I am just back from a short break in sunny Fermanagh. As my main photo shows, when the sun is shining there are few places more beautiful. Fermanagh has massive potential to increase tourism, it could be a real growth industry for an area that has had its economic issues in the past. I had some thoughts I wanted to share about the main town Enniskillen. These are only my impressions as a visitor; I would appreciate input from locals. …
Tom Elliot is very much the reluctant candidate in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone Westminster contest. I wanted to focus on this election battle and give outsiders a little context on the contest from a Unionist perspective. Within FST, Unionists are the minority community. If you ask any Unionist within the constituency what they expect from the election, the answer is a Sinn Fein victory. Having said that, there is a strong desire for representation at Westminster, a strong desire …
Choyaa is a Fermanagh Orangeman Sam McBride has penned the highly acclaimed “Burned” which is a serious and important piece of investigative journalism that focuses on the Renewal Heating Incentive (RHI) scandal overseen by a number of prominent DUP members including the current leader Arlene Forster. Sam McBride was told by some within the DUP following the release of the book that it contained many errors, when Sam asked for specific examples he was met with silence. When I heard …
Choyaa is a Fermanagh Orangeman The anticipation of the big parade has been building up for the past year and come the first Saturday in August all preparations are about to be realised. There’s a plethora of speculation about who will be within the procession with some very famous dignitaries anticipated along with spectators expected to reach tens of thousands. There is a buzz, there is vibrancy, and there is a feeling that this parade is part of the mainstream …
WATERSCAPE: Brian continues his odyessy around the 32 counties of Ireland. Today he’s in Enniskillen far from the madness of the rest of the world, pinting rather than punting his way round Ireland’s peerless Lakeland as he goes.
It might just be the alliteration, of course, but it’s rare these days that I meet anyone east of the Bann who doesn’t say, when I mention where I live, “Fermanagh? Where they have the fracking?” Well we don’t ‘have the fracking’, not now, though it’s been a close shave, and, to mix my metaphors, we’re not out of the woods yet. It has, though, been an extraordinary campaign, not least in the almost complete reversal of public opinion. Three …
This is a rather optimistic and upbeat summation of the ‘achievements’ on Tax at the G8 in Lough Erne from Ben Phillips… In the end, leaders are led, and the power of the people is stronger than the people in power. Can one intergovernmental meeting fix it? No. But after this year of corporate scandal, popular mobilisation, media controversy, shuttle diplomacy, and leaders’ gatherings, no one representing a major government – no one – now says that campaigners’ ultimate aims …
Around a hundred 16-25 year olds from across Ireland converged on the G8 summit site a month early to put together a shared vision of the top four issues they wanted the G8 leaders to address. Before they left, the young people attending the G8 Youth Summit presented their ideas to the British Secretary of State, US Consul General, as well as representatives of the NI Assembly, Irish government, the EU and other civic and church leaders. While the G8 …
Peter Robinson light-heartedly suggested that DUP’s first ever spring policy conference today in Fermanagh “means that the G8 Summit has now been demoted to the second most important event in Fermanagh this year!” The full speech is available from the DUP website. The DUP leader reassured delegates that Nigel Dodds “will be back at work on Monday and happily he’s been given a clean bill of health”. He hoped that the health scare would “bring about a greater understanding of …
Last week, I was lucky enough to catch up with Lauri McCusker of the Fermanagh Trust to talk with him about a relatively recent project, which is no so much about asset transfer as asset development by developing a revenue stream for rural, often very isolated, communities. At the core of it is the concept of community benefit being trailed off wind farms over its life time (about 20 years or so). This sort of payoff has been associated with …
..or how Fermanagh learned to stop harrrying and started to bomb
