Funding bonfires – burning public money or a necessary investment in good relations?

Good Morning Ulster picked up on the minutes of a report from Belfast City Council’s Good Relations Partnership to the council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee on Friday 17 October. Belfast – in common with many councils – provides grants to bonfire organisers to fund community programmes (often street entertainment, bouncy councils, fairground rides) organised on the side of loyalist and republican bonfires. However strings are attached: the bonfires mustn’t be built with hazardous material and flags and emblems mustn’t …

Read more…

More hurdles in holding the State to account

The UK government once again has had a go at undermining one of the legal pillars of accountability by seeking to exert control over judicial reviews – a process which allows for legal challenge of the decisions of public bodies. The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill was debated in the House of Lords today and three key amendments were introduced which put a halt to the proposed restriction of access to and limiting the findings of judicial review proceedings. The …

Read more…

Queens Students Union vote strongly for neutrality and narrowly against United Ireland

Talking to a friend early who said every road unionism takes leads back inevitably to the liberal outlook of O’Neill on an inclusive society, and every road a nationalist takes leads back to an accommodation with their neighbours. Some proof of that Queens tonight, when a motion to keep the Students Union a neutral venue was endorsed 2,596 to 409. The Union’s border poll was a lot closer, but was lost 1,285 votes to 1,264 despite a DUP boycott of the poll. …

Read more…

Federalism – Wherefore The Union?

I have long been of the view that a federal UK would be the eventual outworking of devolution.  Welsh First Minister, Carwyn Jones, has been calling for a constitutional convention for the last few years. Scottish Conservative Murdo Fraser outlined his thoughts on Slugger earlier this year. Why Murdo Fraser is right to promote UK federalism as a constitutional solution – my latest column in The Scotsman http://t.co/dGZzwNNVG7 — Brian Monteith (@TheBluetrot) July 1, 2014 UKIP Deputy leader Paul Nuttal …

Read more…

Photo of the day – Coffee with a cop

Photo by Glenn Jordan, taken at Costa Coffee, Holywood, Co. Down. I look forward to the pint with a peeler scheme. Brian O'NeillI help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring …

Read more…

After Commemorations: In the future we should ensure that our weapon of choice is friendship!

On the 9th December 2014 the Four Corners Festival is hosting a night at Strand Arts Centre to screen “Joyeux Noel”, a film about the Christmas Truce that took place on the Western Front on Christmas Day, 1914. It is being held to celebrate the courage of those who stepped into “No Man’s Land”, during times of conflict, to show a different way. The French film from 2005 relates the events of that day, seen through the eyes of French, …

Read more…

Ireland & Europe; Political leaders need to start thinking outside the box

As we are all consumed with the Adams/Cahill story, it is hard for some other pieces of news to gain traction. One big story that was missed in the media was the revelation that due to the revision in how the European Union calculates the contributions of member states to the coffers of the Union that Ireland will now be required to pay an additional €157 million. Before you start coming at me with a “but Ireland, got huge amounts …

Read more…

Reconciliation through resilience – the hard work of peacemaking from the ground up

Following the news is a particularly depressing activity most days. With war, suffering and division making headlines, a person would be forgiven for thinking that seven decades after the defeat of Nazism, 20 years after genocide in Bosnia, and over a decade after the 9/11 attacks, humankind is marching away from progress and civility, not toward it.   Here in Northern Ireland, we can be grateful that the gunmen and bombers no longer stalk our streets, murdering innocent people in …

Read more…

Disturbing…

Without further comment… Sample of Michael Harding's Hanging With The Elephant.Only 4 Ted's Mr Sheen persona our kip wud b like that. Is Urs? pic.twitter.com/T18txG86JX — Gerry Adams (@GerryAdamsSF) October 25, 2014 Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

Maíria Cahill – A statement

The following statement has been given to many news sources including Slugger and we reproduce it here without any commentary. It is very strange to see myself being described as a dissident republican, when I would not even consider myself a republican anymore. The Irish Mail On Sunday story correctly states that I was, involved with a group going by the name “Republican Network for Unity”.  The story however, was inaccurate and slanted.  I was indeed the National Secretary of …

Read more…

Photo of the day – Travelling in style

  I passed this guy on the M1 motorway on Friday. I do hope he was holding on tight, they were going about 50mph. I was on a bus if you are curious. Brian O'NeillI help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of …

Read more…

Latest SBP/REDC poll in the South-Sinn Fein still second

The first opinion poll taken in the South since the BBC Spotlight programme was conducted on Monday-Wednesday of the past week. Here are the results Fine Gael-26% (-2) Sinn Fein-20% (-3%) Fianna Fail-18% (nc) Labour-8% (nc) Inds/Oths-28% (+5) Overall, Sinn Fein will be happy with this poll as in other bad times for the party such as the Northern Bank robbery and the McCartney murder, the party’s support halved in just 9 weeks. This 3% drop is more stable and …

Read more…

Photo of the day – Colonel Gaddafi’s slippers

The Roddy McCorley Club in Belfast has a very interesting Museum containing a range of materials relating not only to our recent troubles but also previous Irish conflicts. One of the more bizarre exhibitions is a pair of Colonel Gaddafi’s slippers presented to none other than Joe Cahill. The museum is free and well worth a visit. Brian O'NeillI help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in …

Read more…

Adams: “Sinn Féin has not engaged in any cover-up of abuse at any level of this party.”

Speaking at a party candidate event earlier today in Belfast, Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams TD made another statement about the Cahill case; below are his remarks to members of his party The allegations of Maíria Cahill have been at the centre of the media and political system North and South, in recent times. Over the course of the past week Maíria Cahill has made serious allegations against myself and named Sinn Féin members. While I am very mindful of the …

Read more…

Johann Lamont: a necessary defenestration

Poor Johann Lamont, the leader of Scottish Labour leader who was always out of her depth and no time more so than during the referendum campaign when the Tory leader Ruth Davidson clearly outshone her. The BBC headline writer’s verdict is cruel  but accurate: Johann Lamont resignation: A leader without influence The post referendum message couldn’t be clearer. A Panelbase poll on 2 October showed: SNP: 34%, Labour: 32%, Conservative: 18%, Liberal Democrat: 5%, UKIP: 6%, Other: 5%. From the …

Read more…

Sinn Fein’s contradictory stance between moral certitude of the Provisionals and its modern promises to Ireland

In 1997 Ray Burke informed RTE after his hour long session in the Dail that ‘the line is in the sand, from this day on this is D day, I move on’. Within a month he resigned as Minister for Foreign Affairs following an allegation of corruption which led to the setting up of what became the Flood Tribunal. Burke was jailed for tax fraud in 2004. By contrast the retribution of the state seems to hold little fear for Sinn Fein, in the sense …

Read more…

Sinn Féin’s Peadar Tóibín: “I have no doubt that in the IRA modus operandi of the time that people were moved…”

With the out-going MP for Newry and Armagh, Sinn Fein’s Conor Murphy, declaring his ignorance of alleged abusers in the republican movement being moved out of Northern Ireland – BBC report “I’ve never heard that in all my life as a republican,” [Conor Murphy] said. …it’s worth extracting from the Fireman’s post some quotes from the interview on Newstalk Breakfast with Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín – who, according to the SF website, is a “current member of the Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle.”  Here’s …

Read more…

Review: My Only Crime was Loyalty (Jamie Bryson) – “Compromising isn’t my style”

I am not a diplomat and nor would I want to be. Compromising isn’t my style. When people talk to me about Jamie Bryson there are a number of questions they repeatedly pose. Is he stupid? Has he gone away? How did he end up a flag protest leader? The first two questions can be answered with ‘no’. And along with the third, they’re at least partly explained in Bryson’s latest book My Only Crime Was Loyalty which he has …

Read more…

The Lords held the wrong debate

There was quite a lot of noble handwringing in that Lords debate that needs unpicking. Dealing with the past was confused with dealing with the present impasse. There is of course a link but they are really two clean different things.  It was odd to hear Paul Bew, a historian who has dedicated much of his life’s work to creating credible accounts of the past out of opposing positions, to dismiss so dogmatically the prospects of dealing with our most …

Read more…

British government claims “We do not own the past.”

In recent submissions to the Council of Europe, the British government suggests that human rights violations in the north of Ireland which occurred under direct rule should be the responsibility of the devolved administration to clean up. A number of cases had been brought to the European Court of Human Rights by families whose loved ones were killed by the State, including those of Gervase McKerr, Patrick Shanahan and Pearse Jordan. These cases resulted in the UK government being found …

Read more…