“À la Bastille!”

One more time, then… with continued apologies to Pierre Ranger… [It’s a tradition, we know… – Ed]  Indeed!  And with Alaphilippe in yellow again!  Play La Marseillaise!   Pete Baker

Cracking the deadlock over an Irish language Act will test whether a new political order is emerging

If a Tele article by Nelson Mc Causland and Newsletter reports are anything to go by, agreement on an Irish Language Act and therefore the return of Stormont are as far away as ever. The problem remains over an acht na Gaelige that stands alone. As unionists perceive it, this constitutes a claim superior to their cultural needs. It was supposed to have been sorted by the draft agreement of February last year but the DUP refused to sign off, …

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What would a Festival of Britain and Northern Ireland say? “Politics and ceremonial are not separate subjects, the one serious, the other superficial. Ritual.. is itself a type of power”

Ulster 71 Exhibition BBC Image  The headline quote is from David Cannadine in “Rituals of Royalty etc..”  in “Traditional Societies”, ed. Cannadine and Simon Price, CAP 1987 p3, quoted by Gillian McIntosh (below)  Anniversaries like death and taxes are always with us. Perhaps they’re even sent to challenge  us.  Politicians are tempted to lay on  bread and circuses to show up the better face of things. Could it really work for Brexit?  The Irish Times believes not. The paper has …

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Doing our part: Dealing with bonfires

Greater Shankill Alternatives, which is part of a co-ordinating initiative on restorative justice across Northern Ireland, hosted a workshop session that explored various aspects of the tradition of bonfires and the organisation’s approaches of engagement with groups who construct these structures for annual celebrations. The event was supported by Belfast City Council and its DiverseCity good relations programme.

Leading human rights expert challenges Sinn Fein on “rights” stance

Brice Dickson, normally a sober sounding academic lawyer and a former head of the NI Human Rights Commission  was first famous  for recanting on his recommendation for an  “all singing,  all dancing”  NI  Bill of Rights.  In the Newsletter today Brice has boldly entered the fray of the all party talks at Stormont to point out flaws in Sinn Fein’s starting position.   Sinn Fein has abused the concept of human rights by setting up such rights as pre-conditions for …

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RIP Heather Harper, from East Belfast to Glyndebourne

The great Belfast born singer Heather Harper has just died at the fine old age of 88.  Heather, Barry Douglas and James Galway were the most acclaimed classical musicians Belfast  produced  in the twentieth century.   As Alf McCreary writes, Heather  never forgot her Belfast roots. I remember her performance – and his warm words afterwards –  at the 50th anniversary concert for BBC Northern Ireland  at the height of the Troubles. “She was the daughter of an Ulster lawyer, Hugh …

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The catastrophic fire of Notre Dame gives us a poignant message for Easter, that our heritage is as much about renewal and rebirth as death and destruction

Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times brings  an American  perspective to the catastrophic fire at Notre Dame. Like him I immediately thought of the place accorded to the great cathedral by Kenneth Clark in his monumental BBC series Civilisation I saw when broadcast in the 1970s, and then kept in an old fashioned box set of  VHSs  for viewing by children as an essential part of their education. Like Kimmelman, I think of other fires and destruction of the …

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Emma DeSouza: None of us benefit from the Home Office’s position

In 2015, Emma DeSouza married her American husband, Jake, in a ceremony in Belfast. Later that year, the couple applied for an EEA residence card. Their application relied on the 2006 EEA Regulations and was grounded in Mrs DeSouza’s Irish citizenship. In September 2016, to the couple’s surprise, their application was declined. In giving its reasons for refusing Mr DeSouza’s residence card, the Home Office referred to Mrs DeSouza’s citizenship. She was born in Northern Ireland and, in the Home …

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Misha Glenny, famed expert on lethal clashes of identity in Europe, discovers his own roots – in Newry

Misha Glenny I knew Michael “Misha” Glenny  as a young BBC correspondent  reporting the tragedies of the  disintegration of Yugoslavia  from the  eighties  and more recently as the author of the book and executive producer of the smash hit TV thriller series McMafia, about the spread of global crime into politics and  the world of  billionaire finance.  Misha’s interest is in part hereditary. His father Michael senior was a student of Eastern Europe and a famed translator who legend has …

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The plain unvarnished truth by Fionola Meredith

She cuts through the dream world  of imaginary politics…  I have one question for people in the Republic who said they want a referendum on Irish unity: Are you mad? There is another side – if you’re passing through… https://discovernorthernireland.com/about-northern-ireland/destinations/causeway/causeway-coastal-route/causeway-coastal-route-destinations/?s=D423088611DB11AB8D4C3772F5F0C533A2F20C25   Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research …

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British arrogance or Brit guilt? Irish attitudes to the world that created Karen Bradley

“Anti-English sentiment in Ireland had healed. But Brexit has brought it all flooding back.”  So writes Irish Times columnist Una Mullally in the Guardian. Is she right? Most comment here will not only echo but amplify Una’s comments. But I think – I hope – she exaggerates and all will be restored when we discover that the legacy of Brexit – or no Brexit- – will not as bad as all that. She makes a big thing about the British …

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“Media that care more about spectacle than clarity only encourage the culture of bullshit.”

I have mentioned this before, but it’s a point worth repeating every now and again.  [Any particular reason this time? – Ed]  Oh, one or two…  From Kenan Malik in the Guardian Media that care more about spectacle than clarity only encourage the culture of bullshit. We live in an age obsessed by fake news and politicians’ lies. These are issues important to tackle. We should not ignore, however, the more insidious culture of bullshit. A liar, observed Frankfurt, knows …

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On Brexit be careful, for you tread on my myths

For British and Irish readers alike, Fintan O’Toole is a leading scourge of Brexit, delving deep into British history and culture to explain its mainsprings.  For champions of  diversity  suffused with Brit guilt about unresolved issues of empire and the shifting sands of identity, there’s a  thrilling novelty about an Irishman with his history of victimhood,  even one with  such a  cosmopolitan outlook, diagnosing British ills and offering lessons from Ireland’s new minted – and more confident- present. Thank God …

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“Sinn Fein’s Arder Carson said that it was his democratic right to choose not to be painted…”

Or, indeed, not to wear clothes…  ANYhoo…  On Thursday The Belfast Telegraph reported Sinn Féin’s ‘farcical’ attempt to prevent Belfast City Council granting permission for local artist and political cartoonist Brian John Spencer to “sketch the Council Chamber and the Council meeting in January”.  At a Council Strategic Policy and Resources Committee meeting in December 2018 a Sinn Féin motion rejecting the request – which “would involve Mr Spencer being allowed access to the Chamber for a couple of hours …

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Looking through the lens of history helps us ease the torments of Brexit

As a Christmas treat, let’s stand back from the tangles of Brexit and the backstop and take a broader look at how they’re complicating our fond old obsession with our choice of identities British, Irish and European. One of the leaders of the current debate is Fintan O’Toole  a torrentially eloquent writer who knows Britain as well as his own backyard. You’d be hard put to find an English equivalent writing about Ireland. What we see more of are endless voyages of …

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An original commemoration of the Fallen of World War One

You might have missed the centenary of the Day the Guns Fell Silent on 11th November, as commemorated  with terrific originality in the Pages of the Sea project devised by the film director Danny Boyle. Ireland was well represented by three very different people in three spectacular beach locations. Boyle’s brilliant Olympic 2012 opening ceremony in London displayed the British gift for creating new traditions without irritating venerable traditionalists with dogmatic lessons about the iniquities of war and the  British …

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Congratulations to Anna Burns from Ardoyne, winner of the Man Booker prize, for taking the stereotype out of Belfast

  “The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died,” begins this strange and intriguing novel that tackles the Northern Ireland conflict from the perspective of an 18-year-old girl with no interest in the Troubles” writes the Guardian reviewer . Except  it isn’t about Belfast, not specifically. Neither place nor  people are named in Milkman. I’ve just started reading it. This is a  dystopian society …

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Institutional discrimination is dead. Identity politics has become an entertainment

Even the most inventive of columnists run out of material in the dog days of August.  So Alex Kane treats us to a little rant in the Irish News. The constitutional question remains at the heart of all political debate here; yet that question is louder and more pressing than it has been in my lifetime. This point was always coming, of course. As long as there were nationalist choices for one community and unionist choices for the other the question …

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The Downside of Success – Coping with our increasing tourist numbers…

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Over the past number of years, Northern Ireland’s tourism industry has maintained a steady growth and our visitor attractions have continued to become more popular than ever. These high levels of tourism are a relatively new phenomenon for the region and perhaps not one we have yet learnt how to deal with properly. In 2017 there were an estimated 4.9 million overnight trips in Northern Ireland, the highest estimates on record. Many of our most popular visitor attractions are purpose-built …

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“À la Bastille!” Again!

Once again, with apologies to Pierre Ranger… [It’s a tradition, we know… – Ed]  Indeed!  Play La Marseillaise!  [Any chance of a French winner on Stage 8? – Ed]  Probably not… Pete Baker