Search Results for “future ireland” – Slugger O'Toole

Future Ireland / Breaking waves – Considering a New Ireland in 2019

Chris McKee on February 3, 2019, 10:00 am | Readers 2876

As the drama in Westminster continues, it’s fair to say that in 2019 and beyond, Northern Ireland’s often petty and tedious politics will be interesting, as an international spotlight passes over old scars and immense change looms once again. At times, it feels like we are back on a familiar shore, where the waves grow bigger and the very sand is moving below our feet. Brexit, now, is like a meteor landing in the distant sea. Suddenly, many of the …

Future Ireland / Loyalist Voices: A Conversation I’d Love To Have Someday

William Ennis on February 2, 2019, 9:50 am | Readers 5461

I like the idea of the conversation. I’ve always found conversations very useful. Arguments are too heated, always driven by aggression, and even debates always seem poised in an uncomfortable, adversarial way. But the conversation is good. A conversation is calm and much more likely to be geared toward understanding. It was mid-morning in a nice bar in Northumberland Road, Dublin. My friend was across the road in Dublin and Wicklow’s Orange Hall. I’d been in there earlier and absolutely loved it, as any Loyalist anorak …

Future Ireland / Children of the Ceasefire / 1

Soapbox on January 12, 2019, 8:24 am | Readers 1479

This is one of three winning articles for the Future Ireland series. The articles were submitted together – by three friends who met at college – a northern Catholic, a east Belfast Protestant, and a Dublin man. We liked the nuanced content of the pieces, the sense of identities in flux, and the fact that each tried to understand the perspectives of the others. Also how being children of the ceasefires weaves throughout their pieces. By Matthew Redmond – hailing …

Future Ireland / Children of the Ceasefire / 2

Soapbox on January 12, 2019, 8:23 am | Readers 937

This is one of three winning articles for the Future Ireland series. The articles were submitted together – by three friends who met at college – a northern Catholic, a east Belfast Protestant, and a Dublin man. We liked the nuanced content of the pieces, the sense of identities in flux, and the fact that each tried to understand the perspectives of the others. Also how being children of the ceasefires weaves throughout their pieces. By Seanín Little Growing up …

Future Ireland / Children of the Ceasefire / 3

Soapbox on January 12, 2019, 8:22 am | Readers 753

This is one of three winning articles for the Future Ireland series. The articles were submitted together – by three friends who met at college – a northern Catholic, a east Belfast Protestant, and a Dublin man. We liked the nuanced content of the pieces, the sense of identities in flux, and the fact that each tried to understand the perspectives of the others. Also how being children of the ceasefires weaves throughout their pieces. By William Clarence – from …

Future Ireland / Uniting our Shared Island by Professor Colin Harvey…

Queen’s Policy Engagement on January 11, 2019, 10:14 am | Readers 3932

The discussion of Irish unity is gaining momentum; Brexit has altered the nature of this conversation, as more people now reflect on the constitutional future. The debate is already happening, and has been ongoing for some time. That does not mean Irish unity is any closer; it simply suggests a willingness to contemplate this option and to think through the implications. Work by, for example, Claire Mitchell, Andrée Murphy, Paul Gosling, Fintan O’Toole, David McWilliams, Mark Daly, Richard Humphreys, and …

Future Ireland / How will the PUL be accommodated in a United Ireland?

Soapbox on January 11, 2019, 8:30 am | Readers 4513

This week, we’re featuring submissions from readers on the theme of ‘Future Ireland: Alternative Conversations about Unity and the Union’. Competition winners will be published on Saturday. By ‘Danny Boy’. According to the demographics, there could be a nationalist majority within Northern Ireland in the not-too distant future, which some think will automatically lead to the re-unification of this island. So what will happen to all those people living within Northern Ireland who class themselves as being from the PUL …

Future Ireland from a Southern Perspective

Soapbox on January 10, 2019, 10:42 am | Readers 2895

This week, we’re featuring submissions from readers on the theme of ‘Future Ireland: Alternative Conversations about Unity and the Union’. Competition winners will be published on Saturday. Éamonn Toland is a business leader and writer from Dublin. Just over a decade ago, before the crash, the then Irish Foreign Minister, Dermot Ahern, called for the IFA and FAI to form an all-Ireland soccer team, so that the island could “punch its full weight internationally, something that real sports people have …

Future Ireland / Building an Ireland of Communities

Soapbox on January 9, 2019, 9:10 am | Readers 1365

This week, we’re featuring submissions from readers on the theme of ‘Future Ireland: Alternative Conversations about Unity and the Union’. Competition winners will be published on Saturday. By T.R. Neill. Nationalism is an increasingly confident movement on the island of Ireland. As a nationalist myself, I see this as a good thing. However, I have always viewed nationalism’s challenge in the terms elucidated by John Hume, that we must not just remove the physical borders on this island but also …

Future Ireland / Why Include Ulster Protestants in a New Ireland?

Soapbox on January 8, 2019, 10:02 am | Readers 8521

This week, we’re featuring submissions from readers on the theme of ‘Future Ireland: Alternative Conversations about Unity and the Union’. Competition winners will be published on Saturday. By Dilcy, a nationalist living in Belfast. Why Include Ulster Protestants in a New Ireland? Answer 1 They’re here already and may as well stay. Answer 2 We say stay, but we really hope they will eventually leave. Answer 3 They are really Irish anyway. Answer 4 We really need their help to …

Future Ireland / What Unionists Should Strive For

Soapbox on January 7, 2019, 11:52 am | Readers 3917

This week, we’re featuring submissions from readers on the theme of ‘Future Ireland: Alternative Conversations about Unity and the Union’. Competition winners will be published on Saturday. Alan Robinson is an Orangeman hailing from Carrickfergus. I’m an Orangeman, play in a flute band and support the Northern Ireland football team. If you only knew those three things about me, the stereotype of a loyalist skinhead would probably be conjured from the subconscious. Dig a little deeper and see what you find: …

Future Ireland / If demographics is destiny, it’s up to us to decide the sort of destiny we want

Mick Fealty on December 5, 2018, 12:15 pm | Readers 3342

I was intrigued by my friend David McWilliams’ warm and typically human account of Northern Ireland’s constitutional prospects in the FT. David has always had an abiding commitment to exploring the possibilities and the advantages of a single polity living on our island. In the naughties, he invited me to speak on a panel on his RTE show, which looked at the prospects of a united Ireland. On the bus down I rang one of my oldest small ‘u’ unionist mates …

Future Ireland / Healthcare in ‘A New Ireland’

Paul Gosling on November 24, 2018, 8:38 am | Readers 4127

In producing the report – now a book – ‘A New Ireland’ this year, I conducted lots of interviews asking people about the prospect of Irish reunification. The issue of healthcare in a united Ireland was consistently cited as a major concern. Northern perceptions of the southern system are very negative. Views within the Republic are not that positive either, for sound reasons. But it is only fair to point out that the NHS in Northern Ireland is in crisis. …

Future Ireland / Protestants and Unity: Moving Beyond Tokenism to Deeper Engagement

Heather Wilson on November 17, 2018, 9:10 am | Readers 5437

“Want to write an article for Slugger about being a Protestant in an all-Ireland?” “Aye, no sweat.” What was at first a very easy ‘yes’ to what seemed a very simple question. But I sat down to write this article a few times and just had nothing to say. For the last few weeks I’ve struggled to come up with a single thought and couldn’t understand why. Then it hit me that the discourse I’d been engaging in, about ‘not …

Future Ireland: Uniting people is the starting point

David Honeyford on November 10, 2018, 9:01 am | Readers 7571

I was in a cafe recently when the owner, who I know from being a regular, came over and asked me, “David, clear something up between me and the Missus – was that you on the TV we saw the other night … [puzzled look] … you were part of a panel … Mike Nesbitt was there too.” To which I answered – ‘Yes, guilty! Was me!’ After a little discussion about how he didn’t realise I was interested in …

Future Ireland / Unity: Telling a Different Story

Damien Mullan on November 3, 2018, 9:00 am | Readers 3506

“There was never any moment in our history when slavery was not a sleeping serpent. It lay coiled up under the table during the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention. Owing to the cotton gin it was more than half awake. Thereafter, it was on everyone’s mind though not always on his tongue.” – John Jay Chapman. THE QUESTION The ‘national question is insolvable’, according to Fintan O’Toole. What O’Toole is referring to is the prevalence of irritants and grievances, imagined …

Future Ireland / Does motherhood unite or divide us?

Elizabeth Nelson on October 27, 2018, 9:02 am | Readers 2158

Most mothers have more pressing things to think about than constitutional arrangements. While there are some differences in the lived experiences of mothers in the UK and Ireland, they are small. In fact, our struggles are pretty much the same across national borders. Beyond the obvious, that all mothers want the best for their children (and often disagree on what that is and how to achieve it), we are united in our systematic disadvantage by the states in which we …

Future Ireland / Nation-States Are Yesterday’s Politics – Let’s Review Our Terms and Conditions

Donal O'Hanlon on October 20, 2018, 8:32 am | Readers 2044

Global trends indicate that we are graduating from ideological party politics to voting based on personal priorities such as financial security. Trump’s America is the prime example. But, like their hurricanes, everything from the US eventually crosses the water and laps our shores. Unstoppable cultural homogeneity adds to this. With lightning speed our young people adopt the same fashion, music and patois globally. The extent to which this is manipulated by media giants, arms of government and lizard overlords is …

Future Ireland / Irish Unification: An Evangelical View

David Millen on October 13, 2018, 8:34 am | Readers 6467

The Unification Agenda At the time of writing, questions about unification are more topical than ever. Brexit has polarised our population, and this in its turn has added significant impetus to the unity debate. Supporters of unification have rightly read this as an opportunity, and proposals for border polls abound. Emotions across the population run high, with most people seeming to sit on either extreme of a continuum that runs between elation and dread. So how do we pick our …

Future Ireland / Economic Inequality: An emerging challenge for a New Ireland

John Lavery on October 6, 2018, 8:00 am | Readers 3273

In October last year, I attended a keynote speech delivered by President of Ireland Michael D Higgins to a packed auditorium at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The speech was anchored around Michael Davitt’s 1896 visit to New Zealand, a visit where Davitt was impressed by the then Crown Colony’s progressive policies on land, tax, pensions and the economy. Subsequently, the founder of the Irish National Land League brought a number of these innovative ideas back to Ireland, to …