Uncategorized

From the Irish News: The Shankill Road Defenders are founding members of the Belfast Bands Forum, set up last year to coordinate and promote local marching band culture. The forum was represented on the organising committee of the Fleadh. Mr Ramsey was full of praise for the organisers, Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, who he says brought loyalist bands to the table and ensured their voices were heard. “They facilitated those connections that allowed trust to be built, and allowed us and …

Read more…

The depth chart above is not intended as a forecast of who will play for Ireland in the 2027 world cup but rather give a rough snapshot of current pecking orders in every position based on Ireland squad and training call ups. World cup winning squads tend to have at least one world class player for every position and at least two other credible back-ups to cover for injuries and squad rotation. Previous Ireland World Cup squads have suffered from …

Read more…

A bit late but still time to catch up with  Gloria: my life on TV on iPlayer, the ultimate accolade of a  Gloria Hunniford Night on BBC FOUR  last Saturday. It features a set of shows including an interview with film star Audrey Hepburn,  a chat show standing in for her network mentor Terry Wogan and an appearance singing  on the Val Doonican show.  The decades around the turn of the millennium reached  the high point of MOR  (middle of …

Read more…

One of my proudest ever moments came during Fleadh 26 when I walked on to the stage in Writers’ Square to do a couple of songs in Irish on the Raidió na Gaeltachta stage. As a Protestant and Unionist, I talked about the musical tradition that we share, often unknowingly – songs like Come Out Ye Black and Tans, Rosc Catha na Mumhan (Munster’s Battle Cry) and Ólaim Puins. All of these share the same tunes as songs from the …

Read more…

This is the fourth of a series of articles on the prospects for the Irish provinces for the 2026/7 season. Also published here are the previous three articles on Connacht, Ulster and Munster. Compared to last season, Leinster have lost six test players: James Lowe (Tokyo Sungoliath), Rieko Ioane (Blues), Rabah Slimani (Toulon), Luke McGrath (Perpignan), Ciarán Frawley and Will Connors (Connacht) as well as squad players John McKee (Scarlets) and Jerry Cahir (Connacht). They have recruited Joey Carbery (from …

Read more…

Between 1865 and 1895, the American frontier was a place of rapid expansion and lawlessness, forever immortalised in popular culture by the spaghetti westerns of Italian director Sergio Leone. Settlers and speculators raced into new territory faster than the law could follow, and in the gap between opportunity and regulation, vast fortunes were made. However, for every story of fortune, there were countless stories that ended in ruin. It is a history we like to think belongs to another century. …

Read more…

What you need to know This week, the frailties of the Executive were exposed as the two main parties accused each other of undermining policy development and legislative delivery and risking the stability of the political institutions. My colleague Kurtis Dickson has written about one area where legislative inaction at Stormont can be acutely felt, gambling policy, which has not been meaningfully updated since 1985 – read his analysis here. As we discussed in last week’s blog post, these difficulties have …

Read more…

I wasn’t immune to the recent World Cup. Even though the Republic failed to qualify and so I had nobody to root for, it was still the biggest spectacle on the planet for a few heady weeks this summer. But for me the real drama in the sport of football is not on the field but in the boardrooms and offices in which the sport is managed. Who needs to watch Messi when you can observe the manoeuvrings and fumbles …

Read more…

  This is the third of five articles I have written on the prospects for Ireland and the Irish provinces this coming season. My reviews of Connacht and Ulster are published here and here. Having written two relatively upbeat posts on Connacht and Ulster, it would have been nice to be able to do the same for Munster. They did, after all, qualify for the play-offs last May and qualify for the Champion’s Cup. But that is slim pickings for …

Read more…

I would give everything I own Just to have you back again That lyric by David Gates’ Bread was from a song I first heard on Radio Èireann as I watched my mother staring, catatonic, into the fire, after burying my 56 year old father. Not even ten years old I was a sad boy then. My melancholy reinforced by a misunderstanding we had just before his sudden death. Fourteen years later listening to Ken Boothe singing his version on …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

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 …

Read more…

One of the things I did get wrong about the Fleadh was that I thought there would be an issue with venues being too dispersed across the city centre. The other day I was thinking that it would probably make more sense confining it all to the Cathedral Quarter but I admit to being wrong about this. There are people, people everywhere. Had a dander around #Belfast over lunchtime to see the #Fleadh and town was absolutely heaving! This weekend …

Read more…

My experience of attending discussions at Féile an Phobail has been remarkably encouraging. Some of the talks have been controversial, some have covered difficult subjects and despite being part of a unionist minority in the room, I have always felt the outlook of the discussions to be positive. I have in the past sent letters to the Belfast Newsletter advocating that we in the unionist community should be developing something similar within East Belfast to coincide with the week after …

Read more…

Newton Emersons’s verdict in the Irish Times can hardy be bettered as a rare and heartening cross community success … Pleasant streets can only partly explain the numbers in the city centre. What unionist visitors are discovering is that the Fleadh is not repellingly “political”, as that term is applied in Northern Ireland. Culture is always political, of course, but the songs are not sectarian, the atmosphere is not partisan and the national symbolism is discrete. I noticed only one …

Read more…

For the past eight years I have been involved with a group of people called the Truth Recovery Process (TRP) which has been campaigning for ‘conditional amnesties’ for those former combatants in the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ – from state and paramilitary forces alike – who are prepared to come forward and tell the truth about the killings and other violent acts they were involved in. The group was led by former journalist and historian, Padraig Yeates, former Glasnevin Trust chair …

Read more…

This is the second of a series of articles on the strength in depth of our provincial squads ahead to the start of the season next month. The first article – on Connacht – is published here. The Ulster squad quality is similar to Connacht’s with 15 Irish internationals compared to Connacht’s 16. With 41 senior professionals to Connacht’s 39, they also have a bit more depth, particularly at lock, but curiously only one specialist openside, Nick Timoney. What will …

Read more…

Significant changes are being made in education (when are they not) and the Northern Ireland Curriculum 2028 consultation has been announced by the DUP’s Paul Givan. See link at bottom. One change that has made the news is that teachers of History must teach the history of the N. Ireland Troubles at both KS3 (Year 8-10) and KS4-GCSE. Until now this has been optional and it was possible even to teach GCSE History without covering the events of the Troubles. Various …

Read more…

I spent an enjoyable Sunday in Belfast city centre on the first day of the Fleadh. It was extraordinary to see such a massive crowd of people in the city centre. The area around City Hall, Donegal Place, Royal Avenue, etc., had been pedestrianised and it really was an example of what’s possible in our city centres if we remove vehicles. Now I say this as a car driver myself, but we all know from holidays to Europe that car-free …

Read more…

Northern Ireland’s Sunday trading law made one compromise about shop size and another about Sunday morning. Belfast can change neither, so it has declared itself a holiday resort instead. At eleven o’clock on a typical Sunday morning in Belfast, a shop worker in a small shop will be serving customers. Next door, a shop worker in a large store will not, because the law prevents her employer from opening. Both work in retail. Only one of their employers is restricted. …

Read more…