Belfast Agreement

Exclusive: Ian Paisley’s belated acknowledgment of David Trimble’s legacy: the principle of Consent…

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Now, this is interesting. No really, it is. And for a couple reasons. One is what it says. And two, though I am not sure whether it made the print edition of today’s Belfast News Letter, that it was only on the site for about a hour last night before it disappeared. It’s Doctor Paisley’s weekly column. And (thanks to an eagled-eyed reader) it makes for fascinating reading, especially for those of you who are historians of the peace process. …

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Book launches: Everyday Life After the Irish Conflict and Belfast 400

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Two books were launched tonight in Belfast. A reception was held at the City Hall to mark the book commissioned to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the city’s charter. I reviewed Belfast 400: People, Place and History (edited by Sean Connolly) back in December. It tells the story of the city that “emerged as the capital of Irish Unionism” yet was also “the birthplace of a United Irish movement committed to the establishment of an independent Irish republic”. Industrialisation, …

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Why further tinkering with the NI settlement could be politically dangerous

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In the Irish News this morning Brian Feeney takes aim at those who, like Mark Durkan, have highlighted the ‘ugly scaffolding’ set in place (if modified by the St Andrews Agreement) as a key problem in the move towards settled politics. He argues that “any political scientist worth his salt can recognise the north for what it is, an ethno political problem”. And from that axiomatic premise he continues, “the key feature of all such ethno political solutions, imperfect though …

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“How many school yards now ring out to nationalist or republican songs like ours did?”

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One of the most striking things about Barry Flynn’s great evocation of the IRA’s 1950’s border campaign was the degree to which the shooting of IRA volunteers Sean South and Fergal O’Hanlon seemed to galvanise pro Republic sentiment south of the border. That was reprised with the death of the ten hunger strikers of the early 80s. But in the absence of conflict and death from Northern Ireland the south has simply presumed all is well and settled and has …

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Cenus figures no longer relevant

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Sunday journalists have the advantage over their daily counterparts of having a few days to pass by before they finally commit their copy . Tom McGurk in the Sunday Business Post, has had a few days to consider the wider picture around the Census and concludes: …the whole purpose of the new politics is to end the imperative of sectarian headcounts, indeed to begin the process of finally liberating the Irish body politic from the dysfunctional, post-colonial impact of Westminster, …

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