Cillian McGrattan

Beyond the Flag: Is Irish Nationalism’s Obsession with Israel Actually Antisemitism?

Cillian McGrattan on December 3, 2025, 7:00 am

| Readers 5416

A cozy, dark library with books and mirrors.

What if the latest flag controversy – the decision by nationalists to fly the Palestinian flag over Belfast city hall – is not actually about Northern Ireland? What if it’s not even about Palestine? It is difficult to find any pro-Israel voices within Irish nationalism – North and South – but what if the flag incident in Belfast or the attempted removal of Chaim Herzog’s name from a park in Dublin are taken at face-value? I suggest that viewing Irish …

Four Legs Bad … Sectarianism and Progressivism in Northern Ireland

Cillian McGrattan on October 30, 2024, 10:17 am

| Readers 2609

Although Northern Ireland has long considered to be a paradigmatic case of ethnic conflict – a place apart from liberal democratic norms – much of its politics continue to replicate trends found elsewhere. The hollowing out of policy programmes works to shield decision-makers from accountability and denude voters of agency. Outwith policy options a kind of anti-politics takes hold whereby the stuff of debate degenerates into platitudes and virtue-signalling. Of course, that is part and parcel of the performative dimensions …

Justice Colton and the Limitations of ‘Reconciliation’

Cillian McGrattan on March 12, 2024, 7:02 am

| Readers 885

sunflower field under blue sky during sunset

Brian Walker recently commented on Mr Justice Colton’s intervention in the legacy debate – namely his judgment on 28 February in the High Court on a batch of cases seeking judicial review of the 2023 Legacy Act. Brian argued that that 200-page judgment ought to be understood with reference to ‘the basic purpose of the whole enterprise … the key word is “reconciliation”’. This is undoubtedly correct, but assessing peace and justice according to reconciliation is, I suggest, seriously tendentious …

Why Northern Ireland’s anti sectarianism is semi permanently stuck in “the crawler lane”…

Cillian McGrattan on February 15, 2023, 7:53 am

| Readers 4827

In a couple of recent Belfast Telegraph articles Malachi O’Doherty has developed the idea that the core division in Northern Ireland is about more than sovereignty and divided loyalties to either Ireland or Great Britain. ‘We are divided territorially’, he argues. This includes education, schooling, residential segregation, sport, religion, cultural preferences, language ‘and whatever issue some councillors we’ve rarely heard from will choose to quarrel over next’. That the British government has resiled from tackling that fundamental problem of sectarianism …

The Hatch Regeneris Leaks: Department for the Economy Hoping Against Hope.

Cillian McGrattan on December 1, 2021, 2:04 pm

| Readers 1006

The appearance of the previously unpublished Hatch Regeneris Report into fracking and petroleum exploration by Extinction Rebellion on EcoLeaks raises a number of questions for government in Northern Ireland. Fundamentally, it works to highlight some contradictions between the procedural definition of democracy – where government is about the law and the process of policymaking – and a substantive one – where accountability is measured not just in election results but in the responsiveness of government to pressing needs and injustices. …

Will Stormont’s “indifference” over petroleum licensing see an industry rollover jackpot by default?

Cillian McGrattan on October 20, 2021, 12:40 pm

| Readers 1948

In the often mundane world of Assembly questions a recent response by the Minister for the Economy, Gordon Lyons is remarkable in its implications. First among these is the potential for a re-run of the Renewable Heat Initiative (RHI) situation whereby taxpayers continued to make good bad financial and policy calculations on a massive scale. In response to a question by the Green Party’s Rachel Woods, the Minister for the Economy, Gordon Lyons, stated that: ‘I am not in a …

Hating Democracy: Climate Change Legislation in Northern Ireland

Cillian McGrattan on April 2, 2021, 9:13 am

| Readers 1054

The consociational power-sharing/power-dividing system of devolved government at Stormont is a technical fix to a way of thinking about Northern Ireland – a solution to the problem of two incompatible (ethno-religious) traditions. It’s unsurprising that the resort to institutional schema remains the go-to of politicians. However, forcing public debate down pre-prepared channels and, therefore, delimiting the sites (both discursive and physical) where deliberation occurs has profound democratic implications. These implications entail an elitist neutering of debate through agenda-setting. The institutionalization …

On the multiple follies of insider knowledge, in praise of plural thinking…

Cillian McGrattan on December 25, 2017, 9:30 am

| Readers 1279

Sometimes we have to trust experts: If a doctor sends you for a scan you should probably go. Of course you can seek alternative advice but in the absence of specialized knowledge we are rendered rather passive in the face of threats and fears. It is arguable that much of political commentary in Northern Ireland is driven by unknowability and the intercession of experts who provide light and insight. Thus we are told that a problem with Brexit is to …

Northern Ireland Assembly Election of March 2017 and the Limitations of Pragmatism

Cillian McGrattan on March 16, 2017, 2:41 pm

| Readers 1327

In a deeply divided society such as Northern Ireland political developments tend to be filtered through a number of lenses and experienced at a number of levels – arguably to an even greater degree than is the case in other, less fractious countries. Brexit has no doubt played a major role in mobilizing Northern nationalism, which has swung from one of its worst electoral results to one of its best in less than a year. Of course, perceptions of the …