Soapbox 
Helen Armstrong lives in the North West and is a psychotherapist, executive coach and trainer. Here we go again on the Transfer Test merry-go-round as children all over NI have just sat the first test of 2024. I want to continue the conversation from my first article at the beginning of this year around why I think the test is a really bad idea not just for our children but for our society as a whole. He coped with it well …
Paul Moore is the author of ‘Doctor Paisley and Mister Clerk – Recollections of Ian Paisley’s Agriculture Committee Years’. It is available from Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09WCPWHQH On the 2nd of December 2024, it will be exactly 25 years since ‘the appointed day’ – the day when legislative powers and executive authorities were devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly. But what were things really like back in thse heady days of 1999? Paul Moore – a former Assembly official who had been …
Eamonn Duffin is a local writer based in Belfast. His work has been featured in The Belfast Review and The Honest Ulsterman. A recent piece of analysis in The Guardian informs us that Christmas creep is getting earlier every year. Apparently, it is now a full 45 days before the birthday of the baby Jesus. 45 days! Is that all? From what I have seen the last few years, Christmas starts on Easter Monday when the Easter eggs are replaced …
Dr Anne Darcy is part of Psychologists for Social Change NI who apply psychology to policy and political action. He sat tall and straight in his chair with his infant daughter on his knee. When I was greeted by his kind eyes and invited to sit, she suddenly sat very still and fixed me with her big brown eyes. Again and again, she would go back to being content and animated as she sat within the protection of her father’s …
Colin Coulter is Professor of Sociology in Maynooth University. Here he asks some technical but searching questions about the gold standard ARINS survey, and why it is important to have a consistent base in such an influential survey. While the criteria that might determine the calling of a border poll remain opaque, it is almost certain that opinion polls will have at least some bearing on the decision. The recent deliberations of a panel of experts, after all, concluded that …
David Moane is Dublin-based and retired who likes to comment on current affairs. Here we reprint his short first take from his Facebook page that focuses largely, but not exclusively, on what Donald Trump’s second term might mean for Ireland. FIVE TAKES FOR TRUMP’S SECOND TERM The Trump coalition extends well beyond the traditional Republican base and is more representative of America as it is today. The Democrats coalition is more brittle. This could be an insurmountable challenge for that …
Ruairí McDonnell attended the Trump rally in New York City. During the September 10 Presidential debate, Kamala Harris urged viewers to attend one of Donald Trump’s rallies, mocking the size of his crowds and suggesting attendees might leave due to boredom and exhaustion. However, if those listening to her that night had chosen to attend Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden, they would have found her assessments to be misguided. Instead of boredom, they’d have found a vibrant atmosphere with …
Philip O’Neill is a retired civil servant and should not be confused with the equally retired Chief Operating Officer of Translink also called Philip O’Neill You may recall a while back I wrote an OP extolling the virtues of the new Belfast transport hub. At the time Grand Central Station was only open to buses, and the Hub only opened for train services recently. I was impressed by the detail that had gone into the new hub, Italian floors etc. …
TE Lawrence is a Slugger regular from Belfast It was a post from Maise from this parish who declared that she remembered being at The Kings Hall for the GFA Referendum Vote Count which I responded to by saying I was also there and Remember the Hall singing to Ian Paisley (Sen) ‘I’m your yesterdays man’ I wouldn’t sing it as I knew while the Shinners flew over Stockmans Lane Cock-A-Hoop to party in their West Belfast Homelands, I was …
David Jamison is writing about those items that catch his attention now looking through an older person’s eyes. He lives in Belfast and since retiring recently he is trying to make sense of a fast-changing world and trying his best to keep up! The purpose of the event was so that older people are provided an opportunity to debate their issues directly with key decision makers. Unfortunately word came out on Friday that Ministers would not be in attendance this …
Macha is a slugger reader from Armagh The Irish News reports… Over 30 metres of peace wall were removed to make way for the £7 million Black Mountain Share Space which is located at the former Finlay’s factory site on Ballygomartin Road. Funding for the building was sourced from the EU’s Peace IV Programme, along with the Republic’s Department of Rural and Community Development and Stormont’s Department for Communities. Funding was also provided by Belfast City Council. It is managed …
Erica Blair is the pen name of a Belfast-based Free Speech Union member. At the risk of doing a Kier ‘my father was a toolmaker’ Starmer, I was brought up in a left-wing household in working class Belfast. We read the Daily Mirror. The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse sat on a shelf beside the 1969 street directory, two Reader’s Digest encyclopaedias (A-L and M-Z), a dictionary and the bible. I still have the poetry book and the street directory. …
David Michell is Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at Trinity College Dublin at Belfast. You can follow him on Twitter. It’s good to see the Executive working on normal politics again. But the flag problem – one of the great unsolvables of the peace process – hasn’t gone away. And the fact that there hasn’t been much talk about flags recently means it’s a good time to talk about flags. The flag problem is several interlinked problems. The problem …
Editors note: This OP by Jérôme à Paris an investment banker and blogger specialising in renewable energy projects is not for the faint hearted, as it includes a discussion of the design and usefulness of contracts for difference (CfDs) designed to provide confidence to investors in a very volatile market for electricity prices. However, the significance for the general reader is that even in the absence of consistent state policies and subsidies, solar energy is basically becoming the core part …
Macha is a Slugger reader from County Armagh I bought Slugger a Christmas Drink in 2020, so I’ve been hanging out here pretty regularly for at least four years. Often I read more than I comment, but I have been known to get drawn into long and sometimes heated debates. While people dismiss toxic online interactions, the effect of them is not insignificant. I’m quite clear on the belief that if you are awful online, being lovely in “real life” doesn’t cancel the awfulness out. …
Philip O’Neill is a retired civil servant from Belfast I have always wanted to be a roving reporter and yesterday I got the opportunity to do so. Slugger was invited to the press launch for the new Grand Central Station, and as the usual suspects could not attend I was delegated to attend. You will have by now seen the coverage on TV or in the newspapers, however I have decided to look at the new station from a social …
David Morrow is a Policy Analyst, Chartered Accountant, and Dad from Belfast. He previously worked in policy at Stormont, and is writing in a personal capacity. The NI Executive has the money to fund affordable childcare. It spends it elsewhere NI has an affordable childcare crisis – bills for parents are close to £1,000 per month on average, over half of parents go into savings or debt to pay for childcare, and many parents (usually mothers) feel obliged to cut …
Darcey Youngman is a writer, from Manchester, who recently graduated with an Masters in Creative Writing at Queens University. She currently based in Belfast and working at the Seamus Heaney Centre. When I first moved to Belfast; I didn’t know the meanings of a flag. I didn’t know they stood for so much, and how I knew so little. I had held a union jack when I was younger, while celebrating the Queens Jubilee. My mum had painted one on my …
Jérôme à Paris is a French investment banker specialising in large scale energy projects and was a regular contributor on energy topics in the early days of Daily Kos – the main US liberal political blog – and also founded the European Tribune to focus on European issues. Nowadays he focuses on financing renewable energy projects and writes occasional blogs to counteract widespread public misunderstandings of renewable energy often propagated by oil and nuclear industry interests. Key themes include the …
Séimí Mac Aindreasa is from the Shaws Road Gaeltacht in Belfast. His stories have been published in three anthologies and online. Consider the floor. The floor is an amazing thing. Unassuming and flat, it nevertheless commands enough respect that walls and roof are required to cover and protect it. We decorate it with fancy tiles; we smother it in shiny linoleum; we bedeck it with expensive rugs. We brush and wash it as if it were a prize stallion. We …
