Culture – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

Commemorating the RIC and allowing an Irish Language Act are opposite sides of the same coin

Brian Walker on January 7, 2020, 11:58 am

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RTE The Irish government’s decision to commemorate the RIC in a major state ceremony is the right one precisely because it is as controversial as it is fundamental. There is no point in filling an entire decade with an orgy of self congratulation. The modern Irish state was born in insurgency and revolution is always controversial. But it is s also a reminder of that the state born out of revolution was part of a much longer continuum that is …

Royal Portrush: our biggest ever event, worldwide appreciation, old school nostalgia.. it’s got it all. Let’s give ourselves a big break

Brian Walker on July 18, 2019, 3:05 pm

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Amid all the and doom and gloom over Brexit, I can’t let this week pass without a hefty mention of the Open at Royal Portush. Here surely is a piece of British exceptionalism all can enjoy, the un-neurotic side of identity. Note that it’s called “the Open”. No “British” prefix is needed (although I see the Irish Times wouldn’t you know it has added it, just in case somebody thinks it’s the Uzbek Open). This piece of swagger was pointed …

“À la Bastille!”

Pete Baker on July 14, 2019, 3:26 pm

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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

Brian Walker on June 1, 2019, 8:11 pm

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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, …

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”

Brian Walker on May 11, 2019, 12:48 pm

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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 …

Doing our part: Dealing with bonfires

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on May 10, 2019, 12:12 pm

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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

Brian Walker on May 9, 2019, 1:22 pm

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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 …

RIP Heather Harper, from East Belfast to Glyndebourne

Brian Walker on April 25, 2019, 1:11 pm

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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 …

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

Brian Walker on April 16, 2019, 1:50 pm

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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 …

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

Sarah Creighton on April 5, 2019, 6:23 pm

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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 …

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

Brian Walker on March 22, 2019, 10:22 am

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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 …

The plain unvarnished truth by Fionola Meredith

Brian Walker on March 13, 2019, 3:54 pm

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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 …

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

Brian Walker on March 8, 2019, 1:29 pm

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“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 …

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

Pete Baker on February 3, 2019, 5:21 pm

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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 …

On Brexit be careful, for you tread on my myths

Brian Walker on January 24, 2019, 2:16 pm

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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 …

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

Pete Baker on January 13, 2019, 3:09 pm

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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 …

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

Brian Walker on December 22, 2018, 11:50 am

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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 …

An original commemoration of the Fallen of World War One

Brian Walker on November 12, 2018, 7:24 am

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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 …

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

Brian Walker on October 17, 2018, 1:27 am

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“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 …

Institutional discrimination is dead. Identity politics has become an entertainment

Brian Walker on August 10, 2018, 10:23 am

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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 …