Society and Culture – Page 4 – Slugger O'Toole

The Sporting Weekend: The Premier League Returns.

ItwasSammyMcNally on August 15, 2025, 8:53 pm

| Readers 631

a stadium filled with lots of blue seats

Whilst some of us may trace all of our little island’s problems and disagreements back to our perfidious neighbour – that same neighbour has provided us with something that we can all disagree about amicably – the English Premier League. …and whilst our constitutional allegiance and our county or province of origin may determine whether we fancy Rugger or GAA or the League of Ireland or the Irish League or Celtic or Rangers – the good old Premier League gloriously …

Why painting the Orange only in the darkest colours will rebound on nationalism…

Mick Fealty on July 22, 2025, 7:00 am

| Readers 7688

shallow focus photo of assorted paint brush lot

I wonder what our media would report during silly season if it were not for the Orange celebrations leading up to and following the 12th July. Sammy Morrison of the TUV calls it Twelfth Derangement Syndrome (does TDS sound a wee bit familiar?). In the US, the liberal media’s earnings soared as they daily expressed shocked outrage at the latest utterances of Donald Trump firstly on Twitter, and latterly on his own platform, the ironically named Truth Social. Their overreaction …

“We’re between narratives, which means denial in the early stages is because of a desire to preserve last shreds of old imploding monoculture’

Mick Fealty on July 2, 2025, 10:59 am

| Readers 3036

brown sand under white sky during daytime

Reconciliation, rekənˌsɪliˈeɪʃən: “the process of making two people or groups of people friendly again after they have argued seriously or fought and kept apart from each other, or a situation in which this happens.” -Cambridge Dictionary Last week the word reconciliation got a bad wrap in some quarters. Rory Carroll highlights one comment, from an old mucker of mine, Kevin Rooney, who found it to be a villainous roadblock on the road [not another A5? – Ed] to a united Ireland: …

Introducing a Stormont election projection tool…

Soapbox on June 30, 2025, 10:14 am

| Readers 3100

closeup photography of swarm of jellyfish

Originally from Fermanagh, Eoghan Kelly is a postdoc on University of Edinburgh’s Scottish Election Study and has lectured in Irish politics at Queen’s. Here he introduces a new election projection site for Northern Ireland.. Tools like Electoral Calculus allow anyone with an interest in Westminster elections to convert national polls into seat projections. But no such tool existed for Northern Ireland Assembly elections. The subtleties of STV and a general lack of interest from the GB political class meant we …

Same anthem. Same flag. Reconciliation, not a priority. Is this the ‘great generational cause’?

Terry Wright on June 26, 2025, 9:14 am

| Readers 4490

A bronze sculpture depicts a man hugging a child.

Former Taoiseach and TD, Dr Leo Varadkar is no stranger to provocative politics when it comes to Northern Ireland. Continuing, of late, with the agenda he platformed during an event at the SSE arena last year he reveals, yet again, limited understanding of the residual values and preferences within the party political and non-politically aligned Remain UK constituency, and beyond. Unlike Michéal Martin, TD and current Taoiseach, he doesn’t get nuance and complexity. Instead, he opts for the binary and …

A5 debacle: “likely to take years rather than months to assemble the evidence to support the scheme in anything like its current form…”

Mick Fealty on June 25, 2025, 5:48 pm

| Readers 2401

gray concrete road near trees and houses during daytime

Clowntown. An ugly undercurrent surrounding this week’s court case which struck down the DoFI plans for the A5 road, was a sense amongst some of the road’s supporters that this was a Catholic v Protestant farmer’s thing. Nah, it was incompetence. There’s been no unionist involvement in this project since Danny Kennedy’s tenure between 2011 and 2015. Since then (and before, when Conor Murphy took the hot seat) Infrastructure has been a nationalist gig. One that doesn’t speak well for …

Questions for Republicans over Kingsmill: Is “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” an adequate response?

ItwasSammyMcNally on June 24, 2025, 1:03 pm

| Readers 4666

gray and brown stones on gray ground

When he heard about the massacre, Patrick Casey, a member of the IRA in South Armagh said “I remember my feeling was one of horror when I heard the details. Nothing could justify this holocaust of unfortunate Protestants.” Casey was speaking about the shooting dead of 6 Protestants by the IRA in Altnaveigh. That was in 1922. Altnaveigh is about 6 miles from Kingsmill, where 10 Protestants were shot dead by the IRA – 54 years later. As Danny Morrison (Director of …

Peace photography: supporting conflict transformation

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on June 17, 2025, 2:23 pm

| Readers 305

At an online session organised by Dr Tiffany Fairey, a senior research fellow at King’s College London, participants gathered to explore the intersection of photography and peace. The event brought together a range of experts and practitioners to discuss how photography can foster cultures of peace in different contexts. The panel was chaired by Dr Fairey, who leads a research project called Imaging Peace — a multi-year, multi-country study of peace photography. She framed the session with a probing question: “What is …

The vital role of archives for reconciliation

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on June 16, 2025, 9:17 am

| Readers 623

Archives serve as repositories of our collective memory, housing documents, artefacts, and other historical materials that help societies understand their past. In a recent panel discussion, experts from various fields came together to discuss the significance of archives in reconciliation processes, including how community voices, especially those of victims and marginalised groups, are represented in these records. The participants included Ruth Murray, Eliza McKee, Kate Manning, Sam McBride, Caoili O’Doherty, and Nicholas Cole. The event was at Hillsborough Castle, hosted …

If you think America’s political travails don’t also affect us, think again?

Mick Fealty on June 13, 2025, 11:20 am

| Readers 974

hamster, cage, faces

“Confused? You won’t be, after this week’s episode of … Soap.” – Opening lines from the 1980s comedy series, Soap Years ago I heard a journalist friend tell an audience in London how political journalism was like a cappuccino, all froth and excitement, but signifying little of substance, whereas financial journalism was more espresso, dark, bitter and to the point. Watching America turn itself inside out over the soap opera that is the office of the 45th President of the …

The banality of paramilitaries as the dumb and dangerous riot in Ballymena.

Louise Taylor on June 12, 2025, 11:20 am

| Readers 4858

close-up photography of person lifting hands

In Northern Ireland I believe we are normalising and becoming worryingly desensitised to the insidious and persistent existence of paramilitaries on our streets, in our communities and in our cities. The political theorist Hannah Ardent wrote about the banality of evil and how horrific acts were neither radical nor charged with meaning and were often done to control people and many of the acts associated were banal and presented as such. This term is useful when looking at paramilitaries and their actions in …

“A European Future for Northern Ireland” – another SDLP stunt

Brendan Heading on June 1, 2025, 11:00 pm

| Readers 5699

Late last week, we heard that the SDLP were putting a motion before the Assembly to call for a border poll. Looking at the order paper for Monday, I see the following motion tabled by the Leader of the Opposition : That this Assembly welcomes the positive step forward represented by the UK-EU deal of 19 May 2025; affirms that any arrangement which reduces friction for businesses is welcomed; supports further alignment between the UK and EU including via a …

Farage isn’t your friend

Sarah Creighton on May 3, 2025, 9:04 am

| Readers 6195

Every time I do a panel; there’s always a smart alec in the crowd. A man, usually. Without doubt he will say, “Yeah, but the British don’t care about you.” He thinks he’s the first person in the world to have this original thought. Yes, I always say, yes we know. I don’t know a single protestant in Northern Ireland that doesn’t. My grandparents knew. My great grandparents knew before them. It’s not my fault you’ve never spoken to a …

The debate about the ARINS survey has at least brought some clarity

Soapbox on April 24, 2025, 10:12 am

| Readers 1983

green fruit beside dried leaf

Colin Coulter is Professor of Sociology in Maynooth University, and the coordinator of the inaugural Maynooth Festival of Palestinian Culture. While the exchanges on Slugger about the ARINS survey have been useful, they have, for the time being at least, run their course. The chances are, though, that the debates about the series will continue elsewhere. For me, they have clarified the following issues that might not otherwise have come to light: Different methodologies have been employed at different stages, …

Rory McIlroy: Love, beauty, trust and love all wrapped up in one hectic, thrilling and desperate game of golf

Mick Fealty on April 14, 2025, 8:30 am

| Readers 4121

There’s two things I love about golf. One is the sheer beauty and multigenerational memories of the greats playing the Masters course in Atlanta, Georgia. The other is the boundless courage, natural decency and outrageous genius of Rory McIlroy. As a teenager I once struggled on the same course as Rory on the side of the Holywood hills overlooking the Belfast Lough, but in contrast to his, his dad’s and his grandad Jimmy’s, my key talent consisted of losing balls …

Are we divided or diverse? (“Often, it’s not what we say but what people hear…”)

Terry Wright on April 7, 2025, 7:27 am

| Readers 2192

green leafed plant

A few weeks ago, nationalist parties who raised procedural issues regarding the decision to fund a sports pitch for a controlled college were accused by the DUP of being ‘sectarian.’ Now the DUP, on procedural and squandering money grounds relating to the decision to fund Irish Language signage in the new Belfast transport hub, is calling foul. Is it also, in its expression of limited cultural democracy, open to the charge of adopting a prejudicial position with regard to the …

How will the NI Executive handle its response Trump’s opening gambit in tariff negotiations?

Mick Fealty on April 4, 2025, 2:44 pm

| Readers 2285

a close up of a dandelion with a blurry background

The old Chinese curse that runs ‘may you live in interesting times’ holds today much as it ever did. Two days after Donald Trump announced his new tariff rates (and the international stock market when into meltdown), the air has yet to clear. Since the Second World War, the average US tariff has sat at around 4%, so what we are seeing is a remarkable shift in post war norms. World wide it is thought likely to affect around $700b …

“The full story has not been written. Who will be the last person to hold the pen?”

Terry Wright on March 28, 2025, 1:42 pm

| Readers 3815

Overhead view of boots standing on the unique hexagonal basalt columns of Giant's Causeway.

Selfies with the POTUS and his decisions spreading panic in Dublin, or so the DUP hopes, Northern Ireland gifted special status as the USA celebrates 250 years of the Declaration of Independence and the Deputy First Minister, Emma-Little Pengelly MLA, by all accounts scoring a ‘home run’ during the St Patrick’s Day jamboree in Washington and with President Trump’s tariff tactics judiciously ignored, the DUP did not hide a feeling of it being a good period for the party; an …

Despite flooding the zone with frenzied anger in the Dáil, the opposition has lost the battle

Mick Fealty on March 27, 2025, 2:47 pm

| Readers 2536

blue boat on sand near body of water during daytime

It’s rare for me to question or criticise or even quote a press editorial of any paper never mind my favourite, The Irish Times. In twenty plus years of blogging I’ve never succumbed to the old habit of “fisking” and I won’t start now. But given the important influence of the paper, I thought I’d share a contrary view. Its view today is that blame for a controversy that has held the Irish parliamentary body, the Oireachtas, back from doing …

Two months into a Dáil speaking rights dispute Opposition TDs harangue Ireland’s first female Ceann Comhairle again…

Mick Fealty on March 25, 2025, 6:11 pm

| Readers 2912

The dispute over speaking rights continued today, ending in the same uproar as before. The Dáil took a vote on a government motion which was carried 94 to 74, but not without, as the Ceann Comhairle put it, TDs “making a holy show of themselves”. "You're making an absolute holy show of yourselves."The Dáil has been suspended after a chaotic row over speaking rights | Read more: https://t.co/sWRVOJEdLj pic.twitter.com/dcapG4F4dc — RTÉ News (@rtenews) March 25, 2025 Opposition tellers refused to …