The issue of the cost of living either side of the Irish border received renewed interest today, following Senator Ian Marshall’s comments on the Sunday Politics that a single person in Northern Ireland is left with about £16,000 [at the end of a year], whereas the same person in the Republic would be left with €1,900 in their pocket. The Senator’s logic was that the cost of living is higher south of the border, and to an extent this is …
The renewal of democratic accountability, in both Dublin and Belfast, is to be welcomed. This renewal offers new opportunities for people to tackle a range of issues, from housing to health, mental health and economic inactivity that have been afflicting the Irish polity living on both sides of the border. With this resurgence in local politics, it is important people recognise a representative democracy requires its citizens/subjects to keep working with their elected representatives, long after the election, to ensure …
Change. Such a simple word, yet if we could sum up this election, it really was about change, not just for its own sake but ambitious change. A sense that the country was heading in the wrong direction and despite record growth rates, a large section of the electorate opted to take a punt. Fed up of paying high rents, having their children living with them and the cost of everything rising, they looked at who embodied that ambitious change …
Let’s stand back. With just one seat fewer than Fianna Fail but with quotas to spare, Sinn Fein’s claim to have gained the moral advantage has credibility in spades. Another reading is just possible. The two centrist parties outnumber them by rather less than 2 to 1. Twice in France the right and left united to defeat the far right in the second round of a presidential election, once by joining together and last time by forming a new political …
Last week the Irish Independent printed an opinion by Phillip Ryan. He charged Mary Lou McDonald with the title of ‘Ireland’s Donald Trump’ which prima facie is a confusing argument but I decided to persevere through such arguments and it made me think more broadly about the idea of Sinn Féin being a left-wing populist party. Has populism finally arrived in Ireland? Populism or elitism are nebulous terms, but in the modern usage they imply a party that presents easy …
Brian O'NeillManaging Editor of Slugger O’Toole. I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism; I am not a member of any political party. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.
The campaign for a pension for seriously injured victims has been a long road since it started back in 2012, following a report by Marie Breen-Smyth on the impact of the Troubles on those injured. Led by members of the Wave injured group and supported by the Commission for Victims and Survivors, the pension campaign was about remedying the way injured victims had been inadequately compensated in the past, discriminated or ill-treated. For many years the issue was caught in …
There is no question that the brexit process is having a seismic effect on the ties that bind the UK’s four constituent parts. The union has never been weaker, not just because the UK now has a government that clearly places little value on it, but also because the populations of Scotland and Northern Ireland are questioning its value in ever greater numbers. I’ve heard arguments – from supporters and representatives of one political party in particular – that these …
In Jan Carson’s The Fire Starters, there is a quote: “There is never enough silence to contain all our talking…….we continue to believe that across the sea, Europe (and also the world) is holding its breath for the next chapter in our sad story. The world is not waiting.” More than anywhere else in the UK, Brexit shifted the ground beneath Northern Ireland. It threw us down on different sides, sides that were also the battle lines that came before. …
The resumption of the Assembly and Executive of Stormont is the basis for a reform of government in Northern Ireland and a change in the way our society operates. The big question is how this can be achieved. Holywell Trust conducted interviews with opinion leaders in Northern Ireland and the Republic asking how our society should change. Those 35 ‘Forward Together’ interviews were covered extensively last year by Slugger and broadcast as podcasts. They have this week been published on …
Some Slugger readers might remember, back in 2016, that I decided to take the plunge and lease an electric car. Recently, more attention has been paid to this topic; BBC NI recently ran a few segments about it, and I noted at the end of one of the leader’s debates prior to the election that the leaders were all asked if they had plans to change to an electric car. Then, this morning, I noticed that the Department for Infrastructure …
In an ever-changing world there are now few constants and certainties, however, in Northern Ireland some remain including the fact that Unionism will find itself on the wrong side of a debate and be forced into a massive climb-down. The second certainty is that a spokesman (it’s always a man) for the Loyal Orange Institution will awkwardly enter the political arena with an ill-informed and often inaccurate intervention which will usually oppose whatever is being proposed. Unfortunately, as both a …
So today should be the day. Much of yesterday the Secretary of State briefed the ‘problem’ parties, the DUP and Sinn Féin on the nature of the governments’ text without revealing it. The smaller parties receive their briefings today, so whilst Good Morning Ulster is broadcasting from Stormont this morning, the next development is not expected before this evening. Will there be a deal? Gareth Gordon speaking on BBC NI’s Newsline last night pointed out that it will only take …
I have been a supporter of the Good Friday Agreement since its inception. I believe many of the mechanisms contained therein are sensible and necessary to manage the divided society we live in, and I accepted the principle of consent as a reasonable compromise in pursuit of a peaceful and democratic society. Nonetheless, while I have been a fierce advocate of the Agreement, I certainly won’t dismiss every criticism levelled at it. Mandatory coalition, for example, has led to a …
James Devlin is a postgraduate researcher at NUI Galway. The recent general election results were marked by the high positive swing to the Alliance party. Alliance were rewarded with one seat, came within 2000 votes of a second, and increased their share of the vote by approximately 10%, including in areas where they have previously struggled. In doing so, Alliance affirmed their performance in the recent European elections, confirming a general swing in Northern Ireland towards the centre, driven by …
Last Thursday’s general election was certainly a shock to the system for the DUP, and Unionists in general, with not a single Unionist party gaining any seats. The DUP lost the formerly safe seat of North Belfast to Sinn Fein’s John Finucane and Emma Little-Pengelly lost South Belfast to the SDLP’s Claire Hanna. It’s not hard to paint a picture that Unionism had a terrible night, even if the Ulster Unionists benefitted from a modest boost of nearly ten thousand …
What does the UK’s seismic election result mean for the island of Ireland, Brexit and the union? We break it down in a new episode of The Irish Passport podcast: what will happen next with Brexit, whether an ‘Irish Sea border’ is really in the post, and why the vote is being described as the most serious for the union in a century. One reason Scottish National Party’s landslide victory and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s demand for a referendum on …
In 1918 the United Kingdom as it had existed was blown apart by a trifecta of landslides; a Tory landslide in Great Britain driven by a three-way split in the centre-left vote; a Sinn Féin landslide in most of Ireland; and an Ulster Unionist landslide in what would soon become Northern Ireland. This election is more most consequential than any in the 101 years since, and it too has been marked by competing landslides: a Tory landslide in England and …
Free Event: Tuesday 17 December at 12.30pm Bell Lecture Theatre, Main Campus, Queen’s University Belfast Why not come along for some post-election dissection with a side of Brexit analysis thrown in! Boris Johnson’s call for a general election was finally heard, and as we all know by now, UK voters are off to the polls on the 12th December for what commentators are calling the most important election in a generation! Join us at Queen’s University on the 17th December …
Late intro . Gladys is an broadminded and sympathetic commentator on church affairs often concentrating on reconciliation and other pastoral efforts which she regularly shares with Slugger. There are other sides to church affairs. Alf McCreary has contributed a column of church news for the Belfast Telegraph for many years which by and large has taken the orthodox view of the place of Christianity and the churches in Northern Ireland without entirely ducking the many controversies within them. In the …
