Justice Colton and the Limitations of ‘Reconciliation’

sunflower field under blue sky during sunset

Brian Walker recently commented on Mr Justice Colton’s intervention in the legacy debate – namely his judgment on 28 February in the High Court on a batch of cases seeking judicial review of the 2023 Legacy Act. Brian argued that that 200-page judgment ought to be understood with reference to ‘the basic purpose of the whole enterprise … the key word is “reconciliation”’. This is undoubtedly correct, but assessing peace and justice according to reconciliation is, I suggest, seriously tendentious …

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Two very different leaders call for a dumping of old ways to bring a more inclusive Northern Ireland into being…

maps lying on the floor

I don’t usually post at weekends, but the chatter about Jeffrey Donaldson’s interview on TalkBack in which he talked about “unionism shaping political change going forward”, combined with Micheál Martin’s remarks to the Alliance Party there is definitely something interesting afoot. The Donaldson piece is not a fade or tactical manoeuvre, although Kevin Meagher made a good point yesterday on Nolan when we were both on together, that Donaldson’s rhetoric repeated a note of reconciliation from Robinson in 2011 (and …

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“a striking manifestation of the confidence and optimism of the shared island initiative…”

bridge, autumn, nature

As recently as November Irish News columnist Brian Feeney wrote a column under the heading to the effect that “The Irish government and Fianna Fáil have no policy at all on the north”. [Ahem – Ed] Well, the secret of politics is in the timing. In a year that will see elections on both island’s Micheál Martin’s brainchild the Shared Island Initiative has finally made people sit up and take notice. The initiative was launched in 202o and by the …

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After a big day for Irish nationalism it’s time to make the institutions they now lead actually work

a couple of tools that are sitting on a table

Saturday was a big day for Nationalism, and few summed it up as well as the new Nationalist leader of the opposition, Matthew O’Toole: As we walked down the stairs into the Great Hall, we passed the figure of James Craig, Northern Ireland’s first Prime Minister — the man who built this Building and this state in his image. Whatever one’s view of him, Craig was a far-sighted strategist, but even he was unlikely to have foreseen today’s events. The …

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As Sir Jeffrey emerges with an unexpected answer to Northern Ireland’s dilemmas, so must others…

grayscale photo of duck on water

Brian has it in one. There are no excuses, now the DUP’s great misadventure with an aspirational Brexit they (nor any of their loyalist critics) would never be able to shape or control is at an end. Their eyes were bigger than their belly, which allowed them to be distracted from their main purpose as an NI Unionist party, which as Jeffrey Donaldson has noted, is to make Northern Ireland work. I appreciate Frank’s concern about some of the wording …

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Our tired and failing democracy needs a new set of eyes

close-up photography of girl

“Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for she was born in another time.” — Rabindranath Tagore Good to see the Belfast Summit launched (Carlos Moreno is internationally influential and is a bit of a coup for them) just after the news of the likely restoration of Stormont. I hope we do get back to work. On Good Morning Scotland (36.19) this morning I provided context for this breakdown and then agreement to anyone listening at such an early …

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The Belfast Summit takes place on the 15th February 2024…

An event next month at Ulster University will put Belfast City Centre – good, bad and open to improvement – under the spotlight. The main draw to the Belfast Summit, organised by communications, public affairs and research specialists MW Advocate, is Professor Carlos Moreno – the creator of the 15-minute city concept and the man who is the driving force behind Paris’s regeneration plan. Organisers are hoping to stimulate and facilitate a conversation to examine how Belfast can become one of Europe’s leading small …

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On the face of it Donaldson’s deal will keep the whole UK aligned with the EU

Rather than farce, the DUP executive’s decision last night is a crossing of the rubicon. Sir Jeffrey’s problem in selling it is likely to relate to the expectations of other unionist voices and leaders. The BBC reports his take as follows: Sir Jeffrey said the legislation agreed with Westminster would “remove checks on goods moving within the UK and remaining in NI, and end NI blindly following EU laws”. He added: “There will be legislation protecting the Acts of Union, …

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NI 21 is long gone but maybe it wasn’t the worst of ideas.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy on the new; not on fighting the old but ib building the new” – SOCRATES It was quiet in the leader’s office as we awaited the arrival of the party officers. Just the Director of Communications and me. “What we need is a swap Unionist day.” I explained: “If everyone in the UUP who could fit into the DUP and those in the DUP who could fit into the …

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The DUP’s actual problem is everybody’s actual problem?

To answer my own rhetorical question, it is simply because they cannot bear to be in government (because it loses them votes, rather than grows them). For most of their fifty plus years they were oppositionist. The elder Paisley he made a good fist of at least looking like they enjoyed the trappings of power. But according to insiders at the time, although the atmosphere was good, nothing was getting done. Back in 2008, I gave a presentation in NICVA …

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The Hope of Possibility

My Dad died two days before Christmas. I was on my way up to see him when I got a missed call and a text from my brother telling me he’d passed away. He had pancreatic cancer. The time between diagnosis and death is often short. Before you’ve had time to wrap your head around the fact that your loved one is ill, they are gone.  The shock of the loss is as sharp and painful as the grief. How …

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[Long Read] Next Irish Election will test whether what a government does makes a difference

In 2024 four billion people go to the polls: about half the population of the planet. In the US, poll watchers predict a Trump win in a campaign where he may spend more time in court than on the stump. In the early 1930s, Will Rogers, a lifelong Democrat joked that the reason Republicans nearly always won the Whitehouse back then was that they had a habit of having three bad years followed by one good one. The good year …

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Gerry Kelly libel case: “The abuse of process in this case is so blatant that it would be utterly unjust if the court were to allow the proceedings to continue.”

justice, statue, lady justice

As the BBC report, Belfast High Court has thrown out a libel case brought by Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly against freelance journalist Malachi O’Doherty, describing it as “scandalous, frivolous and vexatious”. As the Irish Times report notes In a decision published on Monday, The Master of Belfast High Court, Evan Bell, also struck out Mr Kelly’s defamation action on the basis that “the proceedings are an abuse of process”, that it “has no realistic prospect of success”, and that …

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Fix climate change and congestion with better buses

A recent job change, for me, led to a minor conundrum associated with the loss of a free city centre parking space. I could either continue to drive to work and pay for all day parking (£7 is the lowest price I’m aware of) or I could use the bus. I opted for the bus.  The Antrim Road area, where I live, is quite well served by the Metro 1 route. Using the “Belfast Bus Tracker” third party app (App …

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In praise of… Moderation

These two random gentlemen randomly beseeched me to take this random photograph. I randomly obliged.

I know I promised I’d shut up for the rest of the year, but after I finished yesterday’s round up I realised I’d forgotten to thank probably the most important members of Slugger online, ie the moderators. Thanks to Brian the team has expanded considerably over the last year which has spread the burden of keeping the conversations here both convivial and (largely) on topic. They’re an amazing bunch. The job they do cannot be underestimated. Almost every online conversation …

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A brief coffee time review of 2023, before the return of real politics in 2024?

red kerosene lantern

In a year in which we seem to have gone from Storm Ciarán to Storm Pia in the blink of an eye, the changeable weather elsewhere barely seems to have touched the deadlock of NI politics. In a February edition of The Irish News there’s an editorial that reads, Moment of truth nearing or Donaldson, just ahead of the announcement of the Windsor Framework [Was that this year? – Ed]. By any measure that moment of truth is still to …

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Can ‘cradle to the grave Unionism’ live with being a little less British?

Quaint river town

“My grandfather was a Unionist; my father was a Unionist. I was born a Unionist and I will die a Unionist”. In similar mode, DUP MP Carla Lockhart speaking at the 2023 Party Conference referred to having grown up in a ‘Paisley-ite family’ and still wearing the term ‘with pride.’ Passionate assertions like this are indicative of ‘cradle to the grave protestant Unionism’; encrusted by conflict and a sense of betrayal. Electoral fodder with gravitational pull for political ambition, it …

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As another “deadline” goes whooshing past, NI continues to choke on its indigestible form of consociationalism

beach, sea, sunset

I’m not sure where the northern press pack got its briefing that the DUP might come out and back the deal it has long been negotiating with the UK administration, but it looks like that call is wrong yet again. Few, it seems, have understood the motivations of the DUP in regard to what it will take to persuade them to re-shoulder their local responsibilities and enable all parties go back into office. The UK government has already met some …

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Getting beyond pitchforks, or the Republic of Ireland has changed, and changed utterly…

american gothic, grant wood, painting

David Moane is retired, in his sixties, and has lived in Dublin most of my life. He’s an avid consumer of Irish and British media and writes in a purely personal capacity about how the Republic has changed in his lifetime. I remember our accession to the EEC in 1973, the long terrible saga of the Northern Ireland (NI) conflict, the turbulent 1980s, the Celtic tiger years (c1995 to 2010), the Crash years (2010-15) and since then the remarkable recovery. …

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