Andy Pollak 
Ballymena is my home town. I left it as a small child when my parents took me to London, and I have lived for most of the past 50 years in Dublin. But, for better or worse, it still has a special place in my affections. Like most Irish towns, it has its fair share of lovely, kind people, including some, among them members of my family, who have taken in Ukrainian refugees. But it is also a place of …
It’s not an original thought to observe that many people in Northern Ireland are still obsessed – haunted even – by the traumatic experiences of the ‘Troubles’. 27 years after the coming of relative peace with the passing of the Good Friday Agreement and the last terrible atrocity in Omagh, the northern newspapers are full of stories about so-called ‘legacy issues.’ Take one day last week, 13th May. The nationalist Irish News reported that Ulster Human Rights Watch (an organisation which advocates …
As a Northerner living in Dublin, I sometimes I get weary with the way that the great bulk of news from Northern Ireland is negative: the continuing sectarianism; the logjam over legacy; the ineffectiveness of the NI Executive; the poisoning of Lough Neagh; the declining health service; the hopelessness of the DUP; the rows over inconsequential tribal issues like Irish language signs at Belfast’s new central station; and the poor economic, education and health statistics when compared to the Republic. …
I was at the fourth Shared Island Forum in Dublin Castle earlier this month when the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, gave one of those remarkably reconciling speeches that he is becoming known for. The former chief executive of Cooperation Ireland, Tony Kennedy, called it “the first post-nationalist speech I’ve heard from a Fianna Fail Taoiseach”. Martin is a rare Southern leader in that he has a deep interest in Northern Ireland. It was “the issue that first sparked my interest in …
We live in a world in turmoil, dominated by extremely ugly political leaders: right-wing megalomaniacs like Donald Trump, warmongers like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, fascists and authoritarians like Marine Le Pen and Victor Orban. So it is a breath of fresh air to meet a hard-working, high-speed social democratic politician like SDLP leader Claire Hanna. I met Hanna last month in her office in Belfast. She breezed into the room full of chat and energy, although it was a …
The world has been reeling in the past 10 days since President Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance’s cruel two-handed public humiliation of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House. Even more shattering has been the realisation that NATO without its American security ‘umbrella’ is probably dead and the nations of Europe need to massively re-arm to take over from a newly isolationist US the role of keeping the continent (or at least its eastern European constituents) safe from …
I am going to return to the theme of my last blog earlier this month: the need for a forum to discuss not the constitutional politics which continue to divide the people of this island, but the values – peace, democracy, equality, community, environmental sustainability, Christianity in all its forms, and European-ness – which the great majority of Irish people, north and south, have in common. My belief in the need for an all-Ireland Forum on Common Values was only …
Last week on the same day I was involved in two very interesting conversations about the way forward for this island. I had lunch with a young Belfast-born, Dublin-resident solicitor called Ross Neill. Neill is that rare thing: somebody from a unionist background who now lives and works happily in Dublin and calls himself a nationalist (an SDLP-style nationalist). In particular he is an admirer of John Hume. He quotes Hume in America saying “the most amazing thing” about the …
Alliance Party leader and Northern Ireland Justice Minister Naomi Long is somebody who is rarely interviewed or profiled by the Southern media, and almost never appears on public platforms in the Republic. But she is an impressive woman. I was at the latest ARINS (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South) event in Dublin last month to hear her talk about ‘My Identity’. This working class East Belfast woman comes from tough circumstances: her father worked in Harland and Wolff …
We are seeing the second coming of the megalomaniac Donald Trump to the American presidency; the genocidal war of Israel in Gaza; the brutal war of Russia in Ukraine; continuing civil wars in Sudan and Syria (although there is a glimmer of hope in the latter with the overthrow of the evil Assad regime); the rise of the far right in previously stable European democracies like France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands; and, above all, the failure …
We in the South have a general election this week. The campaign has been an uninspiring one, with the three expected topics dominating debate: housing, the cost of living and (to a lesser extent) immigration. If you are under 35 and not well-off, it is the first of these which has been top of the agenda, given the extreme difficulty such people have in buying any kind of house or apartment. Not surprisingly Sinn Féin’s impressive housing spokesman, Eoin O …
Moderate, sensible, cautionary voices from Irish nationalism and Ulster Unionism are rare enough. But they are still out there. In the past month I have been reading or listening to four of them: a former Tánaiste, a Southern Protestant, a Northern Orangeman and a distinguished international academic. There is a lot I disagree with Michael McDowell on (particularly on refugees and migration). But he often talks sense when it comes to the North. He was writing in the Irish Times earlier this …
Catherine Pollock (no relation – different spelling) from Derry is an unusual and remarkable woman. From a working class unionist background, she now works for the Irish language and cultural organisation Cultúrlann. She says of herself: “I’m not a unionist, but I’m not a nationalist or a republican either. I am British, and also Irish. My politics are left of centre – very left of centre for some people. I’m a socialist.” Is the British element in her culture and …
I have just returned from a holiday in Spain. The main news story while I was there was an argument between the central government in Madrid and the regional government in the Canary Islands about who should take responsibility for the daily stream of refugees and economic migrants arriving on those islands on flimsy small boats from West Africa. Over 22,000 have arrived so far this year, and some charities are warning that there may be another 150,000 – many …
Young people chanting ‘Oh, ah, up the Ra’ is becoming commonplace in nationalist – and not-so-nationalist – Ireland. Primary age children were at it during the big homecoming parade for the Olympic team in Dublin earlier this month. And it drew arguably the biggest crowd of the day for those ancient IRA fellow-travellers, the Wolfe Tones, at the Electric Picnic music festival in Stradbally, County Laois. “People are going to sing that chant anyway. It’s like the Jackie’s Army song,” …
In all the wonderful hype about Ireland’s four Olympic gold medallists, there was one aspect that went relatively unreported – at least here in the republic. The fact that two of them – Daniel Wiffen in the 800 metres swimming final and gymnast Rhys McClenaghan on the pommel horse – were from Northern Ireland was, of course, widely highlighted. What was missing from most of the coverage I saw was that these Olympic champions were two rather atypical Northerners wearing …
July is the month I take a break from political commentary and go cycling around Ireland. Two years ago – with my friend David Ward – I cycled from Mizen Head in west Cork to Fair Head in north Antrim. In contrast, this year we decided to cycle from north-west to south-east: from Derry city to Rosslare in Wexford. That involved putting the bicycles on the train to Belfast and Derry and back from Rosslare. I have often wondered why …
The results of the British general election in Northern Ireland confirmed what we already know. The DUP is in deep trouble: the loss of three of its heartland seats in Lagan Valley (the constituency of its former leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, now charged with historical sexual offences), North and South Antrim is a further body blow. It is good to see the back of Ian Paisley junior, whose career, in Belfast Telegraph columnist Sam McBride’s words, was characterised by “swagger, hubris and greed.” …
I was at the big Ireland’s Future rally in Belfast earlier this month. The line-up of speakers was impressively broad and sometimes not obviously nationalist: from former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to former Alliance leader Lord John Alderdice, from the SDLP’s Claire Hanna to DUP founder member Wallace Thompson, from Irish Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik to GAA president Jarlath Burns. However the most powerful speech I heard was not from a politician about Irish unity, but from a doctor about …
Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised when I say that I am glad to see the Sinn Féin vote cratering in the local and European elections in the Republic. Under 12% in those elections is some dive downwards from the mid-30s high of opinion polls in recent years. I do not see this development through the eyes of the Dublin resident that I am, but from the viewpoint of a non-republican Northerner. I have never believed that …
