Mick Fealty – Page 4 – Slugger O'Toole

Northern Ireland needs politicians and journalists with the courage to call government to account

Mick Fealty on February 12, 2025, 11:49 am

| Readers 2853

a green figure in a circle

“The human mind is incapable of rest, what it needs is change” -Winston Churchill There’s definitely a change in the air when it comes to the future of Northern Irish politics. Eighteen years the Executive and the power sharing Assembly has achieved a genuinely deepening peace, and from that peace has sprung a new prosperity. But it is unavoidably obvious what it has failed at too. Lee Reynolds (a former DUP SpAd) summarised the core problem, adroitly last Thursday on …

Stormont could do worse than develop a Sláintecare approach to health service reforms.

Mick Fealty on February 5, 2025, 12:16 pm

| Readers 1175

person holding jigsaw puzzle piece

I was on Nolan this morning discussing how the Secretary of State Hilary Benn had hit a few nerves yesterday on the first anniversary of the restart of Stormont when he laid out the abysmal Health record in Northern Ireland… 53% of people waiting for a first appointment with a consultant are waiting for more than a year in Northern Ireland. In England, that figure is 4%. That’s right, 53% compared to just 4%. Mr Benn said he agreed with …

Micheál Martin’s hard track through the harsh and unforgiving Alps of Irish politics…

Mick Fealty on February 3, 2025, 11:57 am

| Readers 2519

road on mountain hills during day

So last Thursday Micheál Martin (a day later than scheduled because of some stormy weather in the Dáil) the man who many pundits once predicted would be the first Fianna Fáil leader never to become Taoiseach became Taoiseach for a second time. Indeed nothing was inevitable about Fianna Fáil’s return. When it happened in 2020 few believed it would last more than a few months. Leo Varadkar looked downright miserable at the very thought of coalescing with Fine Gael’s bete …

Remembering the Holocaust 80 years after the first liberation…

Mick Fealty on January 27, 2025, 11:20 am

| Readers 2425

spiral gray and black digital wallpaper

On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz (and the 20th of my original post on the matter), here’s the moving words of my old friend Phillip Whitfield…. Day of Liberation (Bergen-Belsen, May 1945) We build our own prison walls, but that day the doors fell open. It was holiday time In the death camp. Lift him with courtesy, this silent survivor. Battle-dress doctors, We took him from the truck, put him to bed. The moving skeleton had crippled …

“We are gradually harvesting for good the energy of the whirlpool…”

Mick Fealty on January 24, 2025, 9:13 am

| Readers 979

green leaf plant in tilt shift lens

“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” is a line from the unfinished essay A Defence of Poetry by Percy Bysshe Shelley. A claim, hard to stand up these days when too much poetry has hedged its bets on bland, post modern subjectivism. But in the quiet, often understated work of Michael Longley, who has died, lies a courageous willingness to take on what many never found the words to express about the complex ways Northern Ireland would change …

Magic of Christmas Slugger Playlist…

Mick Fealty on December 24, 2024, 1:48 pm

| Readers 1718

brown and white conch on seashore

Thinking of all our readers as we run down for Christmas. One of the few times of the year we all get to slow down together (ie, at the same time). As we occasionally do I’m asking for your contributions to a Slugger Christmas playlist. Starting the ball rolling with this young Cork woman with an amazing voice, LYRA… Thanks for all your trust, your scepticism, your insight and your inquiries, and may the conversations on Slugger continue to flow …

After #GE2024 even in the south Sinn Féin remains haunted by its own largely secret northern legacy

Mick Fealty on December 16, 2024, 4:47 pm

| Readers 5508

I’ve put off writing an analysis of Sinn Féin’s fate in the southern general election on Feynman’s principle that “if you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it.” I’m still not sure I do, so only time will tell if what follows is right. The party made two seat gains, but largely because of the addition of 14 extra seats in the 34th Dáil. All three of the larger parties lost vote share but Sinn Féin lost …

If Election 2024 is anything to go by Fianna Fáil’s slow growth approach seems to be working just fine

Mick Fealty on December 2, 2024, 9:29 pm

| Readers 2612

aerial view of people walking on cross pedestrian lane

To be honest about the election it felt more like a dour mid winter scoring draw than any victory. Yet, after all the shouting’s done, the two main parties of the outgoing coalition still have the ball. This was a secure consolidation in tough conditions. Let’s look at some of the key numbers in order to distinguish what actually happened from of the weird party spin that conjured alternative realities from the RTÉ Exit Poll which rated Fianna Fáil at …

Election 2024: Exit poll suggests we’ll all be doing this again in another five years…

Mick Fealty on November 30, 2024, 9:10 am

| Readers 5690

Counting is under way, so all we have at the moment is the exit poll. There’s just 1.6% separating the three main parties. But if the actual result is close to these figures it means steady as she goes for the next five years for the FG/FF core coalition. As Olivia O’Leary notes in the IT this morning, the voters aren’t eejits… 14.28 Update: 80% of the country tallied: FF 20.8%, FG 20.0%, SF 18.2% Mick FealtyMick is founding editor …

Election 2024: Sinn Féin should take lessons from Fianna Fáil on what civic republicanism can do…

Mick Fealty on November 28, 2024, 3:49 pm

| Readers 3805

person holding floral umbrella between buildings

If I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor. James, Sit Down After years of enduring glad handed propaganda about how well the Republic is doing (and economically it is) the testimonials of real people during the last three weeks of the election campaign show the depth of misery that many are currently enduring. Housing was the key issue in the 2020 election and it remains a huge issue, but it’s clear from various polls and many …

Showtime or substance: Head to head with Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin’s promises on all island futures look weak

Mick Fealty on November 21, 2024, 2:54 pm

| Readers 3147

a circular light fixture hanging from a ceiling

This week in the Irish Times Fintan O’Toole asks why is this election so dull? There are probably several answers to that question, the most obvious being that in calling the shortest possible campaign period the government parties likely wanted that way. The other is that because of multi member constituencies Irish elections are esoteric affairs making it impossible to guess at how each party is likely to fare. Opinion polls measure at most first and second preferences nationally, not …

Challenge for Democrats is drop pretensions and get real about progress for the common man and woman

Mick Fealty on November 15, 2024, 4:22 pm

| Readers 1639

selective focus photo of baby on green grass field

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. -HR Mencken, On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe “Game, set and match to Trump”, said one of his biggest supporters, Elon Musk. If you do subscribe to the idea that Trump is, to use Mencken’s words, ‘a downright moron’ then ask yourself why the ‘smarter’ Democrat party has lost twice …

Questions facing Sinn Fein are reasonable and answerable it just can’t answer them honestly

Mick Fealty on October 25, 2024, 1:42 pm

| Readers 4859

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…novelty ordinarily emerges only for the man who, knowing with precision what he should expect, is able to recognise that something has gone wrong. Thomas S. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions Every time this storm around Sinn Féin looks like abating, something else kicks it off again. Wednesday’s committee meeting may have been a cynical attempt to strong-arm an Assembly committee into silence, but it also raised an important question. Is there an impermeable boundary between the First Minister’s civic …

Another escape from scrutiny as First Minister runs roughshod over Stormont committee…

Mick Fealty on October 24, 2024, 7:12 am

| Readers 3126

white bottle with cup

I’m putting this up with a minimum of comment. It’s the Stormont Committee for The Executive Office (TEO) which has accumulated 1.7k views within hours of the session finishing. The reason being is that it is utterly shambolic. At the heart of the spectacle is an odd confusion about committee rules that have in place for 26 years. It’s not actually obvious if anyone on the committee (possibly even including the clerk) understood those rules up to the point they …

Sinn Féin’s secrecy crisis deepens as victim gives his version of the Ó Donnghaile story

Mick Fealty on October 20, 2024, 5:47 pm

| Readers 8320

yellow car toy on white surface

You knew Sinn Féin was in some trouble when it called for Paddy Kielty to be censured for a joke at the start of the Late Late Show, even though their ongoing saga has been pretty much the only thing in the southern domestic news for the last fortnight. Then on Saturday evening the Sunday Independent dropped a bombshell in the form of aa personal testimony from the young person Niall O Donnghaile sent the inappropriate texts which eventually lead …

Sinn Féin’s “politics of concealment” means that what we know now is certainly not “the story…”

Mick Fealty on October 18, 2024, 11:02 am

| Readers 6315

an abandoned building with graffiti on the walls

In the weirdest consensus of post Belfast Agreement Northern Ireland Sinn Féin has agreed to a TUV proposal to cancel former Lord Mayor Niall Ó Donnghaile. Just days ago he was using X to attack journalists for following the McMonagle story. That was before we knew about his own behaviour, and the real reason for his stepping down with a fine encomium from party leader Mary Lou McDonald. Along his official portrait, all evidence of his existence on Twitter has …

There’s no magic carpet out of Sinn Féin’s multiplying issues, other than to make some hard choices…

Mick Fealty on October 15, 2024, 3:45 pm

| Readers 6695

selective focus photography of wind blowing on four green and purple buntings

So Sinn Féin’s troubles continue, this time they are merely deepening in the south. Over the weekend the party lost its second TD in a week to resignation. It wasn’t over the McMonagle case but the result of internal machinations. Kildare South TD Patricia Ryan resigned last Wednesday citing internal censorship by the national leadership of any criticism of the party’s dismal performance in the local and European elections, and the vetting of questions for Mary Lou McDonald. Then on …

In the Dáil Sinn Féin leadership still trying to deflect as further details emerge on McMonagle’s access to Stormont

Mick Fealty on October 9, 2024, 6:55 am

| Readers 4968

You’d wonder what Pearse Doherty was on yesterday in the Dáil when his colleague and leader of the opposition treated their party’s liabilities around McMonagle with lurid insouciance, as it becomes ever obvious the whole party needs to go into rehab. Political parties are a particular type of voluntary organisation which plays an important role in gauging public sentiment and mediating between ordinary people and ultimately the institutions of government be it in opposition or as party of the executive. …

Question for Sinn Féin over its handling of convicted sex abuser: who had knowledge?

Mick Fealty on October 7, 2024, 10:40 am

| Readers 3131

moon eclipse

“…uncertainty eases the way for con artists to make fraudulent claims” -Rob Nelson Listening to Carlo Gebler’s new podcast series for BBC Radio 4 on the Provisional IRA’s mass escape from the Maze Prison back in September 1983 you cannot fail to be impressed with its meticulous planning and ruthless execution by the prisoners. Organisation was to become the hallmark of Sinn Féin’s electoral success as they moved from a twin track armed/democratic struggle to a latter day commitment to …

Maurice Quinlivan TD on McMonagle: “I’ll be quite clear, I’m pretty sure we didn’t know…”

Mick Fealty on October 5, 2024, 8:43 am

| Readers 3464

to be continued sigange

A messy few days in, and some inside Sinn Féin must be questioning the party hierarchy’s decision to make its head northern spin doctor carry the can for what increasingly looks like a much wider screw up. In 22 years I don’t remember anything like it. The problem with secrecy, be it that of the Catholic Church or in more recent times Sinn Féin’s problematic handling of sex cases within its own ranks, is that eventually it gets hard to …