Ireland – Page 39 – Slugger O'Toole

Why you should learn how to blog in Derry (ahem, the Slugger O’Toole way)

Mick Fealty on October 26, 2017, 3:57 pm

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I hate telling people how to do things, particularly blogging (just ask my fellow writers on Slugger). For a time I thought it was going to be an idea whose time had largely been superceded by microblogging sites like Twitter and Facebook. However next weekend I’ll be in Derry (yay!!) for a day-long course in which I’ll be exploring the core underlying value of blogging, and why it still matters. Broadly, here’s six reasons why you should take such an …

LucidTalk Poll on a Border Poll & Irish Unity

David McCann on October 25, 2017, 9:33 pm

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Lucid Talk released a poll on Irish Unity and a Border Poll this morning. You can listen to the results here on U105 The poll found that more than 60% of respondents thought a poll should be held within the next 10 years. One of the more interesting findings was that 56% of the 18-44 year old respondents said they would vote Yes in a potential referendum. Overall around 55% of respondents favour Northern Ireland staying within the UK. …

Belfast man sentenced in Germany for 1996 Provisional IRA attack on army barracks

Pete Baker on October 25, 2017, 2:22 pm

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A timely lesson from the German authorities on dealing with Northern Ireland legacy issues… Having successfully extradited 48-year-old James Anthony Oliver Corry from the Republic of Ireland in December last year, the Belfast man has now been convicted and sentenced for his role in the Provisional IRA mortar attack on a British army barracks near Osnabrück, Germany, in June 1996. From the Irish Times report A Northern Ireland man has been convicted in Germany of attempted murder for participating in an IRA attack on a British army barracks in the …

Latest findings on a border poll

Brian Walker on October 22, 2017, 6:46 pm

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From the British- Irish Parliamentary assembly meeting in Liverpool, as reported in the Sunday Times (£) Both Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland who tend not to vote — in either Westminster or assembly elections — would reject a united Ireland in the event of a poll, according to research presented to Irish and British politicians. “Non-voters” would be decisive in a border poll because they are likely to come out in record numbers, according to an analysis by Liverpool …

Beyond the Abuse Scandals? Review of Maher and O’Brien’s ‘Tracing the Cultural Legacy of Irish Catholicism’

Gladys Ganiel on October 20, 2017, 10:37 pm

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There is much insightful reading in a new collection of essays edited by Eamon Maher and Eugene O’Brien, Tracing the Cultural Legacy of Irish Catholicism: From Galway to Cloyne and Beyond (Manchester University Press, 2017). Maher, who lectures in Humanities at the Institute of Technology, Tallaght, has co-edited a number of collections on Irish Catholicism in recent years – all of which have made a valuable contribution in conversations about the future of the Church. Titles such as Contemporary Catholicism …

‘Victims of the Peace’ – Lessons from David Bolton’s ‘Conflict, Peace and Mental Health’

Gladys Ganiel on October 20, 2017, 1:27 am

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If there is one book that should be required reading for our MLAs, it is David Bolton’s Conflict, Peace and Mental Health: Addressing the Consequences of Conflict and Trauma in Northern Ireland, published this year by Manchester University Press. The book is a timely reminder that while the Assembly remains suspended and political progress remains stalled, victims and survivors of violence continue to live with the consequences of the past. Bolton eloquently describes their plight (p. 3): In Ireland, whilst …

On the Stormont deadlock, time now to test party positions and introduce a mediator

Brian Walker on October 18, 2017, 1:55 pm

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If the Irish Times is right, Dublin HQ has prevented Michelle O’Neill from striking a political deal. It is a deplorable fact that throughout this 10 month deadlock, so little is reliably known about party positions beyond nods, winks and notoriously unreliable mood music. At least in the Brexit negotiations the principals give some sort of account after every session. Times have changed since 1998. Then, reasons for secrecy were far more credible. The main agenda for much of the …

“the impression that Gerry Adams is not serious about restoring the Executive is gaining traction”

Mick Fealty on October 18, 2017, 11:36 am

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Interesting speculation in the Irish Times on who is holding things up. Dublin and London sources are pointing fingers directly at Sinn Fein to accuse them of an old Modus Operandi of theirs: ie, telling their interlocutors they’re nearly ready and, then suddenly not being… We’ve seen the same pattern in countless negotiations in which even a senior figure like Martin McGuinness was compelled not to strike a deal directly on behalf of Sinn Fein but to track back and forth endlessly …

7 thoughts from the Ard Fheis as Fianna Fáil begins to “spread out but stick together…”

Mick Fealty on October 16, 2017, 11:49 pm

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I was a guest of Fianna Fáil at the Ard Fheis in Dublin this weekend, specifically to talk about the recent disastrous Tory campaign and to describe how Labour was able to brigade its new ecclesia towards one unlikely victory. In summary, here are seven loosely connected overall impressions from Saturday: What’s changed since 2013? No protesters chanting outside the RDS, no rounding up anyone vaguely under 30 for a photo op to see off Internet ribbing about a pensioner’s paradise. Older …

“The Laws of Nature Need Not Apply Here” – Ophelia is a sign of things to come

Peter Doran on October 16, 2017, 11:10 pm

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The Northern Ireland administration’s late and confused hurricane warning to school children and young people parallels local political attitudes to climate change. By failing to take climate change seriously even when the evidence is hitting us in the face we are disregarding the rights of our children and young people. The late, confused and inefficient warning on Sunday evening to students and parents is like a metaphor for the slow, confused and ineffective response that government has made here …

A Question of Identity

David McCann on October 16, 2017, 7:39 pm

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The View presenter Mark Carruthers has taken a look into the complexities of identity in Northern Ireland. In his 30 minute documentary for Radio Ulster he speaks with academics, politicians and members of the clergy about their experiences with identity and what makes up a Northern Irish identity. As the radio programme starts, Carruthers points out the difficulties that people have in being able to actually pin point what actually makes up Northern Irishness or does such an identity even …

More delay over a return to the Assembly needs challenging by the two governments

Brian Walker on October 16, 2017, 12:46 pm

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So the target date for either direct rule or an agreement to revive the Executive has slipped for another week at least. What a surprise! We were told by the two governments yet again that ” progress” had been made, but this has been slapped down by the DUP. Sinn Fein’s agenda as far as I know it is not inherently unfeasible. The problem is that it’s Sinn Fein who’s running with it. Crafty old Gerry for false-footing the DUP? Or …

Stormont’s path blocked by antithetical cultural incentives (not constitutional ones)

Mick Fealty on October 10, 2017, 1:01 pm

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Stormont's collapse has a problematic cultural base from Slugger Consults This is a presentation I gave last Thursday on where we find ourselves (or rather where the DUP and Sinn Fein find themselves). I don’t go along with Alex Kane’s view that powersharing is dead (not least because something like it would have to take its place). Nor, like Alex, do I believe powersharing is the cause of the impasse. The deeper question is that crashing Stormont proved to be …

The Brexit crunch may come as soon as Christmas. The British case should be taken more seriously

Brian Walker on October 9, 2017, 10:31 am

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Many commentators on the Brexit negotiations, including Irish ones scarred by the diktat of the 2010 bailout and understandably opposed to the whole idea, talk as if the EU Commission’s stance is not only immutable but deserves the status of Holy Writ, while the British position is purely faction-ridden and pathetic. The contrast is too stark. There is no absolute logic to the EU’s making an adamantine sticking point out of of undefined “sufficient progress” on UK financial contributions, citizenship …

Nationalism 101 with Prof Richard English – local and global #msconversations

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on October 8, 2017, 9:00 am

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Interview with QUB’s Prof Richard English ahead of his sessions on Nationalism and Brexit at next weekend’s Mount Stewart Conversations organised by the National Trust at their lough shore property.

Will someone spell it out. What role for Dublin under ” direct rule? “

Brian Walker on October 7, 2017, 2:19 pm

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Patrick Murphy’s apt question in the Irish News. “ Why do we think Dublin would be any better than running the North than London?” prompts the even more basic question:. What sort of new Dublin “input” is wanted or even necessary? Later this month, “Direct Rule” in whatever guise would in key respects be inevitably different from the direct rule of 1972 when the two sovereign states had barely begun to cooperate. Today, the British- Irish relationship through governments and …

Liam Cosgrave Dies

Mick Fealty on October 5, 2017, 9:29 am

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Watch: The life of Liam Cosgrave https://t.co/yPyotw2eyn via @rte — RTÉ Archives (@RTEArchives) October 5, 2017 Liam Cosgrave, Taoiseach and son of the first elected leader of the Free State government has died. I remember him getting in (we were stuck in a traffic jam in Lisburn of all places), and I remember him going under Lynch’s tricksy abolition of road tax, but not much else. We were, as we largely are now largely preoccupied with our difficulties. There’s a …

Jonathan Powell on Ending Conflicts – Insights on Leadership

Gladys Ganiel on October 4, 2017, 9:22 am

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Jonathan Powell, the British Government’s chief negotiator on Northern Ireland under Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997-2007), joined Prof Richard English Monday for a conversation on ‘Ending Conflicts’ at the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s. Powell is now director of Inter/Mediate, a charity he founded in 2011 to work on conflict resolution around the world, and an Honorary Professor in the Mitchell Institute. Inter/Mediate is currently helping to facilitate negotiations in ten locations. …

“You cannot be everything to everyone. If you decide to go north, you cannot go south at the same time.”

Mick Fealty on October 3, 2017, 7:13 am

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With the extent of the growth of Sinn Fein in the Republic, it’s getting hard to give a convincing account of southern politics without also looking at what’s happening in Northern Ireland. Until or unless there’s a split in the way that the party organises itself in each jurisdiction, it’s hard to account for all the twists and turns (of which there’s been many just this autumn alone) by only watching the party’s activities in the north or the south. …

Leo Varadkar needs to stand up to the Franco-German axis for Ireland and the small nations of the European Union

Sean Geeney on October 2, 2017, 11:03 am

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Since it became clear that Angela Merkel would be re-elected as German Chancellor, there has been a re-focused approach to tax harmonisation within the European Union, driven mostly by Emmanuel Macron’s France, along with Germany. This has been covered by numerous media outlets and there is little I can add to the conversation. The argument is that France and Germany who are now both stable and revitalised after momentous national elections, will look to readjust the balance of Europe. It …