The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not …
In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any …
‘It’s been just over a year now,’ says Michael, the driving force behind PIETA, the Palestine Ireland Ecumenical Twinning Alliance. ‘A year since that inter-faith event,’ where Christians, Muslims and Jews came together to express concern over events in Palestine/Israel, Gaza and the Occupied Territories. ‘And that video message from Father Bashar Fawadleh, from Christ the Redeemer, in Taybeh,’ documenting the latest pogrom by ‘settlers’ intent on driving them from their homes, village, church and land.’ A land in which …
Drumcree’s long shadow stretched across Stormont again this week. The first LucidTalk poll since the dispute reignited gave Sinn Féin the biggest jump ever recorded for a single party. In the chamber, DUP tabled a petition of concern against Sinn Féin’s Irish-medium education bill, the Good Jobs Bill was confirmed as unable to pass this mandate, and parties traded blame over who is blocking what at the Executive. Elsewhere, the holiday hunger payments bill passed, Paul Givan ended his officials’ …
Finley is a Slugger reader from Belfast We should take seriously recent government warnings about the probability of war with Russia European governments and military officials have issued a series of chilling, unprecedented warnings to the public: Europe must prepare for a total systemic war within five years. In the United Kingdom, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting explicitly updated this timeline, warning that the nation has roughly 1,000 days to get ready for a potential major conflict by 2030. As households …
Former chief justice Declan Morgan told MPs of the NI Select Committee this week that the Legacy Commission he leads has already reached take off before it’s formally set up under the new Troubles Act still going through Parliament. He had two aims at the session : to make the case for adequate funding by arguing value for money ; and to assure victims groups and security forces supporters alike that the Legacy Commission will have the powers and resources …
As I write this the global IT giant Microsoft has been experiencing outages across most of its key products, including OneDrive, Office, Outlook, and the much hated Teams. Microsoft 365 would be the main software package used by most organisations. As you can imagine this is causing serious issues for a lot of governments, companies, schools, universities, and basically everyone who works on a computer. I have grown to absolutely literally loathe Microsoft the past few years. In my day …
Chapter 8 of John Doyle’s Before the Vote: Planning for a united Ireland argues that economic convergence between North and South is “the most likely result of Irish unity”, and that Northern Ireland would be paying its way within a decade. The chapter contains three kinds of claim. Some changes would follow from unity itself. Others are policy choices that Doyle says Stormont has failed to make and that do not, in principle, require unity. The growth projections that carry …
From faraway London, I struggle to explain to myself why unionism can’t create a strategy for survival. The doom theory of inevitable eclipse naturally favoured by nationalists committed to unity is for the birds. Unionists are undermining their own position. Why are they doing it when it seems obvious to everybody else? Do they think the passive aggressive victimhood that worked so brilliantly for nationalism might work well for them too?. Now that the demographic tables have turned? Might minority …
When the history of the reunification of our island comes to be written, the past few days will surely not pass without comment. What I would argue is the most trusted polling organisation in the north, Lucid Talking, continues to show support for reunification against the Union narrowing with a plurality of voters under 55 backing reunification…and that is before the southern state produces even the beginnings of a plan. On that point, both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have …
Belfast Glenariff is one of our regulars in the comment zone Today, the 10th November 2026 marks the 40th Anniversary of the formation of Ulster Resistance. Very little is still known about this secretive Unionist/Loyalist quasi political/paramilitary group but what has been revealed is that the guns, ammunition and grenade launchers they received in a Loyalist arms importation in December 1987 were used in over 100 murders, mostly of innocent Catholics. These weapons were never recovered or have ever been …
Rugby is still a game where the team that needs or wants it most can often overcome a team with greater experience or talents. But it’s also hard to sustain such intensity week in week out. With four tough matches in this November window, Farrell will be keen to manage the game time minutes of each member of his squad. Ulster have struggled to maintain the required intensity for 80 minutes and have yet to win a URC match this …
If a Border Poll were held now, the pro-union lead has slipped again, according to the latest LucidTalk poll in today’s Belfast Telegraph. The normal caveats apply about margin of error, which for this poll is 2.3%. For this reason, a 1% or 2% change may not be significant at all. So it is better to look at the longer-term trend. This shows a 3% decrease in the pro-union level, with a 3% increase in the united Ireland response since …
Fine Gael published their Unified Ireland Blueprint at their Ard Fheis in Cork yesterday. https://www.finegael.ie/app/uploads/2026/11/Fine-Gael-Blueprint-Unified-Ireland.pdf I’ve been curious to see where it will land on bread-and-butter issues, as I think this is what will most influence northern middle-ground voters who’ll decide the constitutional question. The report draws heavily on independent research conducted by Professor Deirdre Heenan (social/political context) and Professor Stephen Kinsella (economic modelling). The proposals are divided into three main operational pillars: 1. Actions to Take Now: Deepening practical …
The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not …
In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday. Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any …
Back in the summer Sinn Féin’s poll rating showed they had lost a quarter of the votes won in the last Assembly election, and almost a third down on their all-time-high in the 2023 Council elections. Today’s new LucidTalk poll in the Belfast Telegraph reveals the party enjoyed an unprecedented polling boost of 6%. The party owes this to the persistence of the Orange Order and the legal advice of Jamie Bryson. Sinn Féin is now just one percentage point …
Calls for unionist unity fell flat this week as division continued, with MP Carla Lockhart quitting the DUP on Monday. Thursday’s budget negotiations produced no breakthrough, leaving Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant decrying “abnormal” politics, while DUP MP Gavin Robinson and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald both told him to return to “reality”. Constitutional questions loomed large in Ireland as Taoiseach Micheál Martin announced a Futures Study Initiative to examine the island’s constitutional future, Tánaiste Simon Harris is set …
Scenes at the Ballymurphy Inquest Distracted by the political antics over Drumcree – not to mention the ill fortunes of Trump – you may not have noticed that the new Troubles Bill is in trouble itself. Promoted as the final solution for dealing with the past after at least three attempts, the UK government once again responded to intense cross party pressure at Westminster to provide added protection for former soldiers under investigation. In a highly controversial move, the Bill …
The political atmosphere in Northern Ireland was turning for the better in 2007 despite the premature death of progressive Loyalist David Ervine. Sinn Féin were waving flags for the PSNI instead of protest posters. A new comedy duo in Stormont, the chuckle brothers, was a sellout! —Well to some of their former comrades they were. Nevertheless, we all loved each other, having been only misguided for the previous four decades. It was only a wee misunderstanding. Lifestyles too had transformed …
