Soapbox

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! I happen to be the Treasurer of a small older peoples club let’s call it, and since retiring my own personal finances have come into sharper focus. This has thrown up a number of interesting although perhaps …

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Originally from Belfast, A.J. McManus is currently a teacher in the United States. Below is an interview Oliver Napier gave me in his law offices in April, 1996. Sir Oliver Napier (11 July 1935 – 2 July 2011) was the first leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland.In 1974 he served as the first and only Legal Minister and head of the Office of Legal Reform in the Northern Ireland power-sharing executive set up by the Sunningdale Agreement. I …

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Gavin Lafferty is from Belfast One of the Unionist posters on our website I hold in the highest esteem is Choyaa. His recent OP on the online trolling and harassment faced by unionists was a bit of an eye-opener, as were the responses that OP provoked. It definitely made me reflect on some of the terms I have used in the past. Choyaa’s habit of making me think extends to his posts on twitter, one of his more recent catching …

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 Allan Smith is the great-nephew of Brian Desmond Hurst… I lifted the lid the other week on one of our great art mysteries at a Royal Geographical Society talk at Queens University Belfast on the ‘Life of Brian’. Or more correctly how a working class linen worker from East Belfast called Hans Hurst was orphaned at 16, joined the army in the first week of the First Word War and as a rifleman with The Royal Irish Rifles saw his …

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Andrew Trimble chairs RHANI.org, a group of businesses adversely affected by the Department’s mismanagement of the sole programme to decarbonise heating – 30% of all emissions in Northern Ireland. Here he provides an alternative narrative as to what went wrong and continues to plague the commercial Renewable Heating Incentive scheme (RHI). Some still believe that the collapse of Stormont in 2017 was about RHI. Some believe that the actual overspend was a telephone number-like sum of hundreds of millions of pounds. …

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Gareth Williams is a UK Labour Party member with an interest in Northern Ireland. He is writing in a personal capacity. You can follow him on Twitter.  If Rishi Sunak wants a Stormont-shaped trophy, he shouldn’t have any issue ditching such a shameful and universally detested piece of legislation to get it.   On one of the rare occasions in which he actually endeavoured to turn up, Sunak’s recent 3D chess choreography with Jeffrey Donaldson at PMQs has apparently brought us to the …

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David Michell is Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at Trinity College Dublin at Belfast. You can follow him on Twitter. This compelling documentary series put me in mind of a support group for UK nations in which Ireland, Scotland, and Wales sit in a circle and discover that they aren’t alone in experiencing centuries of English subjugation. You were kicked off your land? We were kicked off our land! Your culture was erased? Our culture was erased! Grievances are …

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Philip O’Neill is a retired civil servant from Belfast… I am a retired civil servant. In my planning for retirement, I always wanted to own a boat, and was fortunate to pick myself up a lovely sailboat, something not just for me to enjoy but for family and friends to use, which thankfully they have. I live close to Lough Neagh and it was therefore a no-brainer to have my boat on Lough Neagh. I am a qualified sailor and …

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Colin Murray is a Professor of Law at Newcastle University.  Anurag Deb is a PhD candidate at Queen’s University Belfast and a Legal Executive at KRW Law. If there is one thing over which the UK Government can give itself a pat on the back in Northern Ireland, it is the bringing together of our fragmented and polarised political spectrum in vehement opposition to the heavy-handed imposition of a swingeing Budget and for the passing of the Northern Ireland Troubles …

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Brice Dickson is Professor Emeritus of International and Comparative Law at Queen’s University Belfast and Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission 1999 to 2005 Few pieces of legislation have united as many opponents as the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023, which received Royal Assent on 18 September. From a wide range of local victims’ groups to UN Special Rapporteurs – via all the political parties in Northern Ireland, the Human Rights Commission, the Law …

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Belfast Glenariff is one of our regulars in the comment zone “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there” is the famous opening line of the 1953 L.P. Hartley novel The Go Betweens. Hartley’s book is an interpretation of understanding the past and how we come to terms with our own memories. This got me thinking. If we take 1968 as the beginning of the conflict then the youngest person born at the start of it is …

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Bernie McIlhatton is a Slugger reader from Belfast I enjoyed Sam Thompson’s piece on the Algerian War which emerged from his review (elsewhere) of Patrick Anderson’s Rewriting the Troubles, War and Propaganda, Ireland and Algeria. Sam’s introduction to the Algerian War serves as a usual background for the book’s main focus, reportage and propaganda during political conflict. The book investigated NI’s new controversy. Unionists maintain republicans are ‘Rewriting the Troubles’. Republicans respond that they are excavating their narrative from earlier …

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Patrick Evans is from Tipperary and holds a BA in Public Administration and a MA in Politics. Currently he is based in Vancouver and is a Sinn Féin supporter.  Fintan O’Toole recently published an article in the Irish Times titled ‘Sinn Féin has what might benignly be characterised as deep ambivalence towards the State’. The main trust of his article is that Sinn Féin has an ambivalent attitude to the southern state and that action must be taken to protect …

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This is an anonymous letter from a serving PSNI officer. Whilst we don’t endorse everything the writer says, we’re publishing it because we feel it reflects (albeit subjectively) the current feelings of many within the operational ranks of the Service.  For the first time in my 25 year police career, I have felt a new emotion never felt before. This is absolute and total embarrassment. As the data breach news spread across all media, I was in a garage in …

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Originally from Belfast, John Connolly now lives in Dublin and is retired… It began last night with a game between the hosts, France, and New Zealand. Buoyed on by the home crowd, France had an easy win 27 – 13. An epic way to begin #RWC2023 Relive the best of the action from the opening evening at Stade de France#FRAvNZL pic.twitter.com/wn4s4T3kkl — Rugby World Cup (@rugbyworldcup) September 8, 2023 Much of the commentary so far has been on the imbalance …

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Bill Breathnach is  Writer and TV researcher based in Connemara. Interested in economics, politics and all things cultural… Sinn Féin held their National Hunger Strike Commemoration in Cork nearly a fortnight ago. Even before it took place, the event sparked controversy and heated debate. Writing in the Irish Examiner, journalist Mick Clifford excoriated Sinn Féin for using imagery of Terence MacSwiney, the former Lord Mayor of Cork who died on hunger strike in 1920. In promotional material for the commemoration, …

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Could a more participatory and deliberative approach to politics help to restore, strengthen, and sustain devolved government in Northern Ireland? What are the prospects for citizen-led democracy in Northern Ireland? Join Imagine! Belfast Festival’s free event to celebrate the UN International Day of Democracy on Friday 15 September.