Nuala O’Loan

The Proclamation for Prods: what the 1916 centenary might say to non-republicans #feile15

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on August 5, 2015, 5:43 pm | Readers 2714

We are richer as people when we not only know a view point but can appreciate it. Dave Thompson is a teacher, runner, Presbyterian elder and SDLP member (who self-identifies as not being very nationalist). He delivered an hour long lecture that unpicked various perspectives on the 1916 Proclamation. The universal republican ideals – equality, liberty, fraternity – those are things we still care about in the 21st century, and things we’ll still be doing in the 22nd century. So …

Corrymeela celebrates its 50th birthday with Aperture festival to mark common ground & difference

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on July 8, 2015, 11:19 pm | Readers 334

Few people realise that the origins of the Corrymeela Community can be traced not to the start of the Troubles – Corrymeela was actually set up before the Troubles in 1965 – but to Ray Davey’s experiences during the Second World War. The horror and suffering of Dresden impressed upon him the futility of war, violence and division. [historian and playwright Philip Orr] The Corrymeela Community is celebrating its 50th birthday by throwing open the doors at its Ballycastle centre …

O’Loan: “I wouldn’t be an Ombudsman if I had no power to investigate chief officers…”

Mick Fealty on February 17, 2014, 12:25 pm | Readers 53

So Nuala O’Loan speaking on the current controversy managed to significantly cut through the hysterical noise in Dublin and bear in on the signal. All of Dan Keenan’s piece is worth reading (not least for the right of the GSOC to determine the levels of threat to its own security), but this is the money shot: “In running an office like this you have to work with the Government but I do know that the last time I was there, …

Nuala O’Loan: “that is not the foundation for a just society.”

Pete Baker on December 27, 2011, 3:28 pm | Readers 17

A novel suggestion for dealing with the past from former Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan, in a Guardian interview. And it’s not an “absurd” and “disingenuous” call for an international ‘truth’ commission. From the Guardian article …the former ombudsman, now Lady O’Loan, stressed that a “Waking the Dead” style unit investigating Ulster’s recent conflict would not be tantamount to a truth commission like that which dealt with the apartheid era in South Africa. “There should be one unified operation to deal …