Go East, Old Man – Part II: Opting Out of Opting Out
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From an interrogation at the Russian border to an anti-war lecture in Moscow and a power cut in wartime Mykolaiv, Peter Emerson travels through Putin’s Russia and into Ukraine. Along the way he asks why binary referendums, the “matryoshka” votes of Crimea, Bosnia and the Donbas, so often end in bloodshed, and what that means for Northern Ireland’s border poll.
‘We collect without fear or favour’: embodying inclusion at the Linen Hall Library
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A Good Relations Week workshop at the Linen Hall Library offered an unusual angle on this year’s theme of ‘Include’: rather than framing inclusion as a goal to be worked toward, it asked how a library collection can embody it. …
From grievance to governance: why Irish nationalism needs a Long Peace strategy
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At 105, partition is unlikely to end on a 50%-plus-one border poll. Nationalism’s vote has stalled at 40% while voters drift to “neither”. The path forward runs through governing Northern Ireland well, not waiting it out, and Micheál Martin’s Bodenstown speech shows what that looks like.
A Blueprint for a New Centrist Political Force in Northern Ireland…
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“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” What if three political parties that have spent years competing for parts of Northern Ireland’s political centre have more in common than their public disagreements might suggest? The Ulster Unionist Party, Alliance …
‘If you remove fear, you can build trust’: young people, peace walls, and Belfast’s future
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A screening of Two Sides to Every Wall, a documentary about young people living alongside Belfast’s peace walls, brought young people, community practitioners, a social anthropologist, and a government official together at a Good Relations Week event hosted by Springboard. …
European Champions and Challenge Cup Rugby: Clean Sweep for all four provinces
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Having written extensively about the prospects for the provinces and Irish rugby over the summer, I wasn’t planning to write about rugby again before the season got properly into its stride. The provinces had decidedly mixed fortunes over the first …
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. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.
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. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.
Who’s to Blame… for axing two of our favourite TV treasures?
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When I was younger, I really did go through a phase of thinking Tim McGarry was Gerry Adams. It was a Friday night in January 1998, and I was nine. Hours earlier, I’d been to see Titanic in Omagh cinema …
Living and dying in Nashville…
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Just before my visit last week, the botched execution of Christa Pike was already an international news story. Nashville’s Centre of Correction executing a woman prisoner in 2026 was indeed something that demanded attention. This judicial killing attempt articulates the …