Obelisk 
One of the factors that complicate any solution to the violence currently plaguing the Middle East is the need for one side or the other to convincingly be able to declare victory. To tell its supporters that all the pain, all the sacrifice, all the death was worth it. To end the war without being able to declare you’ve won is tantamount to accepting you’ve lost, and few things are as painful to accept as defeat in a conflict. After …
Sometimes a historical nugget comes out of the woodwork that, when you read it, illuminates for but a moment a completely alternate pathway that our history may have taken.Such is the case with the 1607 proposal from Sir Thomas Shirley who proposed settling Jews from the continent in Ulster to King James I. I imagine most people, like myself, are unfamiliar with the exploits of a man who died nearly four centuries ago but the summary at the top of …
It may surprise few here to learn that these days, Jim Allister is not a very happy man. Yes, this year he has achieved his long-held ambition of becoming an MP (and uprooting the Paisley dynasty from their North Antrim redoubt at the same time). Yes, recent polling has positioned him as the most popular of the three current Unionist leaders, and yes that same polling has put his Traditional Unionist Voice party into second place amongst Unionist voters but …
I never intended for this to become a series. I had hoped that at each point some measure of sanity would prevail and that the combatants in the unfolding catastrophe in the Middle East would pull back from the brink rather than dance precariously upon it to see how far they could push things. With the assassination of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah a few days ago and the invasion of Lebanon this morning it feels as if a moment of …
The Loyalist Communities Council has received condemnation from across much of the political spectrum when they intervened on the matter of the new Irish medium language school in East Belfast. According to an article in the ‘Belfast Telegraph’, ‘Representatives from the LCC, led by chair David Campbell, met with Paul Givan earlier today and said they had told the DUP Minister that any proposed school “has no meaningful support from the local unionist and loyalist population and no consultation had …
A month and a half ago, I published a piece in the aftermath of two assassinations in the Middle East where I asked if we were standing at the edge of disaster. After all, it was hard to imagine how Israel could directly provoke two of its most dangerous adversaries more. Fuad Shukr, one of the most senior commanders within Lebanon’s Hezbollah, was killed in Beiruit in response to a Hezbollah attack the previous weekend which had killed twelve children …
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but have you heard the story of the Unionist leader who begins arguing that Unionism needs to reach out beyond its core constituency in order to help shore up the Union? Peter Robinson back in the day tried it as this BBC news report from back in 2011 reminds us where he announced his intention to try and target voters outside Unionism. He reinforced this aspiration when he delivered the Edward Carson …
The great, quite often articulated fear that has haunted the Middle East and the wider world since the shocking events of October 7th has been the possibility that the harrowing events we have witnessed these past ten months, particularly in Gaza, were but a prelude to something much, much worse; all-out war in the Middle East between Iran and its proxies and Israel along with the United States. Events began to spiral out of control last Saturday when a rocket …
News from Derry that the family of the late and legendary John and Pat Hume have distanced themselves from the new “Peacemakers Museum” which has opened in the city. According to Seamus McKinney at the ‘Irish News‘ “The family claim the new museum lacks inclusivity and have also complained that of the three politicians at the centre of the project, including their father, two were members of Sinn Féin. The museum, which opened at the Gasyard Centre is centred on …
We are now post-election and a fair assessment will be that the greening of the west is essentially complete, with the final unionist seat west of the Bann sure to be the one to watch in elections to come. However, if reports in local papers are to be believed, the DUP is considerably more sanguine regarding the spread of the colour green elsewhere on our maps, with the ongoing greening of Lough Neagh due to the proliferation of blue-green algae …
In an alternate universe somewhere, Naomi Long leads a triumphant triumvirate of Alliance MPs back to Westminster with Sorcha Eastwood taking Lagan Valley, Stephen Farry holding on to North Down and Naomi herself reclaiming East Belfast from the DUP. But in this universe, that’s not what happened. Alex Easton swept Stephen Farry aside with ease to reclaim North Down for Unionism in spite of controversies surrounding his election agent and competition from the UUP’s Tim Collins. Farry’s own vote total …
