Ireland – Page 223 – Slugger O'Toole

Sinn Fein’s failure an intellectual embodiment of partition…

Mick Fealty on June 21, 2007, 1:30 pm

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Anthony McIntrye, writing just after the Republic’s election, argues that partition was the key to Sinn Fein’s poor performance in last month’s election. Not least in the sheer unfamiliarity with the political economy of the south of the party leader: …he more resembled a luminary of the 1850s American Know Nothing Movement than a serious modern European political leader. His awareness of the issues in the Republic has improved little since attention was first drawn to this handicap by Paul …

Sinn Fein’s delay tactics in north cost it bounce in south…

Mick Fealty on May 31, 2007, 1:58 pm

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So much of what occured after the Belfast Agreement is so hidden from open scrutiny that it is often a case of paying your money and take your choice of who was responsible for who ultimately collapsed the outworking of that deal. Republicans blame unionists, and vice versa. However, much as it looked as though David Trimble paid the political price at the Assembly election of November 2003, Ed Moloney speculates that last Thursday Sinn Fein may just have antied …

Sinn Fein on the way back up?

Mick Fealty on February 2, 2007, 5:40 pm

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So, that Irish Times Poll. The core vote for the parties when the undecided voters are included is: Fianna Fáil 35 per cent (down three points); Fine Gael 19 per cent (down one point); Labour 8 per cent (no change); Sinn Féin 7 per cent (up two points); Green Party 6 per cent (up three points); PDs 1 per cent (down one point); Independents/others 6 per cent (down one point); undecided 18 per cent (up one point). From a Sinn …

An unhappy anniversary

Miss Fitz on December 19, 2006, 3:26 am

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Well, it’ll be two years on Wednesday since the Northern Bank heist. In the Sunday Tribune, Suzanne Breen gives a very detailed and explicit account of the robbers, the robbery and the divvying up of the dosh. There probably isn’t much new in what she writes, but I was a bit surprised at how confident she feels in alluding to the alleged bank robber. The Irish Examiner throws a little something new into the mix. They quote Justice Minister Michael …

Bobby on the beat…

Belfast Gonzo on October 10, 2006, 1:06 am

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WHO’DA thunk (apart from Brian Rowan) that the man the police blame for the Northern Bank robbery would now be touring the statelet telling republicans to support the police? Speaking of the Northern job, the Garda Commissioner today revealed how the Irish police linked cash seized in the Irish Republic to the IRA’s £26.5 million raid – forensics and witnesses – although how they are “indicating” that “without doubt” is another question. Just as well the IRA has completely abandoned …

Balrog on Daily Ireland…

Mick Fealty on September 10, 2006, 1:58 pm

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At Balrog, November Rain gives his/her view on the demise of Daily Ireland. As I told the SBP this weekend, the paper’s management believed it could do to the Irish News what SF had done to the SDLP. But product for product, it never matched it’s own lofty ambitions. In the end, as is apparent from NR’s comment, it struggled to get even hard core Republicans to buy it. It also didn’t help that it launched in the turbulent wake …

Phil Flynn tells his story…

Mick Fealty on March 24, 2006, 6:45 pm

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Given the giddy way stories emerge and then seem to disappear from view in Northern Ireland, the Village has a useful interview with one of the public figures who popped out of the media scrum around early police investigations into the follow-up to the Northern Bank robbery. Phil Flynn tells his side of the story. Though, presumably for ‘legal reasons’ he won’t be drawn on any of the potentially interesting detail surrounding Ted Cunningham and the Bulgarian brothers who featured …

How we squandered our peace dividend

Mick Fealty on March 14, 2006, 8:17 pm

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There is little doubt that in many respects Northern Ireland has never had it so good: unemployment rates are 4.5% (pdf), just below the UK’s average of 5.1%. The sense of settled well-being arising is most palpable in areas of traditional high unemployment like the Bogside in Derry. Disputes erupt every so often about the trend of higher Catholic unemployment, but we’re in a different territory from the 80% unemployed heads of households that held for some considerable time in the …

Fallout from the Dublin riot…

Belfast Gonzo on February 28, 2006, 5:58 pm

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HENRY McDonald thinks Saturday’s riot in Dublin will mean the postponement of the British monarch’s first visit to the Irish capital since partition, which could have happened this summer. Meanwhile, RTE reports that the Irish Justice Minister has just briefed Ministers that “gardaí had no reason to expect the violence that erupted in protest at Saturday’s Love Ulster march in Dublin”. Michael McDowell will lead a special debate in the Irish parliament later this afternoon. Interestingly, when pointing the finger, …

Blogging the riots…

Mick Fealty on February 26, 2006, 1:50 am

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The eye witness accounts have been stunning from Back Seat Drivers and Dossing Times, along with DT’s great capture of the scene ripped from the City Council’s traffic cameras. Take a bow lads! Strong shot from Flickr of a Guard apparently about to be hit with a brick – with, bizarrely, a Villa fan in foregrond). More from Celtic Freedom; Chris Logan thinks RSF are a disgrace. Dublin Met Blogs has loads of stuff. Kevin was on the ground too. …

A step too far by McDowell?

George on December 13, 2005, 5:44 pm

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Justice Feargus Flood, chairman of the Centre for Public Inquiry, has come out in support to the group’s executive director, Frank Connolly. In an interview on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said that every citizen is entitled to a presumption of innocence until proven otherwise in a court of law (Audio file available at bottom of article). The comments follow Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell’s admission that he supplied documents to the Irish Independent for their story on allegations that Frank …

YR Sauce coming back to a store near you, soon!

Mick Fealty on August 25, 2005, 10:28 pm

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Well, it’s good news from Chivers Managing Director Liam O’Rourke, who’s written to Slugger explaining the current hiatus in the ‘food chain’ in Northern Ireland. Pending a new distribution deal covering NI and Britain, you should be able to ask your local shop to order it! From Liam O’Rourke The situation re YR is that we have the product in wide distribution here in ROI it is listed in every major store and most minor stores also. We purchased YR …

Big blogging on the Big Bite!

Mick Fealty on April 4, 2005, 8:28 pm

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Interesting discussion with a few bloggers I’ve been wanting to meet for some time at RTE this morning. RTE’s Big Bite programme goes live tomorrow about 2.25pm and features a lively discussion between Caoimhe Burke, Gavin Sheridan, John Ihle, Richard Delevan and Sue, (who is currently worried about a haunting in her house). Oh, and yours truly. It was an interesting variety of bloggers. Fair play to David McWilliams, who seems to be ahead of the curve in recognising the …

Holywood man wins West of Ireland title

Mick Fealty on March 30, 2005, 12:16 am

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Congratulations to Holywood boy Rory McIlroy on winning the West of Ireland Open Amateur Golf Championship at Rosses Point in Sligo, at the grand old age of 15. Last time I saw him, he’d just flown back from Florida with his dad where they’d been reccying a course in preparation for the the World Under Tens Championship (back in 98, I think) in time to grab a bite to eat and up and out onto the Holywood course. At the …

Cenus figures no longer relevant

Mick Fealty on December 22, 2002, 11:28 am

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Sunday journalists have the advantage over their daily counterparts of having a few days to pass by before they finally commit their copy . Tom McGurk in the Sunday Business Post, has had a few days to consider the wider picture around the Census and concludes: …the whole purpose of the new politics is to end the imperative of sectarian headcounts, indeed to begin the process of finally liberating the Irish body politic from the dysfunctional, post-colonial impact of Westminster, …

Blair speech: Completion

Mick Fealty on October 18, 2002, 3:30 pm

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This may be the sound bite that outlasts the rest when the time and the place of this speech are long forgotten. Blair calls for decisive action: It’s time for acts of completion. We will do our best to carry on implementing the Agreement in any event. But, should real change occur, we can implement the rest of the Agreement, including on normalisation, in its entirety and not in stages but together. And we are prepared to do what is …

Blair speech: The benefits

Mick Fealty on October 18, 2002, 1:21 pm

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The focus changes to the political and economic benefits the Agreement has brought: “…there is still violence, but at a far, far reduced rate – in 1972, 470 people died. This year, so far, ten. Ten too many, but let us recognise the progress made. The transformation in the economy has been enormous: unemployment at its lowest since 1975; long-term unemployment, down 65 per cent since the Agreement; manufacturing up 15 per cent, uniquely in the UK. New jobs, new …

Adams: let’s hear it for the Union

Mick Fealty on September 18, 2002, 12:14 pm

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Gerry Adams calls for dialogue on the advantages of the Union. It’s hard to gauge how well such a proposal has gone down with Unionists themselves, though some have suggested that this is part of a ‘good cop – bad cop’ strategy, with Adams being good and others playing it tough. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and …

De Klerk speaks at Glencree Summer School

Mick Fealty on August 19, 2002, 10:37 am

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I am just back from a weekend spent at the Glencree Summer School, where a variety of speakers gave presentations to a mixed audience from both sides of the Ulster community, the Republic and the UK. The keynote address was given by the ex-President of South Africa, FW de Klerk. Though it was clear from the discussion that followed his initial address that there were few direct parallels between the circumstances in the two situations, a number of interesting points …

Priomhoide briste as a phost

Mick Fealty on July 31, 2002, 3:19 pm

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Dhearbhaigh an Foras Pátrúnachta cinneadh bhord bainistíochta Ghaelscoil Thulach na nÓg Tomás Ó Dúlaing a bhriseadh as a phost. Mar a duirt ceann den a na tuismitheoirí na scoile, i mBearla: “I feel sickened. We wanted to give our kids something different. We wanted them to learn more about religion than we ever had. Now bloody religion has come along and divided us and the school after all. What hope do those in the North have?” Dearainn Ian Malcolm, “Níl …