Gaeilgeoir ‘outrage’ at Joe McHugh a symptom of long term policy neglect of the Irish language

Joe McHugh has been the nearest thing Dublin has had to a Minister of State with responsibility for Northern Ireland. He’s made the most of his parliamentary role as Chair of the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, and co-chair of the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly. As Harry McGee points out, “he should really have been promoted years ago…” As the newly appointed Minister of State for the Gaeltacht he’s getting stick for not being fluent, …

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EU statement on abstention from #UNHRC #Gaza vote

Even with no immediate end in sight to the violent Israeli assault on Gaza, one dimension of the post-ceasefire landscape is already clear. Despite the global connectivity offered by social media and the public platitudes of political ‘leaders’ it is clear (and has been for a very long time) that the international diplomatic architecture is simply not fit for purpose. The immediateness and intimacy the internet offers produces some extraordinary dissonances. The emotional response of communities across the world coming …

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Belfast’s Burning – VICE News reports from Lanark Way

An outsider’s view of eleventh night bonfires from VICE News. Jake Hanrahan based himself at the Lanark Way bonfire, interviewing those building the dizzyingly high tower of pallets as well as those who came along to the structure burn. Near the end of the ten minute video report [8:50] one lad seems to surprise the reporter when he describes the Ardoyne as “half and half, it’s partly their road and it’s partly our road” and goes on to talk about …

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“We have a politics that treats people almost as infants to be sold policies rather than actively engaged…”

Every year, the MacGill Summer School gives us under exercised political anoraks a moment to resolutely focus on Irish public affairs. Last night the subject was trust between the governors and the governed, a title none of the three speakers were particularly comfortable with. And it invoked some biting, cynical wit on Twitter… Don't miss my talk at Macgill, "Political Reform: The Politics of Reform, or The Reform of Politics?" — lɐƃɹǝℲ (@Fergal) July 22, 2014 There’s a wider sense …

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What Northern Ireland might learn from Rory McIlroy… (ie, sidestepping vanity, becoming the thing you want to be…)

There’s an odd typo in one of the few press releases to make it through Sinn Fein’s unofficial (and largely unreported embargo on letting any substantial work past through its hands at OFMdFM). In only its second effort of the First and deputy First Minster talk about McIlroy’s “rich vain of form.” Maybe it’s because Stormont Castle’s legion of press officers have so little to do that they made such a trifling if telling mistake… In any case, vanity is …

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Theresa in the Wonderland of the Hallett review

The plainly rushed Hallett Review and the British government response to it raise as many questions as answers. They expose not a carefully planned discreet operation but a terribly improvised muddle in which the  left hand ( the  PSNI)  did not know the full de facto amnesty effect of what the right hand ( the NIO)  was doing, and with nobody really  holding onto  the wriggling baby. The longer term inquiry by the Commons Northern Ireland Select Committee may go on …

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Marie Keenan: Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church – Book Review

“The major thesis of my work is that sexual abuse is inevitable given the meaning system that is taught by the Catholic Church and to which many priests adhere. The contradictions force failure and increase shame and a way of living that encourages sexually deviant behaviour.” – Marie Keenan, Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gender, Power, and Organizational Culture, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 255, emphasis mine Marie Keenan’s Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church is the …

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Ramadan in Belfast

It’s a muggy Saturday evening in south Belfast and the summer sun, covered by dense cloud, is just setting. Out in front of Shaftesbury Leisure Centre, just off the lower Ormeau Road, children are running in circles around their parents squealing joyfully. Approaching the centre, women wearing pink, red and yellow hijabs push prams past a mural of Gaelic footballers and hurlers; men are gathered around the entrance shaking hands, embracing and chatting. A group walks past the men carrying …

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The downing of MH 17 shifts spotlight back to Ukraine

The downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine has been one of the major events of last week. Most of the fingers of blame have been pointed at the pro-Russian separatists who have previously shot down Ukrainian military aircraft with sophisticated Russian surface to air missiles (though both sides have access to such weaponry). The photographs are quite harrowing – personally I find the ones of toys and books etc. to keep children happy during the flight the most …

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Derrylin to host hunger strike commemoration

The 2014 National Hunger Strike Commemoration has been announced to be in Derrylin Co. Fermanagh this year complete with buses to the event. Diane Woods the niece of local IRA murder victims Thomas and Emily Bullock told the Belfast Telegraph she felt sick at the prospect. From the Belfast Telegraph: A gang of up to six masked men carried out the brutal attack on Mr and Mrs Bullock. They arrived at the isolated farmhouse in Aghalane just outside Derrylin at …

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Israel’s Ambassador to Ireland big on rhetoric but not facts

Earlier this week, Israel’s Ambassador to Ireland, Boaz Modai, penned a particularly audacious letter in the Irish Times. His narrative is almost entirely designed to misleading the public through the selective manipulation of information and half truths to obscure Israel’s crimes. Modai claims that “Hamas began its present rocket offensive against Israel on June 12th”, but this is patently untrue. A Reuters report from 30th June reveals that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu only accused Hamas of this as of Monday …

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Israel/Palestine and the Irish perspective

The people of Ireland are hugely sympathetic to the people of Palestine! There you go my bid of understatement of the year is well and truly lodged. Like most people, I have watched incredible and horrific scenes of Palestinian people losing their homes, jobs and relatives as they face a pounding from one of the most advanced military forces in the world. Likewise, I have watched images of Israeli’s running for shelter as rockets fly in from Hamas. While there is …

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Are we slowly waking up to the pressing need to deal with child sexual abuse?

Something interesting is happening in the territory of child sexual abuse. The arrests over the last few days indicate a few rather disturbing patterns… Police forces across the country have arrested 660 suspected paedophiles including doctors, teachers and former police officers in the biggest operation for more than ten years targeting online child abusers. A junior paediatric doctor is among the suspects, who along with a second man, is suspected of having more than a million indecent images of children, …

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Martina Anderson MEP: “and if the British government lifts its ban on Executive access to the EIB…”

No update yet from Sinn Féin on the meeting they chose to trail a couple of days ago between three of their MEPs, led by the Derry Northern Ireland representative, Martina Anderson, and “the Vice-Chairman of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Jonathan Taylor”.  But let’s hope they were better briefed than the 15 July press release suggests, otherwise the only reaction is likely to be a rolling of eyes by Jonathan Taylor, Vice-President of the EIB, formerly Director General for Financial Services at …

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#OTRs: a ready made exit strategy?

So the review of the OTR scheme by a British judge has found it to be ‘not unlawful’ and not secret (pretty much how Dominic Grieve, British Attorney General, had described it before the review). Earlier on today Secretary of State Theresa Villiers made an oral statement to the House of Commons to coincide with the release of the report. The report itself is quite substantial and I’d not expect too much informed reaction to the details, beyond the executive …

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UPDATED #ShinnersList not a secret and not an amnesty…

So, the #ShinnersList is real, legal but not an enforceable amnesty… The police had realised they had made a mistake, but the assurance to the County Donegal man was never withdrawn. “Nothing in law or logic” explained their failure to rectify the error, Lady Justice Hallett said. “The administrative scheme was kept ‘below the radar’ due to its political sensitivity, but it would be wrong to characterise the scheme as ‘secret’,” she said. She added: “If there was a lack …

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The Orange Order and Scottish Independence

The recent Orange Order parade in Glasgow, which featured an estimated 4500 marchers and a similar number of spectators, resulted in the usual disruption and finger-pointing. Eighteen people were arrested for offences related to drinking, disorder and other minor offences, although Grand Lodge of Scotland representatives and Police Chief Superintendent Andy Bates noted it was those watching rather than those taking part who earned police attention. It was noted that many of those taking part carried pro-Union/anti-independence banners and the …

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“Quinn is trying to scare us into thinking these bondholders are going to come in…”

From the Irish Times… David Drumm, the former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank, believed Seán Quinn was trying to “scare” the bank into lending him more money as the financial crisis deepened in June 2008. Tape recordings of conversations between bankers inside Anglo reveal the bank believed Mr Quinn was threatening it to keep funding his position in Anglo, which was held using contracts for difference (CFDs), or risk his international bondholders seizing control of his empire. This would …

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Gove, Cameron and the old four year Switcheroo…

Here’s a classic case of where the polling mechanism breaks down. The question presumes there’s a meaningful difference in interest between Michael Gove and his boss, the British Prime Minister. I’m not convinced there is any such difference. I saw the Indy going to town on the salary loss, but to be frank, career progression in politics often means taking a hit in the near term. Govey’s work is done in Cabinet. Now he’s in the war cabinet. This one …

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Intercept evidence could convict terrorists, says former SoS Murphy

As a  curtain raiser to Lady Justice Heather Hallett’s  review of OTRs’  “ administrative scheme” due out tomorrow (Thursday), the mild-mannered former Labour secretary of state Paul Murphy has told the separate  inquiry into the affair by the Commons Northern Ireland Select Committee that more convictions might have been obtained if the rules of evidence were changed. “Now my own personal view, which I expressed when I was chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee (at Westminster), was it should …

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