Brian O'Neill

This interesting event popped into my inbox. The John and Pat Hume Foundation and INCORE are delighted that Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, the distinguished international human rights lawyer, will deliver an address on ‘Lawyers in the Firing Line: Attacking the Advocates’ at the NI Human Rights Festival at 6.30pm on Monday 8 December 2025 in Room BC LG 304, in the University of Ulster Belfast campus, York Street, Belfast. The lecture will be followed by a conversation chaired by Prof Rory …

Read more…

Watching the events of this week, I can’t help but be struck by the performative nature of it all. Everything is gesture, everything is theatre. Everyone hits their mark, delivers their line, waits for their side of the audience to cheer. The set changes. The script never does. Like any right‑thinking person, I find the genocide in Gaza utterly abhorrent. I understand why people want to show solidarity. I get the instinct to shout, march, protest, wave flags, demand something …

Read more…

SDLP MLA for East Derry, Cara Hunter, is in today’s Guardian talking about being the victim of a deep fake porn video. In simple terms, her face was digitally added to a porn clip. As you can imagine, the situation was personally very distressing and humiliating for her. She talks about the toll it had on her mental health as well as her wider family network. It’s hard enough getting women involved in politics without this kind of stuff. But …

Read more…

I was talking to a pharmacy owner over the weekend who said they had hired an extra pharmacist over the winter to cope with the rising demand from people with the flu. Experts are worried that this could be the worst flu season in a decade. From the BBC: Flu strikes every winter, but this year something seems to be different. A seasonal flu virus suddenly mutated in the summer. It appears to evade some of our immunity, has kick-started …

Read more…

The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not …

Read more…

In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any …

Read more…

DUP MLA for South Antrim Trevor Clarke took to his Facebook page with the following post: I nearly fell off my chair this morning when I heard on the Nolan Show that the Alliance Party’s Chair of the Education Committee, Nick Mathison, could not, when repeatedly asked, rule out “Witchcraft” or “Paganism” being taught in primary schools! It must be a magical place to be in the Alliance Party that you have to be soooo inclusive, you wouldn’t rule out …

Read more…

The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not …

Read more…

In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any …

Read more…

Over in the Irish News, Brian Feeney thinks our unloved Assembly is not long for this world. From his article: They need to face the reality that unionists don’t want to share power with nationalists of whatever stripe, and that any unionist party that reluctantly does immediately faces attack from a party that doesn’t. Thus the DUP is now looking over its shoulder at the advancing TUV. The bad news is we’re stuck. Given the current state of politics, there’ll …

Read more…

John Rosborough has done his quarterly rummage through the RAJARs again, and this one lands with a thud. BBC Radio Ulster has managed to misplace over 100,000 listeners in twelve months. They were sitting at 462,000. Now they’re at 358,000. That’s not a dip. That’s the sort of fall that makes you stare at the graph for a moment just to check someone hasn’t labelled the axis wrong. It comes at a time when the station feels a bit wobbly …

Read more…

The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not …

Read more…

In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any …

Read more…

Our always popular live event returns to the Black Box on Tuesday, the 16th of December 2025. Join Alex Kane, Allison Morris and Alan Meban as they reflect on the year in politics. This event is sponsored by Brown O’Connor. This event always sells out, so to avoid disappointment, book your tickets now… Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in …

Read more…

From the BBC: Last week, the Telegraph published an exclusive report, external, saying it had seen a leaked internal BBC memo. The memo came from Michael Prescott, a former independent external adviser to the broadcaster’s editorial standards committee. He left the role in June. The memo suggested that the one-hour Panorama documentary had edited parts of Trump’s speech together so he appeared to explicitly encourage the Capitol Hill riot of January 2021. In his speech in Washington DC on 6 …

Read more…

The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not …

Read more…

In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any …

Read more…

This press release popped into my inbox and I am happy to give it a plug as I think gambling is a scourge on our society, particularly with young men and internet gambling. The Northern Ireland Assembly’s All-Party Group on Reducing Harm Related to Gambling has written to the Chancellor to express serious concern over Treasury proposals to ‘harmonise’ tax rates for different forms of remote gambling, a move the Group warns would undermine efforts to reduce gambling-related harm across …

Read more…

The New York mayoral election is proving to be unusually lively, even by that city’s standards. Zohran Mamdani appears poised to become its first Muslim mayor, a milestone that has both delighted and terrified, depending on one’s perspective. For some commentators, his rise marks the beginning of the “land of the free” surrendering to a tide of extremism and moral decay. For others, it’s simply the story of a young, attractive, articulate politician who speaks to the frustrations of ordinary …

Read more…

The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not …

Read more…