Slugger O'Toole As Roy Garland has suggested below, there is an overarching logic constraining the actions of many of the players in the Northern Ireland political game, which will make it difficult for some on the extreme ends of the poltical spectrum to ‘return to type’. In this piece in this week’s Sunday Business Post, Anton McCabe and Paul Colgan suggest that the DUP’s apparent willingness to speak to Sinn Fein is another aspect of a dawning new reality in NI politics. …
The outcome of yesterday’s meeting between Trimble and Gerry Adams seems to have engendered some optimistic speculation that the Assembly can be resurrected, Gregory Campbell also confirms that the DUP will use their mandate in the coming elections to force a re-negotiation of the Belfast Agreement. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
It looks as though the normally mild mannered, concilliatory Unionist commentator Roy Garland has run out of patience: “The real cause of conflict is the voices of dead generations who call for Irish unity at all costs. No single group, dead or alive, has the right to arbitrate on the future shape of political relationships in these islands.” However he finished by saying: “…grounds for hope remain because most people know that a return to violence would be disastrous and …
Carmel Hanna of the SDLP rounds on the paramilitaries in bringing peace to Northern Ireland. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
Junior Minister Ian Pearson highlights the importance of economic links with the Republic: “…the Belfast to Dublin corridor is potentially a major engine for growth and employment in Northern Ireland and in the Republic.” Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
John Devine talks to DUP MP Gregory Campbell about what could happen after elections in May: “We are not going to dig people out of the hole they are in now. But after an election we will go to the British government and say that we have a mandate and we want changes to the agreement because we want unionists to be part of the process rather than frozen out, the way they have been. We want it based on …
A US fact finding delegation has arrived in Northern Ireland for a five day visit. Via Hawk Girl. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
It looks like the government are determined to press ahead with plans for elections in May. According to officials in the DUP, this was Secretary of State Paul Murphy’s clear message in their meeting with him this morning. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
Emily O’Reilly contrasts (subscription or registration needed) the fortunes of the Irish language inside and outside the Gaeltacht areas, and suggests that state intervention with the Gaeltacht has done little to halt the decline of the language. “…as the Gaeltacht shrinks, the appetite for all-Irish schools in the so-called Galltacht, or all-English speaking part of the country, continues to increase. Gaelscoileanna open at the rate of three or four a year, while a number of Irish-speaking secondary schools, Gaelcholaiste, have …
The inimitable Newton Emerson looks at the theological grounding of one Northern Ireland’s most controversial figures, the Reverend Dr Ian Paisley. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
If the hope behind the arrest of Johnny Adair on Friday was to facilitate an end to an incipient Loyalist feud, the government may be disappointed, says Henry McDonald. He also has distrubing news of events behind the withdrawal of the PUP from talks earlier this week: “…the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), was forced to pull out of all-party talks following a mass meeting of the terror group last weekend. The UVF’s rank and file told the PUP it had …
Ruth Dudley Edwards still believes that a Trimble-led Unionist party is the best way forward and casts doubts on whether a new model DUP under the leadership of Peter Robinson can command the kind of numbers within the party to make any deal stick. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
Eilis O’Hanlon criticises the leadership of Mark Durkan for not seeking to wrest the initiative for the Nationalist agenda from Sinn Fein: “He lacks concentration. He too easily allows himself to be drawn into pointless philosophical debates with Sinn Fein, such as when a Catholic majority will emerge, instead of dragging the fight constantly back to issues on which he can draw blood.” “Sinn Fein’s attitude to the SDLP, meanwhile, is to patronise and insult them when they make brave …
Cork emigre, now an academic at the University of Arizona, Kieran Healey picks up on Junius’s Ladybird history theme. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
Mark Devenport with his view of the re-start talks and the recent IRA statement. Meanwhile Mark Durkan is puzzled by the strong reactions to the that statement amd calls for steady nerves. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
More detail from the Galway Advertiser on Donncha Ó hÉallaithe’s report on the falling number of Irish speakers in the Gaeltacht areas. Via North Atlantic Skyline. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
Although the state papers from both Britain and the Republic were available to journalists nearly two weeks ago, some of the stories are only taking on a fuller shape now. Despite some considerable spin, this piece by Steve James goes into more detail than most accounts we’ve seen on the practicalities around the plan to redraw the border in 1972, along with a massive shift in the populations of Catholics and Protestants. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily …
Today interview with Loyalist paramilitary leader Johnny Adair appears in the print version of the Irish Times (with another due in tomorrow’s Sunday Tribune), the day after he has had his license to be out of jail revoked yesterday, and is now back in jail. He will hear today the details of why he has been arrested. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.
In the subscription only Irish Times, biographer and critic Bernard Adams reviews ‘A shared childhood: the story of the integrated schools in Northern Ireland’ by Fionnuala O’Connor. Evidently O’Connor has managed to traverse some extremely problematic territory with some alacrity: “Brian Lambkin, once a teacher in the very first integrated school, Lagan College, states: “What we can say confidently now is that it can be done. You can educate Protestants and Catholics and others together, under the same roof, to …
James Murray Brown in the print version of the FT goes a little further than most correspondents and suggests that the broad outline of a deal may have been settled in a series of meetings at Downing Street with Sinn Fein and the SDLP: “The UK government’s strategy has changed this year. Officials say the ‘period of reflection’ is over. They have put new emphasis on the May 1 dare for elections to the Northern Ireland assembly, shifting from the …