So, is this it? Are Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson about to pull the plug on ‘Blue Lights‘ for good? Or will the show live on in some other incarnation, heading in a new direction? Before we get into that, one more word of warning for those who have not seen all the episodes that have preceded tonight’s. As usual, this review will contain spoilers. Therefore if you haven’t seen the episodes already, maybe stop reading this and come back …
From a Dartmouth parade ground to a Belfast youth club, a Moscow kitchen table and a Tibetan lake, Peter Emerson traces the chance encounters that turned an ex-submariner into a lifelong critic of yes-or-no voting. He also asks what ancient Asia might teach us about deciding things together.
I’m sure many of you will join me in hoping that the Republicans get the absolute political sh*te kicked out of them today at the polls. Has there been a more corrupt presidency than Trump? He oversees what is basically a kleptocracy and does not even try to hide it. He has used the presidency to enrich his personal wealth, the wealth of his family and all his sycophants and hangers-on. The grift is just staggering, Trump made more than …
Via the Irish News: The SDLP wants to shut down Stormont and move the Assembly to a “more appropriate and more accessible” building in Belfast city centre. The party argues that its plan will “bring democratic decision-making closer to the people it serves”. But under plans which opposition leader Matthew O’Toole insists are “not that radical”, his party proposes moving the Assembly out of Parliament Buildings by the end of the next mandate in 2032. The South Belfast and Mid …
Our always popular live event returns to the Black Box on Tuesday, the 15th of December 2026. Join Alex Kane, Allison Morris and Alan Meban as they reflect on the year in politics. This event is sponsored by Brown O’Connor- Ireland This event always sells out, so to avoid disappointment, book your tickets now… Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is …
Chapter 3 of John Doyle’s Before the Vote: Planning for a united Ireland compares living standards, welfare payments and poverty in the two jurisdictions. Its evidence on basic payment rates is accurate, and many of those rates are much higher in the Republic. Its comparison of poverty rates, the figures most often repeated from the book, is weaker. It relies on Northern Ireland statistics that were revised downwards before the book went to press, and it compares poverty rates measured …
In ananticipated move, Carla Lockhart tonight quit the DUP. Lockhart published her resignation letter to DUP leader Gavin Robinson on Facebook accompanied by a personal statement which set her reasoning to the public. Today I informed the party leader, Gavin Robinson, that I have resigned from the Democratic Unionist Party. I have included below a copy of my letter.I will sit in the House of Commons as an independent Unionist.My first responsibility remains to the people of Upper Bann. You …
The Memories, Narratives and Histories Research Collective (MNHRC) gathered online to launch Afterlives of the Troubles: Life Stories, Culture and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland, by Professor Graham Dawson. Fifteen years in the making, the book draws on oral history, cultural analysis, and lived experience to challenge the assumption that Northern Ireland’s conflict can be neatly divided into “the Troubles” and a settled post-conflict present. Three scholars joined Dawson in conversation: Róisín Higgins (Professor of History at Maynooth University); Claire …
The Government has published no Independent Monitoring Panel report for more than 16 months, and the one report it did publish measured the wrong thing. Worse, the so-called Internal Market Guarantee was never an internal market guarantee at all, but an alternative trade border arrangement.
I don’t normally write in this blog about international affairs: about Donald Trump or Israel/Palestine or Ukraine. There are thousands of commentators far more qualified and knowledgeable than me to do that. But I am a simple person in many ways (maybe that’s the Ulster Presbyterian in me!), and I believe in the presence of good and evil in the world. With last week’s election result in Israel deadlocked, meaning the warmonger Benjamin Netanyahu stays in power, and with the …
109 years ago today, on the 2nd of November 1917, as the mud-mired battle of Passchendaele dragged on, as bankruptcy beckoned, a 67-word declarative statement from the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, was hand-delivered to the banking magnate Lord Rothschild. A declaration meant to become fact on the ground, setting the scene for a tragedy of epic proportions, one that plays out still. In one definition of a tragic struggle, that of right against right, the winner must make amends …
The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I 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. When not …
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. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I 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 …
