Society and Culture – Page 5 – Slugger O'Toole

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

ItwasSammyMcNally on June 24, 2025, 1:03 pm

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 4125

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 …

Why the Critics of the ARINS•Irish Times Surveys are Wrong: A response to Professor Coulter

Soapbox on March 25, 2025, 9:07 am

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A close-up of a hand with a pen analyzing data on colorful bar and line charts on paper.

By Professor John Garry, Queen’s University Belfast. Professor Brendan O’Leary, University of Pennsylvania. Dr Jamie Pow, Queen’s University Belfast & Dr Dawn Walsh, University College Dublin. Professor Coulter has written a number of pieces (here and here) on Slugger O’Toole that are critical of the ARINS/Irish Times surveys. These criticisms are based on false premises and are wrong. Comparison with other academic surveys We will shortly address Professor Coulter’s unfounded methodological criticisms, but let us first confirm the substance of …

Happy World Poetry Day

David McCann on March 21, 2025, 11:28 am

| Readers 511

Happy World Poetry Day, everyone. A great moment to flag one of my favourite poems called For A Leader by John O’Donohue May you have the grace and wisdom To act kindly, learning To distinguish between what is Personal and what is not. May you be hospitable to criticism. May you never put yourself at the center of things. May you act not from arrogance but out of service. May you work on yourself, Building up and refining the …

Cambridge Union Debate: Songs of “unity” must find a new tune and switch from dissonance to resonance

Mick Fealty on March 14, 2025, 6:18 pm

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a stack of books

“When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” — Buckminster Fuller As a norm I steer clear of united Ireland conversations, not because I’m not interested in the subject (it’s not going away any time soon), but because it is a discourse that quickly slips into the assumption there’s just one …

Irish Neutrality: “we need to deal with the world as it is, not the world as we would like it to be…”

Mick Fealty on March 12, 2025, 11:09 am

| Readers 3261

pink and white floral half ceramic mug on top of table

It is gob smacking that the Dáil has yet to appoint any committees to scrutinise government in the sort of detail that is particularly necessary at a time in European history when the tectonic plates of international relations are shifting so radically. I cannot think of any time after civil war when the opposition in the south effectively went on strike and refused to do their jobs. In Northern Ireland (with our all inclusive democratic institutions) we’ve seen governments go …

There’s still something not quite right about the ARINS survey: Part Two (Surveys & Elections)

Soapbox on March 12, 2025, 9:24 am

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blue yellow and green parrot on brown tree branch

Colin Coulter is Professor of Sociology in Maynooth University. Today he continues to ask questions about the recent ARINS survey, and argues the case for making source data public and allowing legitimate criticisms into the public square. In the first part of this essay, we suggested that most of the shift in constitutional aspirations recorded in the latest ARINS/Irish Times survey may, in fact, originate in the inappropriate weightings applied to ‘community background’ in its two previous editions. But what …

We need to talk about the ARINS survey on Ireland’s constitutional futures (Part One)…

Soapbox on March 11, 2025, 3:19 pm

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white and brown cake on white ceramic saucer beside pink ceramic teacup

Colin Coulter is Professor of Sociology in Maynooth University. Here he asks further searching questions about the “gold standard” ARINS survey, and what happens to the outcome if you adjust for weighting issues in the original sample. The latest instalment of the ARINS/Irish Times survey points to a sharp increase in support among the Northern Irish public for the project of reunification. In the space of just two years, there has, apparently, been a net shift toward the nationalist cause …