Martin McGuinness

Peter Robinson urges the DUP to drop their ban on an Irish Language Act and get real about restoring Stormont

Brian Walker on November 24, 2018, 1:37 am

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Elder statesmen a.k.a. retired politicians often grow wiser in retirement after shedding the burdens of office and the cares of party management. Sometimes their advice is welcome; sometimes it’s a stalking horse for a change of direction by their successors; sometimes it’s an embarrassment to them. We will soon know which it is this time. Conforming to type, Peter Robinson, for over forty years the usually steely self- disciplined deputy leader then leader of the DUP has offered some …

“No Minister should be using any private unsecured email accounts for any official business whatsoever…”

Pete Baker on October 24, 2018, 4:45 pm

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Some, presumably, unintentionally revealing details from the former Northern Ireland Finance Minister, Sinn Féin’s Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, who appeared in front of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Inquiry yesterday. This from his written statement [pdf file] 16. The bundle of documents referred to above appears to indicate that you used the email account [email protected] to discuss, share, transact, or otherwise communicate Executive business and Executive policy; and that you discussed, shared, transacted, or otherwise communicated Executive business and Executive policy with …

Henry McDonald in conversation about his book – Martin McGuinness: A Life Remembered #feile18

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on August 21, 2018, 9:00 am

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Watch back journalist and author Henry McDonald in conversation about his photo essay book – Martin McGuinness: A Life Remembered – which was published by Blackstaff Press. The discussion examined the genesis of the book, the changing face of Martin McGuiness, and reflected on some key moments in the Troubles on which McDonald had reported.

An evening with Alastair Campbell #belfastbook

Gary Kirby on June 7, 2018, 10:03 am

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Once described as the third most powerful person in Britain, the still formidable Alastair Campbell was in Belfast on as part of the Belfast Book Festival to talk about his new novel Saturday Bloody Saturday. During the Q&A he confirmed his support for the Iraq War and talked about The Thick Of It.

A revised Belfast Agreement is needed more than nostalgia for 1998

Brian Walker on April 2, 2018, 4:31 pm

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Like Magna Carta, the Belfast/ Good Friday Agreement has acquired the status of icon of the constitution. This is not altogether in its favour. A good deal of nonsense is talked about Magna Carta. Back in 1215, no sooner had the ink dried on the vellum of the fair copy, than bad King John denounced it. But the idea of curbing the unbridled power of the monarch could not be unborn and it finally evolved into government by the rule …

Slugger TV looks at MLA pay, education and the legacy of Martin McGuinness

David McCann on March 30, 2018, 12:45 pm

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Latest Slugger TV with our own Chris Donnelly and Heather Wilson from Northern Slant. We discussed MLA pay, civic Nationalism/Unionism, the legacy of Martin McGuinness and education David McCannDavid McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs

New book on Martin McGuinness launching this week

Chris Donnelly on March 20, 2018, 7:45 am

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Martin McGuinness’ untimely death has loomed large over the suspension of our political institutions and the collapse of trust that has defined the period since. His elevation as a statesman in the post-Good Friday Agreement era surprised many and it is no exaggeration to say that he will be remembered in time as the pre-eminent figure in the early devolution period who more than anyone else kept the institutions afloat and worked power-sharing between the most unlikely partners of …

A plea to Gerry Adams from a Falls Road boy

Brian Walker on November 22, 2017, 9:45 am

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In recent times we often hear the narrative that has been orchestrated so carefully by apologists for Sinn Fein – namely the huge personal risks that Adams and Mc Guinness took for peace. I do not believe that such an argument is credible. The people that really took the risks for peace down the years were those in the northern catholic community (and indeed outside it also) who defied the IRA and whose political and moral courage often cost them …

Home truths for Sinn Fein on sectarianism from Pete Shirlow

Brian Walker on November 21, 2017, 5:12 pm

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Pete Shirlow the director of the School of Irish Studies in the University of Liverpool made a guest appearance at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis last week.

#CinemaDay17 screenings of ‘At the Edge of the Union’ and ‘Death on the Rock’

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on August 27, 2017, 6:23 pm

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TWO CONTROVERSIAL TV documentaries which Margaret Thatcher’s government tried to censor are being screened on Monday evening as part of FilmHubNI’s Cinema Day 2017. The BBC’s Real Lives: At the Edge of the Union and ITV’s This Week: Death on the Rock.

Pressure on Sinn Fein to return to the Assembly was the message from the Dublin establishment at the Magill

Brian Walker on July 24, 2017, 11:45 am

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As the John Hewitt gets under way today, the summer school season had already been launched in Glenties. I spent a few days in the area the previous week so I missed out on this year’s Magill summer school which was as usual these days, highly political. On Brexit you can have too much of a good thing especially when Narin strand and Nancy’s bar down the road in Ardara are beckoning. The School will publish speakers’ papers shortly but …

A new approach to deadlock in Northern Ireland

Brian Walker on July 2, 2017, 3:38 pm

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A unique coincidence of events Standing back, it’s easy enough to see why the latest Assembly crisis is the longest and most intractable for over a decade. Unusually in recent times and in sharp contrast to the heady days of the Good Friday Agreement, this breakdown is set against background of momentous upheaval which typically, the local politicians rushed to exploit for their own causes. For the DUP, Brexit revives the prospect of a physical border which in whatever …

Election eve is hardly the time for calm consideration of the future

Brian Walker on June 7, 2017, 9:59 am

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Say what you like about social media but the old fashioned papers are hard to beat to bring you the feel of the last minute election atmosphere. They’re all the more frantic for the polls being all over the place and late tragic dominance of “ keeping us safe.” Later still, the Guardian’s monster montage of the right wing tabloids Later, after Mail on Line posted their attack on Corbyn etc True to form the Daily Mail devotes …

Brendan Duddy deserved a Nobel Peace Prize too

Brian Walker on May 15, 2017, 7:31 pm

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Coming soon after so much painful reappraisal that accompanied the death and burial of Martin McGuinness, a tribute from Peter Taylor to a man who was unambiguously a peacemaker, as reported in the Irish Times. Broadcaster Peter Taylor – who revealed Mr Duddy’s role as an intermediary between the IRA and the British government in a 2008 documentary – also said he believed the Derry businessman deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Brendan took many personal risks for peace,” Mr …

Brendan Duddy RIP. A peace maker in real time

Brian Walker on May 13, 2017, 7:30 pm

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It is remarkable, in an age of sophisticated back channels and espionage replete with digital and satellite communications, how a modest domestic background figured so significantly in the moves which eventually led to the ceasefires – and all the more effectively for it. The problem was how to establish trust when contacts had to be deniable, were often dangerous and were frequently interrupted by another piece of violence. Key contacts were often made in Derry, presumably because the town never …

The Journey – a fictional look at how the Chuckle Brothers bromance might have blossomed

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 2, 2017, 9:37 pm

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COLIN BATEMAN’S screenplay for The Journey presents a highly fictionalised account that explores what the early conversations may have been like between Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness as they worked towards agreement at the St Andrews talks.

Operation Kenova and The Spy in the IRA…

Pete Baker on April 17, 2017, 2:57 pm

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John Ware’s BBC Panorama investigation on Freddie Scappaticci, The Spy in the IRA, is available online, with an accompanying article on the BBC website. Ed Moloney has some relevant posts on his blog on the programme, including criticism of the initial response by processors in the media to Liam Clarke’s scoop when he broke the story in 1999. Not all journalists were as keen to follow the story up. Sinn Fein spread the word that Liam Clarke’s story was the work of …

Gerry Adams dons the mantle of McGuinness and holds out his hand to unionists

Brian Walker on April 3, 2017, 12:58 am

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In an interview with Sky News on the eve of the resumed interparty talks, Gerry Adams addresses familiar charges levelled against him by more than unionists. In a move clearly designed to win greater trust, the Sinn Fein president is at pains to deny that he is raising the bar so high as to guarantee that the talks will fail, with the ulterior motive of abandoning the Assembly and exploiting Brexit to pursue a strategy of Irish unity based …

“‘bad’ people can sometimes do good things, perhaps even for bad motives…”

Mick Fealty on March 28, 2017, 8:19 am

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Sorry to keep on, but I think this from Chris Dillow not only gets the balance right on McGuinness’s legacy, he also gets something right about the inscrutable nature of democratic politics that we would do well to take more account of: …a closer analogy with McGuinness’s change, is the role Lyndon Johnson played in the passage of the Civil Rights Act. LBJ was a racist – certainly by today’s standards and perhaps even by those of his time. Such …

Round up on McGuinness: Steering a path between pragmatic realism and terrorism’s soft sentimentality…

Mick Fealty on March 27, 2017, 5:55 pm

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Jenny McCartney makes up both for some of the more anodyne hagiography and avoids the pitfalls of some of the more un-contextualised moral outrage by rooting her analysis in the lived reality of the IRA Army Council’s (failed) Long War strategy… Belfast in the 1970s and ’80s was a grey, fortified city, compelling in many ways, but permanently charged with the unpredictable electricity of violence. Our local news steadily chronicled the shattering of families, in city streets and down winding border lanes that were …