Soapbox 
Frances Morton gives a quick preview of the ESRC Festival of Social Science which runs from 4-11 November with a rich and varied programme to debate, discuss and discover how social science shapes our lives, public policy, the economy and our society.
Colum Eastwood is the Leader of the SDLP There are times when silence is golden and there are times when it is anything but. For weeks now the Stormont talks have operated under a cloud of secrecy feeding the frustration of everyone. There are only so many press releases that the NIO can put out which talk about ‘some progress’ or ‘significant gaps’. There are only so many press conferences that can be staged with everyone saying the same thing. …
On October the 31st, people are marching in cities across the UK to demand recognition, respect and change for working mothers. The well-being of mothers is important because mothers matter as human beings and citizens. However there is now a wealth of evidence showing the importance of parental mental health for the wellbeing of the child across the lifespan. We now know that many of the epigenetic processes that switch on and off DNA, and therefore programme future stress regulation …
When I was asked by friends in a church in Bangor if I would compose a play for them about Martin Luther, I knew it would be a challenge. Firstly, how could I handle such a big topic? Love him or loathe him, Luther is one of the most significant figures in church history. The story of Protestant faith is impossible to understand without looking at him. Even a three-hour epic wouldn’t cover his life adequately. Secondly, how should I …
Carrie Montgomery is deputy chief executive at Contact NI. If 90% of Northern Ireland patient deaths by suicide were assessed as no or low risk during their last contact with services, she asks in this post why the Public Health Agency is being constrained to just provide services for people at high risk of suicide?
Mike Nesbitt is the former leader of the UUP and is the current MLA for Strangford How do you think you would react if you heard that a unionist leader – Robin Swann, or Arlene Foster, for example – was refusing to deal with the NHS waiting lists, or the funding crisis in our schools, unless everyone else agreed to an Ulster Scots Act? I know what my response would be and it wouldn’t be pretty. Yet that’s what Sinn …
Pearse Donnelly, a musician, activist and medical cannabis patient. Regional co-Chair for United Patients Alliance here demonstrates how Cannabis debate is taking off even in politically becalmed Northern Ireland . Two decades in and almost forty weeks into Stormont’s mobocracy, cannabis becomes a unifying force between all major parties in Northern Ireland. All while our nomadic First and deputy First Ministers quibble at an ill-fated Conservative Conference. The representatives in support of this fresh controversy would surely that agree our …
Bertie Ahern, former Taoiseach and someone who has spent a political lifetime in the art of political negotiation gave this speech on Brexit to the Kennedy Summer School a few weeks back. This draft is published with the permission of both the Summer School and the author. The uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the Brexit negotiations is unsettling, and likely to last for some time to come. Brexit has opened up for the first time since the 1990s a major …
This Saturday I attended an event organized by representatives from the Irish News and Slugger O’Toole which took place in Killough Youth and Community Hall titled, ‘Six into 32? Finding a place for Northern Ireland in a United Ireland’. This was apparently part of the Killough ‘Lighthouse Summer School’ but with blustery winds outside and a rough sea pelting the nearby coast it felt decidedly autumnal. I had initially deliberated over whether or not to go- “What if it’s all …
Soapbox: Steven Agnew argues that it’s time to look at voluntary coalition. He says “no party should have the power to tear the devolved institutions down and leave the electorate in Northern Ireland powerless”, adding “that’s why a voluntary coalition can usher in an era of fresh politics and politicians that put people first”.
Cllr Jim McVeigh is the leader of the Sinn Féin group on Belfast City Council. He argues here that in sitting on the fence or blaming both parties for the breakdown of Stormont, political journalists and other commentators are doing the public a huge disservice. Am I the only person enraged by this constant narrative so prevalent in our mainstream media, ‘they’re all useless’ ‘all they do is bicker‘ ‘one side is as bad as the other‘? Like me have you …
Like many people, my first reaction to the August 17 High Court decision regarding Marriage Equality in Northern Ireland was deep disappointment. I saw many friends’ expressions of frustration and heartbreak given the political impasse at Stormont and the current marginalization of LGBT people throughout Northern Ireland not just in policy but in society as well. However, the decision is right for the future of Northern Ireland’s legal system despite its current social impact. (For good commentary on the jurisprudent …
SOAPBOX: Mic Moore is a policy worker in the voluntary sector and vice chair of NIGAG. He argues that every political party needs to urgently decide if it’s in or out of power-sharing, so that the needs of vulnerable people don’t get sucked into the vacuum.
The problems in Northern Ireland’s health service (and in particular our constantly lengthening waiting lists) have been a recurrent topic on Slugger. Reference has been made to successive reports recommending transformation and hospital rationalization and the absence of any effective resulting action. As many of those reports have pointed out, the service here gets much more money per head than our adjacent jurisdiction England; we have more hospital beds, more doctors and more nurses. A 2014 study by the National …
David Capener is a writer based in Belfast, an Editorial contributor at Archinet and a reporter for World Architecure Community. He blogs at www.futurecrowds.com All history is biography. It is the story we tell ourselves to make sense of the world; our place in it, and, those we share it with. Stories shape our world and the storyteller shapes the story. One of the ways our stories find expression is through the manifestation of symbols — flags, images, colours, statues. By …
SOAPBOX – GovCampConnect is back, bringing its unconference user-generated agenda to the beautiful mock gothic Narrow Water Castle near Warrenpoint on 2 September. Head along to discuss open data, citizen engagement, public sector use of social media, smart cities, and government as a platform.
Being told to grasp the bull by the horns is usually a management metaphor for getting on with the job. In my line of work as a country vet, it’s just as likely to be a reality. A significant part of my time is spent Tuberculosis testing cattle as a subcontractor to the department of agriculture. We will all be familiar with the concept of a having a blood test at the doctors and the sample being whisked off to …
SOAPBOX – What place can LGBT people find in religious life in NI. Jonathan McMurray went along to an interfaith dialogue during Belfast Pride and to his surprise found a welcome awaiting the spiritually or religiously inclined.
David Capener is a contributing editor for Archinet a global online architecture website/magazine. As fingers point towards the Markets community of Belfast they do so perpetuating a forty year long narrative that began, in the name of ‘regeneration’, with the unpicking of the grid street system, that since the 19th century had knitted the inner city together. “They started to disconnect the communities and build a wall around the area” says Deirdre showing me a historic plan from the 1800’s …
It seems such a shame that after the much-anticipated launch of Northern Ireland’s new Air Ambulance this month the service should find itself the subject of yet another negative article in the Irish News, this time regarding the condition of our road ambulances and stations. The article reports on how a surprise visit by the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) exposed a number of hygiene breaches in the two ambulance stations inspected, and more importantly in our ambulances. This …
