Ireland – Page 12 – Slugger O'Toole

Big Votes, Big Mess

Chris McKee on March 28, 2019, 10:15 pm

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According to Lenin, there are decades in history where nothing happens, and then sometimes weeks where decades happen. If that is true, then Brexit seems to have given us a third category entirely: a weekly cycle of impossible drama and contradiction that merely feeds into another baffling cycle of the same, where weeks feel like years, years sometimes like weeks, where so many things change, and yet, finally, nothing ever does. It’s like UK has sold the rights of its …

Northern Ireland’s Unique Entitlement to EU Rights and Benefits: Why the 3 Million is Really 4.8 and Counting

Emma DeSouza on March 28, 2019, 6:58 pm

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There is a startling contrast between the EU and Westminster’s understanding of the unique status of Northern Ireland. In Strasbourg this week that was evident. A delegation including myself, Daniel Holder, Niall Murphy and Declan Fearon travelled there yesterday, to meet with a number of MEPs and senior EU staff to discuss the impact of Brexit on the rights of people in the north of Ireland. It was clear to me by the end of the trip – the EU …

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 …

How democracy ends, or one “bum note” is round the world before you can delete a tweet…

Mick Fealty on March 19, 2019, 5:57 pm

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Unifying two quite separate parts of Ireland means weaving new stories strong enough to create a narrative bridge that can take the weight of the diverse (and diversifying) pop of the whole island. Old (verging on racialist) discourses of demographic increase/decline run well with the cosplay in the internet of strangers, but we know from polling that no single identity can deliver a United Ireland.

The Citizenship Rights of the Good Friday Agreement – Real or Imagined?

Emma DeSouza on March 19, 2019, 10:00 am

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The Belfast Good Friday Agreement is widely championed as a success. Revered as a model of peace, it’s representative to many as a demonstration of the power of collaboration and compromise. And in a lot of ways, this is all true – “decommissioning”, the North South institutions, and power sharing have all changed the very fabric of Northern Ireland for the better. However, considering the lack of codification, the St. Andrews amendments and the current stalemate at Stormont, did we …

The banner is one thing but the New York parade has always raised eyebrows

Sarah Creighton on March 18, 2019, 10:53 am

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The St Patrick’s Day parade in New York has always been controversial. In the 1980s and 1990s, while Northern Ireland was in the middle of the Troubles, NORAID would walk in the New York parade and collect money for the IRA. In 1983 Michael Flannery, who organised NORAID, was chosen as grand marshal. The decision lead to a number of politicians boycotting the event that year. The New York parade has a long history of being anti LGBT. It was …

“we need to remove legacy policing from contemporary policing…”

Pete Baker on March 17, 2019, 3:00 pm

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A timely reminder, should one be needed, from Newton Emerson in the Irish Times this week, that when Sinn Féin talk about ‘agreement’ on the “need to remove legacy policing from contemporary policing” what they mean is “No prosecutions, please.” From Newton Emerson in the Irish Times It is all or nothing on dealing with the legacy of the Troubles. Either all sides must face the same prospect of prosecutions and convictions, or all sides must be given an amnesty …

“The backstop is the either/or question that will face the government of this country…”

Mick Fealty on March 14, 2019, 5:16 pm

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Dan O’Brien argues that Ireland with its small open economy is likely to suffer much more than the UK in any No Deal Brexit and that the Irish government’s attempt to insure that a trade border absolutely never exists on the island is driving up the risk of such a worst case outcome.

Could the “darkside” version of a no deal backstop end with checks in the Irish Sea?

Mick Fealty on March 13, 2019, 4:48 pm

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Oh, what a mess. Meet Liz Truss, who is Chief Secretary at the Treasury (ie Chancellor Phil Hammond’s right hand woman) who is in some way responsible for laying out the temporary tariff regime to be invoked in the case of a no deal Brexit… https://twitter.com/mickfealty/status/1105859866676076545 The prospect of tonight’s free vote is already splitting not simply party colleagues, or even members of the cabinet, but ministers within the same critical department charged with delivering Brexit. It is obvious from …

As Mark Durkan heads south, the SDLP (and Fianna Fáil) job is to focus on getting NI back to work…

Mick Fealty on March 6, 2019, 1:13 pm

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So Mark Durkan is following a general trend within northern nationalism and heading south. For an experienced parliamentarian (still in good standing with his ex parliamentary colleagues at Westminster) being unceremoniously dropped for an ingenue must have been hard to take. Durkan has had his faults, not least as leader of the SDLP. But as a Parliamentarian, he knew his craft. Whatever the latent talents of his Sinn Féin replacement Elisha McCallion she is unlikely ever to voice the feelings …

Two troubling legal stories uncover important weaknesses in Ireland’s democratic accountability mechanisms

Mick Fealty on March 5, 2019, 1:08 pm

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A couple of interesting law related stories came out of the Republic last weekend. One was the ticking off the Dail’s PAC got from the High Court when several members were to have, in the words of Elaine Byrne (€) to have “broken its own rules with impunity”. She cites former Labour Party chair of the Banking Inquiry Ciarán Lynch: Can’t say that this ruling comes as a surprise considering how the PAC chose to ignore its own legal advice …

Varadkar bids to make Durkan in effect MEP for Northern Ireland after Brexit

Brian Walker on March 5, 2019, 10:17 am

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Leo Varadkar has made the radical move to present Dublin voters with the choice of electing in effect former SDLP leader, deputy First minister and Foyle MP Mark Durkan as MEP for Northern Ireland, based in Dublin but significantly, still living in Derry. The bold move is, as Durkan himself admits , a ” bold ask” of Dublin voters and amounts to a modest alteration to the political balance on the island. However the big point is that it might …

Mark Durkan running for Europe … in Dublin for Fine Gael rather than Fianna Fáil #eu19 updated

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 4, 2019, 4:08 pm

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Mark Durkan is standing in a Dublin constituency as a Fine Gael candidate in May’s European elections. While the current SDLP leader Column Eastwood has thrown his party’s lot in with Fianna Fáil, Durkan is making his strategic partnership with their main rivals in a bid to return to active politics.

What lessons can we learn from the making of modern Switzerland?

Robert Campbell on March 2, 2019, 8:10 am

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Andrew Gallagher recently wrote an op-ed for Slugger (here) on the mechanics of Irish re-unification. This has become very topical following the UK’s Brexit referendum, with a feeling that ‘the harder the Brexit, the more likely is a border poll and reunification’. While readers of Slugger will have been only too aware of the potential problems that Brexit would bring, there was a very considerable lack of understanding in Britain, and particularly in England; there it was a ‘remote’ issue. …

Synthesis

Andrew Gallagher on March 1, 2019, 5:47 pm

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In my previous post I outlined the various models available for a sovereign Ireland – a unitary state, asymmetric devolution, federalism and a confederal union. Asymmetric devolution is unstable and inequitable, while federalism is too heavy for such a small country as Ireland. That leaves a unitary state and a confederal union as the only serious options, and each involves a different set of compromises. A unitary state is more efficient, more equitable and arguably simpler in its daily operation; …

Our politicians must unlearn the politically arthritic habits of our past

Mick Fealty on March 1, 2019, 10:48 am

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Naomi Long has made some sound practical suggestions as to how to fix the petition of concern. She has also suggested that if the present talks round fail then Stormont should be mothballed and MLA’s pay suspended. However, these are just technical changes which cannot fix what remains at base a political problem. Our two leading tribal factions have simply run out of ideas about how they can usefully work the institutions of the Belfast Agreement. Crashing the institutions would …

Ards and North Down Declare Climate Emergency

Claire Mitchell on February 28, 2019, 8:02 pm

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Yesterday, on 27th February 2019, an eerily summery winter evening, Ards and North Down Borough Council passed Northern Ireland’s first Climate Emergency motion. Led by Green Party councillors Rachel Woods and Barry McKee, the motion was agreed without changes in a full meeting of the Council chamber. This comes not a moment too soon for a region which is set to face major challenges over the next 10-20 years as temperatures, and sea-levels, rise. Parts of the Ards peninsula, along …

Fianna Fáil hits back at Sinn Féin’s bogus “border poll” quote with satire

Mick Fealty on February 28, 2019, 6:56 pm

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If you are wondering what competitive politics looks like in the digital age, here’s Fianna Fáil’s riposte to Sinn Féin’s rather misleading edit of Colum Eastwood’s speech at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis at the weekend: Wow, some really subtle editing work here from SF’s Internet Research Agency. They’ve edited @columeastwood speech to change its meaning & make a political charge. What sort of political genius is this? As we try to get our heads around it, new Mary Lou …

The escape hatch

Andrew Gallagher on February 28, 2019, 6:30 pm

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Mike Nesbitt states plainly what should by now be painfully obvious. With Brexit, Unionism has shot itself in the foot, and many people are now quietly contemplating the previously unthinkable. But this has merely upped the ante for those who advocate constitutional change. Appealing to nationalists, he said: “If you’re going to have a border poll…don’t let it be like Brexit. Before there’s a border poll it has to be spelled out in enormous detail – and truthfully, unlike Brexit …

Micheál Martin: “Are you suggesting that Sinn Fein is somehow the embodiment of republicanism?”

Mick Fealty on February 25, 2019, 6:58 pm

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I see Colum Eastwood is taking some stick for having the temerity to engage in muscular politics with his party’s long term rivals Sinn Féin in his speech yesterday. Tomorrow I hope to have a piece in the Irish News explaining why I think the focus on policy matters. But if you haven’t seen it, this exchange is a masterclass from the Fianna Fáil leader in how attacking your opponents their shortcomings is the essential grist to any successful political …