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Richard Kelly visited the PUP office in Stormont. “‘All Prods are clairvoyant, you know,’ Ervine said. ‘And it’s never good news.’ If David Ervine was now playing Cassandra, then the peace process was sickly indeed. After all, the PUP were the sole unionist grouping which wholeheartedly championed the Agreement-indeed, the first unionists in living memory to come up with a new idea, namely that working-class Protestants and Catholics should make common cause to challenge the long misgovernment of middle-class, ‘big …

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Mark Durkan in interview with Seán MacCárthaigh, refutes the old insult that it is simply offering weak compromise to the Nationalist constituency. Towards the end he speculates intriguingly about the future pattern of party politics in Ireland: “I’m open to wider realignment. But people are talking about a merger between the SDLP and an existing southern party; I see things in a more fluid context. People think the parties in the south exist as they are, in perpetuity, and I …

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Mark Durkan has called for all paramilitaries to disband. He clearly has the support of others in his party. Billy Mitchell in The Blanket provides a more detailed view of a problem inherited from 30 years of apparently endless conflict within the state. And even Sinn Fein seem to be sending strong messages to fringe groups. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Love him or loathe him, the former politician and one time editor of The Observer Conor Cruise O’Brien was 85 yesterday. He took a break from writing to let an interesting range of folk pay him tribute. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

In his recent essay for Prospect magazine, Richard Kelly asks why Unionism has failed to talk up what it gained from the Belfast Agreement: “…not since Trimble emerged from Castle Buildings on 10th April 1998, declaring the union safer than when he had first sat down, has unionism said much in public that savoured of victory. The talk was only of incessant affronts to their tradition, and of a one-way track bearing intolerable concessions. Why couldn’t unionism engage? Two years …

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Though this is strictly outside the Letter’s remit on NI, James Crabtree provides an excellent take on the problem of quality within the weblogging phenomenon. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

To Dodgeblog for linking Letter to Slugger O’Toole into the mainframe. And to the Leptard. It’s also worth having a regular look at this site from Maigh Eo. And to Mike McBride, Everything burns! Not to mention Clagnut, Lord of the Moon and Ed Driscoll from way back. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Though this last appeal of Adams to Blair may frustrate and confuse many Unionists, it is consistent with what many Republicans have always believed; that Unionists would not be among the final arbitors of the solution to the British/Irish problem. As Irish language journalist Robert McMillan speculates, “an rud atá romhainn, measaim, ná go mbeidh seal fada idirbheartaíochta idir an dá ghrúpa is mó cumhacht – gluaiseacht na poblachta agus Rialtas na Breataine”. Or in English, “what lies ahead, I …

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It’s a week now since Gerry Adams gave his speech in Monaghan, but like Blair’s the week before in Belfast it is worth looking at again. He addressed his opening remarks to the sacrifices of the past. He emphasised the need for policies on an all-Ireland basis. He focused on the the future, and said there would be no return to the past. He welcomed Blair’s speech and offered hope of agreement on policing. But his last appeal was directly …

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Deanta leis an brí agus beatha mar is gnach le Robert McMillan; tuarascáil ar na athraithe insan tuaiscirt ar na mallaibh. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Adams expresses the Sinn Fein view of the position of Unionism. He calls for Blair to end what is sometimes described by Republicans and Nationalists as the Unionist veto: “So the challenge for Mr. Blair is to shape his own system, his own agencies, to make this process work, and in so doing to accept that the leaderships of political unionism will not journey along the Good Friday Agreement process if they can avoid that. But like people everywhere they …

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Noel McAdam asks if Mark Durkan can save the SDLP? Martina Purdy examines at his relationship with Blair. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Adams continues: “I do not pretend to speak for the Army on these matters but I do believe that they are serious about their support for a genuine peace process. They have said so. I believe them. I speak for this party and we are completely committed to peaceful and democratic means. We are about making peace. About working with others to make this a reality for everyone. There is no other way forward.” Previously policing. Slugger O'TooleA general account …

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Bizarre even by Northern Ireland standards, this early news report tells of a man literally nailed to the fence in Seymour Hill, Dunmurry. Update: Although Seymour Hill is a loyalist area and McCartan is Catholic, it seems the car used in the attack was picked up in nationalist Andersonstown. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Richard Kelly’s essay in Prospect magazine seeks to investigate some of the factors in the so-called phenomenon of the ‘Demoralised prods’. We’ll be picking out a number of important points he raises over the next day or two. He quickly picks up on the central role of David Trimble, who he suggests is: “…the most inwardly conflicted figure ever to have emerged within his famously staid and unimaginative party. Once a hardliner, Trimble had now agreed terms for a reconciliation …

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Brian Walker sets the scene for the next phase of the ‘devolution game’. “On policing, Sinn Fein spelled out long ago that they want the Secretary of State written out of decision taking virtually altogether apart from a residual role, to be shared with the Irish in the Intergovernmental Council. And indeed, the legislation gives them the prospect of achieving it, if local agreement can be reached.” “Is this what Tony Blair has pledged to deliver? We await hints and …

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Gerry Adams follows up his speech with this article in the Irish Voice. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Eammon McCann is not a man to bandy around compliments lightly. But according to the veteran Derry chronicler of the Troubles, Ed Moloney’s book on the IRA is: “This is the best book yet written about the Provisional Irish Republican Army. It traces the rise of the Provos from the angry ashes of Catholic working-class streets incinerated by mobs of loyalists and cops in August 1969 to the enclosure of the movement’s leadership within conventional bourgeois politics through the Good …

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‘It’s up to you guys’, seems to be message coming from Paul Murphy at the start of a new round of talks with local parties. So much so that Gerry Adams claimed that the government had no NI plan for getting everyone back to working together in government. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Thanks to Chris at Junius we have a very interesting piece from this month’s edition of Prospect magazine. More comment on this later. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.