Ireland – Page 7 – Slugger O'Toole

Spotlight #3 – IRA fundraising, arms shipments, a priest’s lack of repentance, and the slow shift from the armalite to the ballot box #TheTroubles (9pm Tue 24 Sep on BBC One NI and BBC Four)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on September 24, 2019, 12:01 am

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The third episode of Spotlight on the Troubles: A Secret History includes an interview with former parish priest Patrick Ryan who looks back on his times organising weapons shipments to Ireland, saying that he has “big regrets … I regret that I wasn’t even more effective … I would like to have been much more effective that I was … but we didn’t do too badly.”

The downsides of no devolution for the DUP

Brendan Heading on September 18, 2019, 8:48 pm

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Yesterday, the BBC reported details of an NUJ rebuke for the North Antrim DUP MP, Ian Paisley, following “unwarranted and unworthy” personalised remarks made on Facebook about News Letter reporter Sam McBride. The source of Mr Paisley’s resentment appears to have been the implication that the DUP were indirectly culpable for the forthcoming sweeping liberalisation of abortion law in Northern Ireland by blocking a deal to restore the assembly which requires the introduction of an Irish Language Act. An objective …

“You want to do them justice and to do their stories justice.” Telling the stories of the children who died in the Troubles.

Paul Gosling on September 16, 2019, 7:02 am

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“We’ve done interviews with just shy of 100 families who lost children during the Troubles,” explains Freya McClements. “And you feel like you know them. The thing above all is that you want to do them justice and to do their stories justice.” Freya is discussing the research that she and Joe Duffy have done for their book Children of the Troubles, which is published in October. She describes the opportunity to write the book as “a privilege”. Freya admits …

Ashcroft poll on support the backstop, reunification and party leaders

David McCann on September 11, 2019, 10:54 am

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Lord Ashcroft has released the findings of his poll surveying Northern Ireland voters about their attitudes towards a border poll, the backstop and the various party leaders. Border Poll He says about this In my poll, 45 per cent said that they would vote to stay in the UK, and 46 per cent said they would choose to leave and join the Republic of Ireland – a lead of 51 per cent to 49 per cent for unification when we …

‘Telling Troubles stories can help deal with the past’

Paul Gosling on September 9, 2019, 7:01 am

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Telling stories about the past – about the Troubles – can help families and society move on, says playwright Jo Egan. She dramatised the events that killed six children during the Troubles in‘The Crack in Everything’, which was produced by Derry’s Playhouse Theatre as part of a European Union Peace project. She was also responsible for ‘Crimea Square’, a community theatre play about the history of the Shankill Road. “People want to be heard,” says Jo. “They want their stories …

Concern deepens in both parts of Ireland over the state of paralysis in Brexit negotiations

Brian Walker on September 5, 2019, 11:50 am

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Evidence mounts of the economic damage of No Deal to the economies north and south and the implications for the border which are disputed between the British and Irish governments. A no-deal Brexit would mean Northern Ireland’s economy would be at least 3% smaller compared to if the UK stayed in the EU, a new analysis highlighted by the BBC NI Economics correspondent John Campbell suggests. That is a much less severe impact than a UK government analysis which suggested a …

‘Unless we start listening, we’re not going to move forward’

Paul Gosling on September 2, 2019, 7:04 am

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“Unless we start listening, we’re not really going to move forward,” says Julieann Campbell, editor of the Unheard Voices collection of women’s stories from the Troubles. She was interviewed in the latest Forward Together podcast. Julieann reflects in the podcast on the impact on her of the interviews with women about their experiences in the Troubles. “I think it has affected me on several levels, emotionally and in my work,” she says. “It is a fact that it has made …

There just has to be a compromise over the backstop, for all our sakes.

Brian Walker on September 1, 2019, 5:23 pm

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Ulster University campus. A new face of Belfast Taking bracing walks in west Donegal and in and around Belfast for three weeks without much sight of the political news does wonders for the perspective. Not for the first time, I experienced severe doubts about the relevance of the noise of politics to the rhythms of real life. I’m old enough to marvel still how the near Republic has caught up with the North in prosperity and appearance. The border towns …

Today is the 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Lord Mountbatten and the Narrow Water Attack…

Brian O'Neill on August 27, 2019, 12:18 pm

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The recent BBC Documentary ‘The Day Mountbatten Died‘ is well worth a watch. Our family used to go on holiday every year to Mullaghmore, County Sligo. It is an area I am very familiar with. Was it bravery or arrogance that Mountbatten would holiday in Ireland every year at the height of the Troubles? Whatever the case may be, there did seem to be remarkable complacency around his security. Leaving his boat unprotected in the bay did seem remarkably lax. …

Politicians need to release civic society to find solutions, argues Sophie Long

Paul Gosling on August 26, 2019, 7:01 am

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Civic society in Northern Ireland could produce answers to the big problems we face, but is blocked by politicians who don’t want creative solutions, argues Sophie Long in the latest ‘Forward Together’ interview. Sophie is a former Assembly candidate for the Progressive Unionist Party and a Queen’s University graduate, whose doctoral thesis was ‘An Investigation into Ulster Loyalism and the Politics of Misrecognition’. She works as Northern Ireland grants officer for a major charity. Strengthening civic society in Northern Ireland …

Is Northern Ireland Spiralling out of Control?

Claire Mitchell on August 25, 2019, 9:06 pm

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There has never been so much consensus in Northern Ireland. There has never been so much discord. The guy who cuts our trees thinks we’re Catholic, as we send our kids to the local Catholic school. We’re not (we’re Lundies). We think he’s Protestant, because of his name and the fact that we live in majority Protestant area. Last week, I was surprised to hear my husband drop a ‘Londonderry’ into the conversation – I assume to make the tree …

How #Brexit has become “a mutually incapacitating snare…”

Mick Fealty on August 20, 2019, 10:05 am

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Good piece from Katy Hayward… The UK-EU stand-off over the backstop is no longer in the realms of negotiation. The topic has become a mutually incapacitating snare. The more forcefully one side stresses its position on the backstop, the more justified the other feels for not bending from its opposite bearing. And thus the noose tightens. Getting out of this bind is increasingly difficult because Johnson has posited the abolition of the backstop as an iconic issue for demonstrating UK …

‘Transformative decisions on Northern Ireland have not been taken’, laments Peter Osborne

Paul Gosling on August 19, 2019, 7:01 am

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Northern Ireland is more than 20 years into a 50 year peace process, which is being held back because government here has failed to take the radical transformative steps that are required. This is the view of Peter Osborne, the former chair of the Community Relations Council, in the latest Forward Together podcast. Peter explains: “We are in a process that will last at least 50 years. Some people thought when the [Good Friday] agreement was signed, we had peace. …

A bridge across the Irish Sea is a ridiculous idea, but the ferries between Northern Ireland and Scotland are the most expensive in the UK

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on August 18, 2019, 11:20 pm

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When Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, Minster for the Union and Novelty Infrastructure Tsar Boris Johnson visited Belfast last month for a Conservative Party leadership hustings, he re-iterated his previous support for a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland. It was “the kind of project that should be pursued by a dynamic Northern Ireland government”, as he optimistically phrased it. It is worth re-iterating just how stupid this idea would be. Such a …

The role of media in conflict: A Féile discussion

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on August 14, 2019, 8:44 pm

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The role of media in conflict: A Féile discussion by Allan LEONARD 8 August 2019 Hosted by Féile an Phobail, the campaign group Time for Truth organised an event to examine the role of the media in conflict and to listen to the account of those journalists in the front line who helped shape and influence the narrative. The panellists were Amanda Ferguson (journalist), Sean Murray (film director), Trevor Birney (film producer), and Barry McCaffery (journalist). After welcoming those attending …

Class division in Northern Ireland even greater than between orange and green, argues CFNI chief

Paul Gosling on August 12, 2019, 7:01 am

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Class is a bigger and more significant division in Northern Ireland than is the religious divide, argues the chief executive of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland Andrew McCracken. “Whilst there’s the really visible gap between orange and green, the more fundamental and more important gap is the gap between rich and poor and the bubbles of society that we live in,” says Andrew in the latest Forward Together podcast. He continues: “The thing I really care about, that’s part …

This is part of the jigsaw of national change and history we are all currently part of. And one we can directly influence and win.

Soapbox on August 8, 2019, 12:49 pm

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Andree Muprhy is a columnist for the Andersonstown News Irish presidents when I was growing up in 1970s and 80s Dublin were former Fianna Fáilers who had a retirement package in the Aras. I suppose I only remember one – Patrick Hilary who was President from 1976 until 1990. And there was a picture of my grandfather with Eamon De Valera while he had been president. Apart from that photograph the position was utterly irrelevant. Patrick Hillary greeted the Pope …

Deal with disadvantage before unity, argues Senator Mark Daly

Paul Gosling on August 5, 2019, 7:01 am

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To achieve a united Ireland without a return to conflict requires northern society to resolve the problems of its communities that contain deep-seated deprivation and alienation, argues Fianna Fáil Senator Mark Daly. Mark is the former chair of the Oireachtas Good Friday Agreement Implementation Committee and was interviewed for the latest Forward Together podcast shortly after the release of his report, ‘Returning to violence as a result of a hard border due to Brexit or a rushed border poll: risks …

For Northern Ireland: Parity of esteem and reconciliation

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on August 4, 2019, 4:03 pm

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For Northern Ireland: Parity of esteem and reconciliation by Allan LEONARD 1 August 2019 As part of the 31st annual Féile festival, Jim Gibney (a member of the Féile Debates and Discussions Committee) welcomed the audience of a couple dozen attendees of a panel discussion on what parity of esteem, reconciliation, and mutual respect means from those who are pro-Union. The panellists were Professor Peter Shirlow (Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool), Dr James Wilson (Initiative for Civic Space), …

How Loyalism Remembers: Review of Ghosts of the Somme by Jonathan Evershed

Gladys Ganiel on July 30, 2019, 7:57 pm

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‘… commemoration of the Somme represents a (if not the) chief means by which Loyalists are able to participate in the political, cultural, and social life of Northern Ireland and attempts to circumscribe particular commemorative forms risks further alienating Loyalists from processes of peace-building in which they already perceive themselves as having little stake.’ – Jonathan Evershed, Ghosts of the Somme, p. 19 This is the most important argument in a new book by Jonathan Evershed, Ghosts of the Somme: …