Brian Walker – Page 53 – Slugger O'Toole

The Michaella McCollum interview: big mistake by the broadcasters

Brian Walker on April 5, 2016, 9:48 am

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The Irish Times joins the Belfast Telegraph in criticising the soft focus treatment of drugs smuggler Michaella McCollum. She was interviewed for RTE Features by independent film maker Trevor Birnie of Below the Radar films, an outfit that is usually associated with investigative journalism. As the Irish Times’ Hugh Linehan points out.. Given the circumstances, one might have expected a few hard questions. How much were you going to be paid for the job? Did you get money in advance? …

Gerry Adams at Easter. In full

Brian Walker on April 3, 2016, 10:42 am

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I though it worthwhile to put on the record Gerry Adams’ Easter Centenary address, part unreconstructed old republicanism, part election address, a classic of its kind in style and content, without further comment. On Sunday 27th March, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD addressed the Easter Rising commemoration in Belfast’s Milltown Cemetery. Mr Adams stated that hurts and divisions must be healed if we are to realise the vision of the 1916 Proclamation. HIs speech in full: Address by …

In defence of John Bruton

Brian Walker on March 30, 2016, 11:22 am

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It was brave of former Taoiseach John Bruton to chose last week to return to the ultimate Irish counterfactual. He’s taken to task for it in the Irish Times by historian Dr Brian P Murphy OSB I believe,” said Bruton, “Ireland would have reached the position it is in today, an independent nation of 26 or 28 counties, if it had stuck with the Home Rule policy and if the 1916 rebellion had not taken place.” the choice to use …

With hindsight should unionism have been represented in Dublin yesterday?

Brian Walker on March 28, 2016, 10:08 am

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It’s a fair question. Representatives of unionism would have been warmly welcomed to the reviewing stand in O’Connell St on their own terms which would have underlined the end of the old ambivalence towards the use of violence in the North. But perhaps this was not the moment. By common consent, reconciliation has not been impeded. It was nationalism’s day, no matter how you line up the variable geometry. Our German allies do not attend Armistice Day (although Mrs Merkel …

1916 is still worth a fret or two

Brian Walker on March 21, 2016, 3:28 pm

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I’ve just finished reading my latest foray into an absorbing subject, Ruth Dudley Edwards’s magnificent The Seven, her biographical account of the main leaders of the Easter Rising, guardedly but critically reviewed by the historian and Irish Times columnist Diarmaid Ferriter here. While Ruth may be dismissed by some as the arch revisionist, no reader can deny her command of biographical detail ( much of it her own research, some of it owing to many others who have written about …

Gay rights campaigner Tatchell switches to support gay cake appeal

Brian Walker on February 2, 2016, 7:56 pm

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Peter Tatchell no less, who is second only to Jeff Dudgeon as a gay rights campaigner, will have given some comfort to those who although they support gay rights have qualms about the legal finding against Asher’s the bakers. On the eve of the Asher’s appeal, Tatchell has changed his mind. Jeff had reservations about the case from the start. When it comes to Ashers and the cake, I don’t think there was ever any intention to start that dispute. …

Terry Wogan made ordinary life special

Brian Walker on January 31, 2016, 7:45 pm

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If there was another Irish broadcaster who forced me to sit in the car park and make me late for work it was Gay Byrne. Gay had a similar subversive streak and a light touch with a sting in the tail. But he did not travel so well across the Irish Sea, nor did he aspire to. Terry Wogan gave comfort to millions by spreading the word that the struggles of daily life are shared far more widely than we …

What will be the followup to new police move on the Birmingham bombings?

Brian Walker on January 30, 2016, 1:22 pm

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(Kieran) Conway, who is a now a solicitor in Dublin specialising in criminal defence,, voluntarily spoke to detectives in connection with his memoir of life inside the IRA “South Side Provisional”. In the book, Conway revealed certain details about the Birmingham pub bombings to which the IRA has never officially admitted. No one has ever been convicted in relation to the atrocity in England’s second city… For decades the IRA never publicly admitted they carried out the atrocity but Conway …

Back to the future – the only possible headline

Brian Walker on January 29, 2016, 12:07 am

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Even now it’s hard to believe it ever happened. Remember the famous gull wings of the pride of Dumurry? And its big sell as the saviour of Northern Ireland with Protestant workers using one door of the factory and Catholics another? As it was written so it must be true, in the era of the hunger strike. It was one hell of a diversion from the Troubles and won us a different sort of headline for a while before …

The biggest losers in failing to come clean on the past is the reputation and authority of the state and its servants.

Brian Walker on January 28, 2016, 12:24 pm

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You don’t have to be a transitional justice zealot or a Provie fellow traveller to recognise that the heat is on the British government, the police and security authorities over dealing with the past. You can be a judge like Lord Justice Weir blasting the police and indirectly the government for the inordinate delays in producing inquest evidence, now that high court judges have taken over the coroner’s service. You only need to be a supporter the DUP or TUV, …

The scheme for gathering information on the Troubles ignores the public interest

Brian Walker on January 26, 2016, 12:42 pm

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News is dribbling out about the proposed cumbersomely- named Independent Commission on Information Retrieval on the Past – despite the fact that the proposals for dealing with the Past have not yet been agreed. Even without a flood of confessions from paramilitaries, this body may yet prove to be the most important in a complicated set -up which includes an Oral history archive. In the Newsletter Sam McBride and his headline writer splutter unnecessarily about Martin McGuinness’s role in making …

Less concentration on political personalities, more on substance is needed.

Brian Walker on January 8, 2016, 12:06 pm

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I’m struck by the fact that so much newspaper comment in the wake of Fresh Start has dwelt on the personalities rather than the issues. It’s as if the parties were still playing the old games of direct rule and had none of the responsibilities of government at all. Too much comment is about political attitudes and behaviour rather than focusing on what politicians are charged with deciding. Has Arlene got what it takes? asks Fionnuala O’Connor with characteristic perceptiveness. Who …

In Churchill’s words, the proper response to violence is to keep buggering on, (not necessarily literally)

Brian Walker on December 6, 2015, 3:06 pm

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Not that anyone need have noticed, but I’ve been away for a while in Italy and in rural France where on the day after the horror, fellow oldies like me checked out their adult kids in Paris before turning back to Sunday lunch and the weighty tax burden as the favourite topic of choice. With only just a touch of embarrassment, this version of normality has been elevated to the status of brave and almost heroic response to the terrorist …

Why suffer allegations of involvement with the nutting squad? Because you’re worth it.

Brian Walker on October 31, 2015, 11:00 am

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EXPENSIVE INJUSTICE: The whole cat’s cradle of allegation and murder is getting more expensive by the day, The DDPs’ decision to reopen the entire Scappaticci file won’t make it any cheaper. See today’s Times (£) for the latest. Stand by for the inevitable public row.

Stormont deal now looking likely

Brian Walker on October 12, 2015, 10:27 am

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Very gradually, the language surrounding the political talks is changing from negative to cautiously constructive, as Noel McAdam’s report shows .. In the strongest indication the party could return to the Executive, Mrs Foster has said the DUP will respond “positively” to positive developments during the inter-party talks on IRA activity and welfare reform. There may be sticking points over dealing with the past but these are not political deal breakers. Newton Emerson in the Irish News and at length …

On the political future, the answers are available and lie mainly with ourselves

Brian Walker on October 3, 2015, 1:50 pm

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Yelps of alarm are appearing in the papers as the political talks are poised to enter a third week without signs of resolution. Depression seems to be the order the day. Theresa Villiers reports a big gap remaining between the parties . Jim Downey in the Indo depicts a chronic low intensity crisis which the Republic has ignored and over which it has little leverage More or less quiet”? If you look closely, you can see that the place isn’t …

Brian Friel 2

Brian Walker on October 2, 2015, 11:58 pm

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Forgive the minor personal recollections, but they’re bound to come to mind. I first encountered Brian Friel in the front line of the throng that stood silently in the freezing cold as the coffins of Bloody Sunday victims emerged from a torrid requiem mass in St Mary’s Creggan. There was a silent moment of mutual recognition of the awfulness of the event. As the Guardian says in its obituary: The Freedom of the City (premiered in Dublin and subsequently directed …

Reflections on the SDLP, prompted by Seamus Mallon

Brian Walker on October 2, 2015, 6:01 pm

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Seamus Mallon, estimable figure that he still is, has left it a bit late to declare that a “fundamental mistake” was made to allow Sinn Féin into government without decommissioning. His point is not new but I don’t remember him saying it at the time. As Seamus’s successor as DFM Mark Durkan retails it: “Tony Blair at that time – we reminded him of this at Weston Park – said, ‘Yeah, you guys, your problem is you don’t have guns.” …

Well Eamonn, those are your doubts about the latest legacy proposals, but what would you do differently?

Brian Walker on October 1, 2015, 10:59 am

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In the Irish Times Eamonn McCann is sceptical about the proposed Stormont House Agreement Bill’s ability to deal with the past. At Westminster on October 12th, Northern Secretary Theresa Villiers will introduce legislation on dealing with the past. But the chances of it working are very small. Even handedly, he shares fears that both the Bloody Sunday police investigations involving the army, and the information given under immunity on the Disappeared involving the IRA, will finally and quietly result in …

For the AssembIy solution, it’s the Stormont House agenda, stupid!

Brian Walker on September 27, 2015, 2:30 pm

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Amid all the sterile political sparring, the most significant development in the Assembly stand- off has been the one that has been almost totally ignored – the UK governments’ publication of a summary of measures which would form the basis of a Northern Ireland (Stormont House Agreement ) Bill to be included in the Queens Speech at the beginning of the Westminster session. With the addition of the paramilitary monitoring review , the summary confirms the obvious fact that the …