Books

Vicky Cosstick – Imagining a Belfast Without Walls at the 4 Corners Festival

| Readers 818

Townsend Street Presbyterian Church in West Belfast is nestled alongside a peace wall, with a heavy gate that is usually closed at night to stop the flow of traffic through the street. Last night a special dispensation was granted to keep the gate open till 9.30 pm, facilitating those who wanted to hear journalist Vicky Cosstick speaking at the church on her forthcoming book, Belfast: Towards a City Without Walls. The book will be published by Colourpoint in June and …

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On Mary Peters’ Elevation to Companion of Honour

| Readers 1975

Even readers who are especially interested in the New Year’s honours list may have missed the significance of Mary Peters’ elevation to the Order of the Companions of Honour. Peters and Sebastian Coe are the only athletes ever to have received this award. Coverage in the Northern Ireland media has been relatively muted, although the News Letter points out that the award is so rare that there are only allowed to be 65 living recipients at one time. And it …

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The People’s Referendum: Why Scotland Will Never Be the Same Again (Peter Geoghegan)

| Readers 1198

The last book I completed reading in 2014 also turned out to be my favourite of the year. Peter Geoghegan’s The People’s Referendum has been published recently and tells the story of his journey through Scotland and further afield getting under the skin of the independence campaign in the run up to September’s referendum. In Geoghegan’s own words: … the independence referendum changed not just Scottish politics but the nation’s people, its sense of itself and its future. This is …

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“We, Too, Sing Belfast” … perhaps subtitled “We, Too, Snap @NewBelfast!”

| Readers 698

364 days, an estimated 2,000 engagements, thousands of handshakes, around 25,000 tweets, and goodness knows how many selfies … that was a year in the life of Máirtín Ó Muilleoir as Lord Mayor of Belfast. I’m sure many people rolled their eyes or tutted when they heard that the Lord Mayor had agreed to allow a professional photographer to follow him around. From August 2013 through to June 2014, Donal McCann captured images wherever Máirtín Ó Muilleoir went, including travelling …

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Slugger Seasonal Book Club: Vol 4

| Readers 232

It’s getting to be the time of year when you have to start thinking about gifts. Bah. For others. Humbug. Or maybe all this talk about wind farms and / or Amazon Anonymous makes you long for a simpler, pre-tech era. Or perhaps you are just a bibliobibuli, c.f. someone who reads too much. Either way, this seasonal Slugger book club is for you. So pull up an armchair while we discuss classic NI books, past and present. This week….Kathleen …

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Slugger Seasonal Book Club: Vol. 3

| Readers 196

It’s getting to be the time of year when you have to start thinking about gifts. Bah. For others. Humbug. Or maybe you are just a bibliobibuli, c.f. someone who reads too much. Maybe Gregory’s extremely mature “joking” around about his curry yogurt lunch combo (err..yum?) in DUP-land this weekend and Gerry’s similarly enlightened response last night have inspired you to discover your own inner child, a more innocent time when you couldn’t vote for politicians and didn’t have to …

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Serial Podcast: What do you think?

| Readers 855

Have you heard of Serial or are you happy over there, living under your rock? For those who fall in the latter camp, let me briefly summarise. Serial is a podcast, first released last month, which seeks to shed light on the real life case of a Baltimore teenage girl, Hae Min Lee, who was murdered in 1999. Hae’s ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, also a teenager at the time, was arrested and jailed for her murder but he has always maintained …

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Slugger Seasonal Book Club: Vol. 2

| Readers 259

It’s getting to be the time of year when you have to start thinking about gifts. Bah. For others. Humbug. Or maybe just because the November weather is giving you the perfect opportunity to explore like in the Great Indoors. Perhaps you are just a bibliobibuli, c.f. someone who reads too much. Or maybe the dispatches from SDLP party conference have whetted your appetite for escapism. Either way, this seasonal Slugger book club is for you. So pull up an …

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On Jonathan Powell – a vision is needed for talking to terrorists

| Readers 385

I haven’t yet managed to read Jonathan Powell’s new book: Talking to Terrorists: How to End Armed Conflicts”,  but potted  versions like this one in Prospect magazine  delivers his thesis with his usual crispness. “In democracies we cannot kill all the terrorists, so we will have to talk to them at some stage! And just in case you think  he has been seduced by his own experience, he anticipates  the obvious criticism. I am not suggesting that there is a Northern …

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Celebrating Louis MacNeice in Carrickfergus

| Readers 569

The anniversary of the birth of the poet and playwright Louis MacNeice was marked on 12 September with a celebratory event in Carrickfergus Museum and Civic Centre. The event was titled ‘Beyond the Hawthorn Hedge, the Sound of Bugles,’ and was hosted by local historian and author Philip Orr. It included an engaging lecture by Trevor Parkhill, a recording of an interview with MacNeice, readings of his work by local poets, and performances of live music from the era. Artefacts …

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Marie Keenan: Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church – Book Review

| Readers 1238

“The major thesis of my work is that sexual abuse is inevitable given the meaning system that is taught by the Catholic Church and to which many priests adhere. The contradictions force failure and increase shame and a way of living that encourages sexually deviant behaviour.” – Marie Keenan, Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Gender, Power, and Organizational Culture, Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 255, emphasis mine Marie Keenan’s Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church is the …

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Book Review of The Scarlet Woman and the Red Hand: Evangelical Apocalyptic Belief in the Northern Ireland Troubles by Joshua Searle

| Readers 327

Pastor James McConnell’s provocative comments about Islam last month sparked outrage and indignation throughout Northern Ireland – as well as sympathy and defence from some quarters, it must be admitted. But I couldn’t help thinking that what McConnell said about Islam wasn’t all that different from what Rev Ian Paisley had been saying for years about Catholicism. Joshua Searle, Tutor in Theology and Public Thought at Spurgeon’s College, London, sheds light on those segments of Northern Irish evangelicalism which continue …

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Is time the only consistent factor in post-conflict reconciliation?

| Readers 49

In the course of a recent conversation, the statement was made that while international studies can point to many policies and initiatives that failed to lead to increased levels of reconciliation, few if any studies cite examples of practices or policies that can be shown to have successfully accelerated reconciliation. Whether on the back of a family dispute, a church split, or communities driven apart through forty years of conflict (and hundreds of years of debated history before that), the …

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The Democratic Unionist Party: From Protest to Power #dupbook launch

| Readers 313

After much trailing in the Belfast Telegraph, five academics launched their book based around two years of research with DUP members and interviews with DUP elected representatives and staff. The Democratic Unionist Party: From Protest to Power looks at the origins of the DUP and its rise to power, the changing discourses that shifted the party from being anti-agreement to in government post St Andrews, as well as slicing and dicing the membership, the role of religion, faith and women …

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“Glory be the day, Mr Yeats!”

| Readers 79

As the man said…  It’s tradition! Those of a sensitive disposition are duly warned, again, that James Joyce enjoys the language in all its fecund nuttiness. Enjoy! Pete Baker

‘The Living Spirit of Revolt: the Infrapolitics of Anarchism’: Book Review

| Readers 26

How can anarchism get beyond marginalized impacts, finicky theorists, and squabbling activists? A Slovenian political scientist, Žiga Vodovnik, offers suggestions forward. This concise survey occupies a space, if pre-Occupy (despite a 2013 copyright for the English translation this offers no updates but the late Howard Zinn, who died in 2010, provides an encouraging introduction), where an overview of anarchism’s philosophies and history segues into a connection to not only Continental and British thinkers, but its overlooked, attenuated American Transcendental roots. …

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1916 Rising and how it inspired me 78 years later.

| Readers 405

There are a lot of pieces going around today looking back at the Rising and its subsequent impact on the direction of Irish politics. But, I wanted to tell a different story of how the Rising inspired me and impacted on my future direction and beliefs. I don’t claim that this story is indicative of anything, other than my own political values, nor do I believe it is more valuable than other stories, which I hope commentators will share in …

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Friday thread: Perhaps ‘War’ brings a properly social benefit after all?

| Readers 42

Today’s Friday thread is a talk delivered yesterday at the RSA in London by Ian Morris, author of a new book which posits the controversial idea that, over time, war is actually good for us, not necessarily as individuals but as societies. The presentation is fairly short but it was around this part I think Morris gets to the hub of his thesis… Violence is an evolved adaptation. Pretty much every species has its own way of using violence. Each …

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Hunger Strike: Margaret Thatcher’s Battle With the IRA (1980-1981)

| Readers 1311

Hunger Strike: Margaret Thatcher’s Battle With the IRA (1980-1981) Thomas Hennessy Irish Academic Press, 488pp, £19.99 A senior member of the royal family is blown up on his yacht together with his 14-year-old grandson, another teenager and an elderly lady. Hours later, 18 soldiers are killed by two roadside bombs in an ambush on British soil. The following year, prisoners belonging to the terrorist organisation responsible begin the first of two hunger strikes, in which ten of them will die. …

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@LMcAtackney on #Archaeology of the Troubles at #PRONI

| Readers 89

There is a launch tonight in PRONI’s (under-used!) building this evening for Dr Laura McAtackney‘s new book on The Archaeology of the Troubles/The dark heritage of Long Kesh/Maze prison. There are four speakers at the launch, including Laura and Professor Cahal McLaughlin of Queens’s University Belfast who will set the scene by presenting documented personal narratives of Long Kesh/Maze, recorded as part of the ‘Prisons Memory Archive’ project.A member of PRONI staff will also explore archives that illustrate some unusual historical nuances connected …

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