How can a community tell its story? That’s the question Jonathan Hodge has been asking as he visited other places and communities to bring back ideas and challenges to loyalist communities in Northern Ireland. This week he hosted a discussion in Shankill Road library and launched his new Perspectives magazine which looks at identity, rights and the United Kingdom.
In my first post in this series – looking at what it is to be Irish (as an adjoint to my blog ‘The New Irishman’) – I sought to show that Ian Paisley was 100% Irish. Ian Paisley’s Irishness was stated unequivocally by the man himself; and third party observers have testified to his quintessential Irishness. In my second post I sought to show that the protestant in Ireland has historically, and in Northern Ireland presently, been considered as illegitimate and as an inauthentic outsider – “imperialistic …
That’s the title of a workshop that brought together working class loyalist representatives with some peers from other communities, interested academics and a small number of journalists. The day long event was organised by Dr Aaron Edwards and supported by the Political Studies Association’s Irish Politics Specialist Group and the Fellowship of Messines Association. In an earlier post I posted an interview with PUP leader Billy Hutchinson at the close of the workshop. With four sessions looking at different aspects …
Throughout most of the election campaign there was a large billboard on the lower Newtownards Road with a picture of a young woman and the following quote “One year on still no one has delivered for working class unionism; that’s why I’m voting PUP.” As it turned out of course relatively few working class unionists seem to have decided to vote PUP and few unionists of whatever class voted for the PUP’s prodigal former leader Dawn Purvis. The fundamental conceit …
Last month UTV covered the issue of ex-prisoners having difficulties obtaining secure employment. A number of months ago, shortly before Christmas, a conference was held on the issue of “civilianising” the UVF. If this sounds familiar it is because every few months there is another announcement of the “civilianisation” of the UVF. This process of “civilianisation” is what others might call “stopping breaking the law.” Not the UVF but the UDA’s leader (how exactly McDonald can be named by all …
Sectarian murder victim Alfredo Fusco and his bride on their wedding day Another of the bereaved families from here finally got some degree of justice today. Loyalist terrorist Robert James Clarke was found guilty of the sectarian murder of 53-year-old Alfredo Fusco in his York Road café on 3 February 1973. From the BBC report: Mr Justice McLaughlin said there “was no innocent explanation” for the fact that fingerprints belonging to Clarke were found on the door which Alfredo Fusco …
Jackie McDonald one of the UDA’s self styled “Brigadiers” has been speaking to the Belfast Telegraph. McDonald’s ire seems largely directed at Tom Elliott, who unlike McDonald did actually defend Ulster as part of the UDR: McDonald preferred being a leader of the yabba dabba doo any taig will do UDA. It seems that Mr. McDonald is vexed that Tom Elliott did not mention the UDA in his leader’s speech: “When they (unionist political leaders) don’t speak about us, they …
There was a reason Judge Cory didn’t think any of the six cases that he initially looked into would get a decent hearing. If I recall correctly it was bound up with the Enquiries Act of 2005. So it should come as little surprise that are reassured by the outcome of the Billy Wright Inquiry… There’s a few details worth picking up in the next few days in more detail, but let’s start with the one Mark Devenport has picked …
The News letter has a story today that another PUP member has left. Tommy Sandford who is an ex loyalist prisoner and was the sole PUP councillor for Castlereagh for one term from 2001 until his defeat in 2005 (there are none now) has resigned. He told the News Letter that the party’s link with paramilitaries (the UVF) was a “major factor” in his decision. There is no comment on the PUP website (there have been no additions since the …
Moochin PhotomanPhotographer and visual artist based in Belfast. I have facilitated community based workshops with groups as diverse as visually impaired individuals in Dungannn, Travellers across Northern Ireland, Young Offenders and many community groups across Belfast. My work has exhibited extensively here in Northern Ireland in group and individual shows and has been shown in North America and i had my first solo international exhibition in New Zealand. I have been the recipient of a number of grants from the …
