campbell issues a warning people should sit up and take notice, even today. You do get this sense across the spectrum that it is not a priority. They have got to be careful about that. “[John] Major made it a priority, Blair made it an absolute priority. He was like a dog with more…
With all this regressive hyperbole about NI’s past, is it time for a new sustainable narrative?
Good piece from Tom Kelly in the Irish News this morning, which subtly identifies the problem with the exaggerated claims of recent stories in the media. At a time when voter registration is falling right across the board, it’s an impoverished narrative to be offering voters who are already switching off from Stormont in droves. more…
Lou Reed 1942-2013
Just a quick post to mark the death of founding member of The Velvet Underground, inspiration for 10,000 bands – see Brian Eno quote – singer, songwriter and general rock legend, Lou Reed, who has died of an unspecified “liver-related ailment”. He had a liver transplant in May this year after suffering liver failure. At more…
Do we really have the happiest places in the UK or are we just too easily pleased?
Lies, damn lies and subeditors.. Same as last year. ? Does Northern Ireland really boast the happiest places in the UK? So the past is over and done with, right? Maybe we’d better look a bit deeper… Jenny McCartney the rather fierce daughter of the fierce Bob QC, ex MP, in her Telegraph column gives away the secret of life more…
DUP-are they really the voice of Unionism?
This piece is a bit delayed but rounding off the party analyses of the four major parties I present to you the electoral performance of the DUP over the past 15 years. Instead of focusing on gains that the party has made over the last number of years I thought I would take a look more…
Cartoon – dishevelled adults seen with well-dressed child
Obsessing over history and identity won’t educate our kids or bring them closer together
Forgive me if I take advantage of my posting rights to reply to Andy Pollak’s interesting post on cross border exchanges in education and go on to widen the issue. Much closer cooperation is a no brainer. What’s stopping it? The introverted pressures of financial austerity? Preoccupation with different systems and problems N&S? Might it more…
Platform for Change debating Haass/O’Sullivan agenda (Mon 25 Nov); East Belfast Speaks Out (Wed 27 Nov)
The last week of November is shaping up to be a week of political hustings and community discussions. Looking towards the final stages of the Haass/O’Sullivan talks, Platform for Change are hosting a panel discussion in Dukes at Queens (aka, Dukes Hotel) on Monday 25 November from 7.30pm to 9.30pm. Previous events this year have more…