Slugger O'Toole

The government has published plans for the requirement to register for your vote every year to be amended. Under the proposed plans, the Chief Electoral Officer can decide when the roll needs refreshing. It is also proposed that people should be able to get on the register up until 11 days before an election, in an attempt to up the number of people registered to vote in Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein’s national director of elections Pat Doherty MP welcomed the …

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The Daily Ireland reports that PSNI Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, has been called a “disgrace” by the chairman of the Loyalist Commission over his claim in an e-mail that the police “are the only ones doing anything about the loyalist feud”. The Reverend Mervyn Gibson said Orde “doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about”. “If the PSNI did their job properly, we would not have had this feud in the first place,” he said. Meanwhile, another man was shot …

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The Parade in Belfast yesterday was one like no other seen in Northern Ireland for the rest of the year. Rainbow balloons, boats, jazz bands, disco dancing and Spiderman on a quad bike – It was Belfast Gay Pride 2005. While many rainbow feet followed the extensive route, protesters from the ‘Stop the Parade Coalition’ stood at City Hall. This year, another Christian group – ‘Zero28’ expressed it’s wish for the anti- Pride groups to cancel their protest. Organisers and …

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The BBC, and the Associated Press, report the response of Colombian Vice-President Francisco Santos to the sudden re-appearance of James Monaghan and, presumably, the other two men who fled Colombia after being convicted of training FARC – “Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern must demonstrate his country’s commitment to the global fight against terrorism.” Meanwhile, along with the official denials of any deal with SF, the Irish Examiner rounds up the political reaction here.. and the British Government, via the NIO, …

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Prominent Labour Party MP, former Foreign Secretary and Leader of the Commons, Robin Cook has died after collapsing during a hill-walking holiday in Scotland. Guardian report here Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

The Irish Times reports that Eileen Paisley could be on her way to the House of Lords while husband Ian is being tipped for elevation to Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council, enabling him to go by the title “the right honourable member” for North Antrim. Eileen would become a Baroness or Lady, I assume. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Loyalist Paramilitaries are being blamed for the serious rioting last night in the Crumlin Road area. Reports tell of 10 cars and a bus being hijacked and set alight, petrol bombs being thrown and 40 police officers being hurt. The trouble followed the arrest of 6 men in connection with the ongoing loyalist feud, in which three men have already been murdered. Police in riot gear went to the scene, and 11 baton rounds were fired. Northern Ireland’s criminal justice …

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John O’Farrell in the New Statesman believes that Tony Blair was singularly equiped to understand the journey that the IRA could make from violence to peaceful democratic engagement with state, as much from his mother’s Donegal background as anything else. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

IN the Irish Times, David Adams argues that “It is becoming clearer by the day that the British government believes the political institutions in Northern Ireland cannot be revived.” Some excerpts from the article – Whether the judgment is that neither Sinn Féin nor the DUP is genuinely committed to reaching an agreement on power-sharing or, more charitably, that the gulf between them is so wide as to be unbridgeable is largely irrelevant. With far more pressing matters than Northern …

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One thing summer in Northern Ireland always brings, if not the sun, is exam results. The Scottish Qualifications Authority is ditching ‘snail mail’ in favour of text to deliver results as part of a new pilot scheme being tested in the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland. Pupils will receive their results only after replying ‘Yes’ to a text from the SQA. Like most mobile services today, the SQA doesn’t manage to give exact details of how much the service will …

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RTÉ is reporting that Martin McCauley, Niall Connolly and Jim Monaghan, better know as the Colombia Three, are back in Ireland. First reaction from the DUP is already in with deputy leader Peter Robinson calling on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to find them and hand them back. Jim Monaghan confirmed to RTÉ that the men had returned to Ireland in the past few days. However, he would not say how they got here. He said that they had got a ‘lot …

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The pictures on the right are drawn from the Flickr Northern Ireland group. You can have your own photos appear before a global audience, simply by signing up to Flickr and then posting your online snaps to the group. Check out the Ireland and IrishBlogs groups too. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

A year on from the referendum to change the Irish Republic’s citizenship laws, it has been revealed that 477 people have been refused entry from Northern Ireland to the Irish Republic in the first six months of 2005, an increase of nearly 250% over a year. Thanks Seamus for this even if it’s a little late. A special Garda immigration unit based in Dundalk stopped the people in the first six months while in the same period last year, they …

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It seems that the DUP is planning to take on the case of Sean Kelly to judicial review, after Peter Hain decided to keep the evidence on which he had ordered Kelly’s re-arrest secret. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Some of you may be interested in a play on Radio 4 on Friday named ‘Dungannon’. It’s the story of a young mother’s efforts to get a home for her family in County Tyrone in 1963… more here. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

A story that broke yesterday that hasnt been covered yet is that former Secretary of State Mo Mowlam is critically ill in hospital. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Danny Morrison looks at what he believes is the end of a very long era in Irish Republican history. He begins by noting the raggedy start to the IRA’s campaing: “Support for the IRA in its defensive role after the pogroms of August 1969 was overwhelming in Belfast. However, support for armed struggle came testily in dribs and drabs”. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Believe it or not, I’m heading off on holiday in a few days. I will continue to blog, but it will be very occasional. I’ll be back towards the end of the month to tune in for the new political season in Northern Ireland. In September we’ll have news of an exciting new online project, and we hope to have some serious sponsorship for Slugger by then too. In the meantime, if you’ve enjoyed Slugger and want to help keep …

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Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley meet Tony Blair separately today to tell him why the other is being unreasonable. Adams on the BBC Today programme refered to having “the usual re-cyclable interview” (sound file) with John Humphries. Perhaps most interesting, was Adams’ statement that he now had to “accept the authority of the police”. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Quentin Peel, writing in today’s FT, argues that despite ‘a good result’, Sinn Fein should not be allowed to forget (subs needed) the parallels between their own campaign of violence and that being waged in Baghdad, London and other places against innocent people. The IRA move is not just because al-Qaeda has given terrorism a bad name, to put it crudely. That is true, of course. The attacks of September 11 2001 suddenly brought home to ordinary Americans, in particular, …

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