Brian Walker – Page 64 – Slugger O'Toole

Do we really have the happiest places in the UK or are we just too easily pleased?

Brian Walker on October 27, 2013, 8:24 pm

| Readers 106

Lies, damn lies and subeditors.. Same as last year. ? Does Northern Ireland really boast the happiest places in the UK? So the past is over and done with, right? Maybe we’d better look a bit deeper… Jenny McCartney the rather fierce daughter of the fierce Bob QC, ex MP, in her Telegraph column gives away the secret of life if you’ve been reared in the Gold Coast. Northern Ireland is pleasantly empty if you’re not set among the huddled masses and can drive quickly past …

Obsessing over history and identity won’t educate our kids or bring them closer together

Brian Walker on October 26, 2013, 4:09 pm

| Readers 99

Forgive me if I take advantage of my posting rights to reply to Andy Pollak’s interesting post on cross border exchanges in education and go on to widen the issue. Much closer cooperation is a no brainer. What’s stopping it? The introverted pressures of financial austerity? Preoccupation with different systems and problems N&S? Might it be seen – wrongly – as a pleasant optional extra rather than a significant contribution? Fifteen years since the GFA fundamental questions need to be revisited. …

The DUP’s approach to dealing with the past rolls back the GFA

Brian Walker on October 24, 2013, 10:52 pm

| Readers 122

Yesterday’s opposition day debate in the Commons on Dealing With The Past initiated by the DUP was attended by only just enough GB MPs – about 20-odd – to make up the quorum of 40. Have a browse in Hansard to get the full flavour if you’re feeling strong enough. Sinn Fein’s absence is a pity. In parliament a real debate is better than sermonising. If they were present there would be a lot more authentic flavour and less of the sound …

The Glenanne story proves the time for frank admissions is overdue: further prevarication over collusion implies Briitsh government cover-up

Brian Walker on October 24, 2013, 11:40 am

| Readers 2609

Like most of the atrocities of the Troubles the story of the Glenanne gang isn’t unfamiliar Suzanne Breen for one gave a detailed account of the 1976 Kingmills and Reavey brothers massacres in January 2011 based it would seem on “ imminent” HET reports. Of the Reavey murders she stated as a matter of established fact: The attack was carried out by the UVF’s infamous Glenanne gang, which operated in a murder triangle between south Armagh and mid-Ulster. Made up of …

Ardoyne plaque forges new link between present tensions and a terrible past.

Brian Walker on October 23, 2013, 6:40 pm

| Readers 123

This part of the Flora Bradley-Watson’s report in the Belfast Telegraph of the commemoration of the bombing of Frizzell’s shop leapt out at me. Charlie Butler, who lost three relatives in the attack – his niece Evelyn Baird, her partner Michael Morrison and their daughter Michelle – said that he had relied on the support of the Shankill community. “It gives me strength to see the people are still behind us.” Mr Butler said that he was offended by the …

Bloody Sunday prosecutions might be justifed if they prompted IRA confessions

Brian Walker on October 22, 2013, 2:22 pm

| Readers 135

Douglas Murray is a libertarian right winger who goes in head-on where others hesitate. He wrote a forensically detailed and heart breaking account of Bloody Sunday which was equally unsparing of the Army and persistently questioning of the IRA, as was noted by Gladys when his book appeared just after the highly emotional reception that greeted the Saville report. In his Spectator blog Murray has continued to put awkward questions to the Army and Martin McGuinness alike. Although I am all for the argument that we should …

Meanwhile over at what really matters…

Brian Walker on October 8, 2013, 5:14 pm

| Readers 49

Well below the big headline on the latest torrid twist with Gerry Adams’ grim mugshot at the top, lurks the unassuming headline “NI trailing in English and Maths”. This is the local version of the big OECD report on educational performance in England and NI which concludes that today’s kids are less well educated in the basics than their grandparents (people like me). And yes there’s a paradox here.” Northern Ireland is ‘best in Europe’ at primary maths. But that …

The SNP cooperates, but Northern Ireland stays partly aloof from UK National Crime Agency

Brian Walker on October 7, 2013, 12:18 pm

| Readers 64

Isn’t this amazing? Here we have a Scottish government poised for a referendum on independence, yet in the meantime enthusiastically co-operating with making the new UK National Crime Agency effective in Scotland. A Scottish Government spokesman said: “The introduction of Serious Crime Prevention Orders will give law enforcement agencies another vital tool in their kit. “The Scottish Government is consulting on their introduction, which we hope will follow a similar format to those in place in England and Wales, in the …

The decline of traditional patriotism in Britain and Ireland

Brian Walker on September 21, 2013, 10:17 pm

| Readers 330

Remember the great closing episode of Blackadder from the trenches of the Great War where the artful dodger meets his nemesis at last : “ We need a futile gesture?” The “futile gesture” being that he was to lead his men over the top to be mown down by the German machine guns. But it was in Ireland that the futile gesture worked best, in the blood sacrifice of 1916. The Irish Times had some fun at the taoiseach’s expense …

The Pope is still a Catholic but maybe one like John XX111

Brian Walker on September 21, 2013, 12:19 am

| Readers 72

There’s no doubt of the instant secular and humanist appeal of Pope Francis’s interview with a Jesuist magazine . The pope has attempted to change the whole direction of modern Catholicism.. Not since Khruschev denounced Stalin at the 20th Communist party conference has there been such a reforming speech-. That was the speech that tore away the veil of official adulation from the monster Stalin in 1956 three years after his death, followed quickly by the expedient execution of mass murderer …

The Haass agenda on the past. The release of documents must include MI5’s and others in the secret state

Brian Walker on September 16, 2013, 5:22 pm

| Readers 59

The remarks by Teresa Villiers on dealing with the past will surprise no one. They serve as a reminder of who is ultimately in charge, despite bashfully standing on the sidelines. The era of public inquiries is over. For good or ill there will be no public inquiry into Finucane, the “Ballymurphy massacre” or any other terrible incident with major question marks hanging over it. Since Savile, the limitations of inquiries have been demonstrated at a cost of another hundred million pounds. …

The Irish way of death celebrated

Brian Walker on September 13, 2013, 1:45 pm

| Readers 119

Katherine Butler has contributed a very touching piece to the Indy commending the Irish way of death, compared to death as the last English taboo. This is one area where the twin cultures differ, perhaps because of the earlier English retreat from religion. Will the Irish follow and lose touch with death eventually? Even if Protestants tend not to observe the full three fold ritual favoured by Catholics, they still owe a lot to it whether they realise it or not..I’ve …

So he’s staying. But what will be the Robinson legacy?

Brian Walker on September 11, 2013, 3:19 pm

| Readers 45

It’s a common tactic of most people in public life to exaggerate the criticism being made of them when they make the feisty reply. Peter Robinson is no exception. His recent output has been genuinely revealing. I have no privileged information whatever but I have read his Florida letter and his Bel Tel article. The Florida missive revealed his default position of lashing out against criticism rather than rising above it at times of tension, the Bel Tel the old trick …

Decommissioning advice for Damascus?

Brian Walker on September 10, 2013, 6:31 pm

| Readers 59

Is a de Chastelain-type decommissioning process soon to hit Damascus? Will our own international peacemakers rush over to give advice? But which side would they advise? Al-Assad or the Russians and their nominees? It took the good general 10 long years and a lot of guile from Gerry Adams, as that connoisseur of IRA strategy Ed Moloney recalled. Barack Obama should ask the Clintons what he’s letting himself in for. Off the hook perhaps?. Ten years is two and a half presidential …

Alex Salmond’s case for a surviving Social Union undermined

Brian Walker on September 10, 2013, 1:27 pm

| Readers 59

Polling on Scottish independence shows opinion staying stuck broadly against it in familiar proportions, despite the rising volume of campaigning. But as this will be is an unprecedented once for all exercise with plenty of “don’t knows”, or “not yet decided” in the frame, there are no grounds for complacency. The SNP’s White Paper on independence is expected next month on which they will be judged. Meanwhile the classic case for the Union is made by Jim Gallagher, a principal architect of devolution. …

A brave new orthodoxy. Whatever you say, say nothing.

Brian Walker on September 7, 2013, 12:22 am

| Readers 49

Eamonn McCann’s class war may be a touch whiskery these days but it still helps him punch a big hole in one of our brave new orthodoxies. A little while ago, a friend attended a session of non-sectarian training sponsored by her employer. Each must respect the “culture” of the other side, it was explained. For example, the Orange Order was an expression of the identity of the Protestant community: to disrespect the order was to disrespect Protestants. My friend …

The record needs correcting. Britain deserves the main credit for ending the Troubles

Brian Walker on August 27, 2013, 1:34 pm

| Readers 64

Keeping up the legacy of history theme, The Newsletter has asked Paul Bew to develop his idea for the release of government papers on Northern Ireland earlier than the new 20 year rule. The QUB historian and peer believes that the spate of detailed inquiry reports on what went wrong during the Troubles should be better balanced by what went right. For that he gives more credit than has perhaps been acknowledged to the Northern Ireland Office. It’s played the …

More on the trend of reconciliation in the decade of commemoration

Brian Walker on August 25, 2013, 1:21 pm

| Readers 79

Stephen Collins writes in the Irish Times: So far the decade of commemoration for the great events spanning the 1912 to 1922 period that led to Irish independence has been marked in a similar spirit or reconciliation and compromise. The tens of thousands of Irish men who fought in the first World War have finally received due recognition and the State has even given formal recognition to the Ulster Volunteers, whose entire purpose was to block independence. However, …

The Maze is part of a shared past

Brian Walker on August 24, 2013, 12:41 am

| Readers 53

Malachi O’Doherty is magnificently right. The best result for the Maze project would have been/ still should be to provide an unsparing and comprehensive account of the Troubles, murders, conspiracies and weasel politics, including the narratives without which it is a meaningless recitation of horror. Conflict resolution could come in the last gallery just before the shop. What a powerful statement it would be coming from the post-Agreement generation of parties and what avenues it would open for collective cognitive therapy. …

Derry is different. The lessons for Belfast are limited

Brian Walker on August 21, 2013, 12:37 pm

| Readers 582

How different is Derry? Dan Keenan in the Irish Times and Steven McCaffery in the Detail are right to celebrate the huge success of Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann under the broad banner of UK City of Culture. McCaffery draws an appropriate conclusion from the inclusive flavour evident in the Fleadh and the whole year so far. What a turn round for Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann as well as community relations in our time. The Fleadh is an Irish event and will inevitably have …