Holywell Trust – Slugger O'Toole

The end of a series

Paul Gosling on February 19, 2024, 12:04 pm

| Readers 2359

The latest series of Holywell Conversations podcasts began with reflections on the Good Friday Agreement, amidst fears that Northern Ireland’s devolution was over, and that series has now completed at a time when government has actually resumed. Over the series’ 18 episodes two themes have been examined – the challenges holding back reconciliation within our society, and the specific problems that continue to face the North West region. In the first episode, we heard from three people at the table …

What now for legacy?

Paul Gosling on January 22, 2024, 9:03 am

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The widely opposed Legacy Bill is now enacted as the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act, 2023. But it remains widely hated and the Irish government has launched inter-state proceedings against the UK administration. This is a clear and strong sign of how bad relations are between the two governments that are co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement. Out of what we can now call the Legacy Act comes the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery. While this …

The domestic violence crisis

Paul Gosling on December 4, 2023, 9:14 am

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face, eyes, abuse

Women in Northern Ireland are twice as likely to be murdered as a result of domestic violence than in the other UK nations. In some years, almost half of Northern Ireland murders are connected to domestic violence. In the 2022/23 year, of 17 homicides there were eight that resulted from domestic violence against women. Northern Ireland is also an outlier in international terms. While Finland has the highest rate of femicide by a partner, Northern Ireland is joint second with …

Learning to listen – the Thirty Project

Paul Gosling on November 21, 2023, 9:03 am

| Readers 441

There is immense frustration across Northern Ireland’s community sector that the Civic Forum collapsed in 2002 and was not replaced. Demands are increasing for citizens’ assemblies, or similar, to provide an alternative voice to that of politicians, especially in the absence of the Assembly and Executive. Avila Kilmurray was a founder of the Women’s Coalition which led demands for the Civic Forum as part of the Good Friday Agreement negotiations. Avila makes the point that it was also the Women’s …

Farming in transition

Paul Gosling on November 6, 2023, 9:03 am

| Readers 1914

Agriculture is worth around £1.7bn to the Northern Ireland economy, 4% of total economic activity, according to figures published by the Department for the Economy. This compares to farming comprising just 1% of the UK economy – so farming is worth four times more to our economy, proportionately, than to the rest of the UK. But it is a sector that is in transition and worried. Post-Brexit trade deals agreed by the UK with major agricultural economies Australia, New Zealand …

The other waiting list crisis

Paul Gosling on October 23, 2023, 9:03 am

| Readers 2798

When waiting lists are discussed and shouted about in Northern Ireland, we are usually talking about our disintegrating healthcare system. But there is a second waiting list crisis – that of households seeking social housing. As at March of last year, there were 44,426 applicants on the social housing waiting list. Of these, over 10,000 were regarded as homeless and more than 31,000 were in housing stress. Nor is the situation improving. There was a 20% jump in applicants for …

A tale of one city and two regeneration sites

Paul Gosling on October 9, 2023, 9:22 am

| Readers 3846

Derry is a frustrated city. Too often promises of improvement either come to nothing, or happen too slowly. Anyone who doubts this can consider the regeneration of two major development sites – Ebrington and Fort George. One is now partially occupied, the other largely vacant. This is two decades after the fanfare of their transfer from the Ministry of Defence for the benefit of the city. The former Ebrington Barracks, also known at one time as HMS Sea Eagle, were …

Good Relations Week

Paul Gosling on September 25, 2023, 9:03 am

| Readers 1258

Last week was Good Relations Week, the annual Community Relations Council event that aims to build relationships between people of different backgrounds in Northern Ireland, including across the traditional Catholic and Protestant divisions and also people of differing ethnicities. You might say this remains work in progress, which is not the fault of the CRC. Northern Ireland remains a toxically divided society – exemplified, and arguably amplified, by the inability of the two largest parties of the two largest communities …

Why do we still have ‘peace walls’?

Paul Gosling on September 11, 2023, 9:02 am

| Readers 2755

Why, a quarter of a century after the Good Friday Agreement, do we still have peace walls and interface barriers? The truth, of course, is that the peace deal ended the conflict, but failed to end division and embed reconciliation. Murdered journalist Lyra McKee famously wrote that more ‘peace walls’ have gone up since the GFA than have come down. This is despite a strategy from the The Executive Office containing the target to remove them all by 2023. Yet …

Flaming July – the evidence is clear that climate change is happening…

Paul Gosling on July 31, 2023, 11:01 am

| Readers 1811

trees on fire

Only the most devoted conspiracy theorist could deny climate change given the devastating events of recent weeks. Spring was marked by deadly fires in Canada, terrible floods in Northern Italy and even an unfamiliar heatwave in Northern Ireland. Now things have got even more deadly, with awful new fire outbreaks in Greece, Italy Algeria and Tunisia. And a severe worsening of ice melting in the Antarctic. Meanwhile, the drought and loss of agricultural land in the Horn of Africa is …

Showing paramilitaries the exit door

Paul Gosling on June 19, 2023, 9:01 am

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Recent weeks have seen a rise in concern about the continuing presence of paramilitaries in our society. Just how we make faster progress in removing them is the question considered in the latest Holywell Conversations podcast. Clearly, 25 years ago when the Good Friday Agreement was approved by the public, they would have expected paramilitaries to have been fully or largely removed from our society by now. Yet we still see significant activity by both loyalist and republican groups. Should …

Where is the Peace Dividend?

Paul Gosling on June 5, 2023, 9:01 am

| Readers 5677

A few days ago the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of the House of Commons was told that for some communities here, the expected peace dividend from the Good Friday Agreement never arrived. Tim Attwood of the John and Pat Hume Foundation reported on its recent ‘Peace Summit’. “One of the young people said, ‘The conflict was not the problem; the peace is’, because, in so many places, they do not see the dividend. Some working-class people in parts of Belfast …

Political legacy of distrust cannot be wished away, says Donaldson

Paul Gosling on August 6, 2021, 9:00 am

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The distrust between Northern Ireland’s political parties remains a legacy of the conflict and cannot be wished away or ignored, says DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson. He adds that the events of the Bobby Storey funeral and commemorations of dead members of the Provisional IRA mean that the Troubles remain a continuing source of tension between the largest parties. He was speaking in the latest Holywell Trust Forward Together podcast. Jeffrey argues that not only are the British government’s legacy proposals …

The legacy of the past can still be felt in today’s political relationships, warns O’Neill

Paul Gosling on July 30, 2021, 9:05 am

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Legacy is being discussed at length at present, following the British government’s proposals to abandon prosecutions and investigations related to Troubles’ events. But there is another toxic legacy – the impact of past events on current political relationships. That aspect of legacy is discussed with Sinn Féin Vice President and Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill in the latest Holywell Trust Forward Together podcast. Michelle argues that political leaders must work hard to build trust, to enable the political system here to …

More truth and honesty needed in government, and in dealing with legacy, says Colum Eastwood

Paul Gosling on July 23, 2021, 9:05 am

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Truth and honesty must be at the heart of how we deal with the legacy of the past and in how politicians in Northern Ireland govern today, says Colum Eastwood, leader of the SDLP and MP for the Foyle constituency. He was speaking in the latest Holywell Trust Forward Together podcast and is the third political leader to be interviewed in the series, discussing how to make progress in Northern Ireland. Victims have been badly treated, stresses Colum, and they …

Let’s put our values into practice in how we govern, argues Naomi Long

Paul Gosling on July 16, 2021, 9:05 am

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If we are to make progress in Northern Ireland’s society, we need to reflect carefully on our core values and ensure that these are reflected in the way government works. This is the message put forward by Naomi Long – leader of the Alliance Party and justice minister – in the second of the Holywell Trust’s Forward Together podcast interviews of Northern Ireland’s political leaders. Among the points stressed by Naomi is that violence is not acceptable as a means …

The Ulster Unionist Party reflects on the future of Northern Ireland

Paul Gosling on July 9, 2021, 9:05 am

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The third series of Holywell Trust’s Forward Together podcasts has heard from experts in a range of areas – including the economy, skills, education, young people’s experience, housing – and also considered best practice elsewhere. As it moves towards a close, it puts the arguments for major change in the governance of Northern Ireland to our political leaders. In the first of this closing series of podcasts, we spoke to Steve Aiken – who at the time was still leader of the …

Creating a high skilled economy – it begins in school

Paul Gosling on July 2, 2021, 9:05 am

| Readers 1867

Northern Ireland’s economy has a number of weaknesses. At the heart of these is the shortage of skills – higher levels of skills moves an economy up the value chain, leading to improved productivity and greater wealth. Too many of NI’s school leavers have lower levels of qualifications and skills than are needed for the modern economy. This reduces their prospects for obtaining well paid jobs, while some will become long-term unemployed or economically inactive. NI has the UK’s highest rate of economic inactivity. A recent report from the Pivotal …

Italy’s social co-ops – a model for Northern Ireland to copy?

Paul Gosling on June 25, 2021, 9:04 am

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Social care provision is in crisis across much of the world. How can the quality of care be maintained or improved? How can it be made available to those who need it? And how can social care be carried out in an affordable way without underpaying or exploiting its workers? These questions are being asked in many countries and regions. Italy has come up with its own answer – social co-operatives – and its model is being copied across much …

Housing policy faces challenges from many directions

Paul Gosling on June 18, 2021, 9:05 am

| Readers 1219

For all the focus on integrated education, if communities continue to live separately then little progress will be made towards integrating our society. So developing more areas of shared housing is essential if we are to make progress. But the lack of genuinely shared communities is only one of the housing challenges facing Northern Ireland today. There is more generally a shortage of social housing, compared with demand, leading to increasing waiting lists. This is not simply a matter of demography. It …