alaninbelfast

Reporting the Troubles: 2 Prime Ministers, 5 P O’Neills, the last death knock, and addressing legacy issues

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Brian Rowan and Deric Henderson speaking about Reporting the Troubles at a Creative Holywood conversation.

Recalling working on Prime Ministerial visits, receiving IRA briefings from five different P O’Neills, collating tens of thousands of pages of notes, deciding to no longer knock the doors of bereaved relatives, and thinking out loud about how to address legacy issues, when Brian Rowan and Deric Henderson sat down on Thursday evening to discuss their contributions to the book ‘Reporting the Troubles’, they had no idea of the tragic events that would happen just a few hours later in Creggan.

A legacy process should be about why the Troubles should never happen again

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Brian Rowan and Deric Henderson speaking about Reporting the Troubles at a Creative Holywood conversation.

On Thursday evening, hours before Lyra McKee was fatally shot in Creggan, Brian Rowan was speaking about Reporting the Troubles in Holywood. Throughout the event, he often pivoted away from pure reminiscence and returned to the subject of legacy, arguing for an inclusive and society-wide process that asked less about what had happened but instead focussed on why it happened and crucially why it should never happen again.

Hyperlocal (Newcastle) doesn’t rock, it blows

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Photo by permission of flickr.com/lordvill

Some of the Slugger team are fans of ‘hyperlocal blogging’, you can listen to Alan in Belfast talk up its potential here, or see what Keith Belfast got up to at BarCamp. One hyperlocal blog that seems to be working is Newcastle Rocks. I appreciate Newcastle Rocks giving me a hyperlocal reason to stay well clear of the place. Yes, Newcastle seems to be the first place in the north to have a confirmed sighting of the vuvuzela. Many thanks …

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