John Montague dies…

At the sad news of the death of Brooklyn born Tyrone raised poet John Montague, one of his most famous poems: The Rough Field I saw the pope breaking stones on Friday A blind parson sewing a patchwork quilt, Two bishops cutting rushes with their croziers, Roaring Meg firing rosary beads for cannonballs, Corks in boats afloat on the summit of the Sperrins, A severed head speaking with a grafted tongue, A snail paring Royal Avenue with a hatchet, British …

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Drew Nelson, a good Orangeman, dies…

Senior Co Down Orangeman and former UUP election candidate Drew Nelson has died at the age of 60. He wasn’t the most public facing Orangeman, which is probably explained by the fact that for most of his life he eschewed big public gestures and worked on smaller but telling reforms. For a younger generation of Orangemen and Ulster Unionists, he advocated for separation and provided an exemplar of the progressive worker with a taste for slow, patient and incremental reform. He …

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David Bowie, a Lazarus no more (your memories, songs, etc…)

Not much to be said beyond this from David Baddiel this morning… Not just upset by Bowie’s death but disorientated: like I’ve woken up and the world is out of joint. I think I assumed he was immortal. — David Baddiel (@Baddiel) January 11, 2016 Beyond the usual Telegraph Obit, and a wee note on his past collaboration with Iggy Pop.. David Bowie Mix Jan 2016. by Dj Rusty Egan on Mixcloud And if you missed it there’s the 1975 …

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Denis Healey: “his grandfather was a Catholic Fenian tailor in Belfast from whom he inherited his bellicosity…”

Before this one fades from the memory of the internet, here’s a mash up of the Daily Telegraph’s obit for Denis Winston Healey by my good friend and some time professional collaborator, John Pollock on Facebook: The abiding memory of Healey as Defence Secretary was him standing with his back to the fire, the umpteenth gin in his hand, arguing points of strategy with the generals…Against Mrs Thatcher – whom he christened “Rhoda the Rhino” – and Sir Geoffrey Howe …

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Múinteoir meas Pat Kernan bás…

Tá curadh gan staonadh agus an-urramú na Gaeilge AR FEADH AN tSAOIL bás i nDún Pádraig. Bhí Padraig MacThiarnain, a bhí ina 70s, idir cainteoir líofa agus múinteoir na teanga. Beidh Pat Kernan a mheabhrú ag na glúnta daltaí i gColáiste Naomh Pádraig, An Cnoc, anois Coláiste Mhuire agus Naomh Pádraig. I gceannas sé suas roinn na Gaeilge ar éirigh an scoil oirthear Bhéal Feirste agus bunaíodh an iris Dúchas, de brí ‘Roots’ i mBearla, ce a bhuaigh se gradam …

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Ulrich Beck and developing the art of co-existence and constitutional tolerance…

Towards the end of the last millennium, an intellectual fad infected the Anglo-American academy, whose ivory towers can be vulnerable to fast-spreading exotica. Against the backdrop of the fall of the Wall in Germany and the cul-de-sac into which French ‘structuralist’ philosophies had fallen, ‘post-modernism’ announced the end of the ‘grand narratives’ of modernity, deriving from the enlightenment tradition and associated with its emancipating doctrines of liberalism and socialism. Everything was now just perspective, its breathless advocates declared, leading to …

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#SluggerSoapBox: In praise of Bob Purdie 1940 – 2014…

From Stephen Howe who is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol, having previously taught for many years at Ruskin College Oxford and worked at the New Statesman.  Irish writings include the 2000 book Ireland and Empire, and contributions to Irish Political Studies, Irish Historical Studies, and the new Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish History. Bob (Robert McGovern) Purdie has died, in his hometown of Kirkcaldy, Scotland, on 30 November. He was 74. Many people in Northern Ireland, …

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Ian Paisley: Skirmisher, preacher and agreeable chuckler…

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.” Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam             The passing of Ian Paisley was always going to be a rough affair. He leaves a lot of enemies and not a little hurt behind. As Tim Stanley noted yesterday, it is almost impossible not to speak …

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James Nesbitt (RUC) dies: An exemplary modernising cop in the chaos of 70s Belfast

James Nesbitt who was a Detective Inspector in the RUC’s C Division at Tennent Street Station in the heart of the Shankill from 1973 onwards has died. Nesbitt was and remains most famous for leading the team which effected the arrest of one of the most notorious gangs of sectarian killers in the early history of the Troubles, the Shankill Butchers. What gained them the notoriety was less the number as much as the way in which they dispatched their …

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Albert Reynolds (critical bridge builder of the early peace process) dies

So another old beast of the Peace Process era leaves the stage. Albert Reynolds is too easily forgotten in the sense that he was only taoiseach for less than three years. Yet in that time between Haughey and Bruton its widely acknowledged that he played a crucial role in bringing Sinn Fein and the IRA into mainstream negotiations. #51426636 / gettyimages.com As the BBC’s obit piece notes… … with a mixture of carrot and stick, [Reynolds] was instrumental in persuading …

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Gerry Anderson dies: “We have lost our jester…”

I remember coming home in the summer of 1988 to work on a number of summer schemes in Belfast, Lisburn, Ballynahinch and Holywood with an English colleague who’d never been to Northern Ireland before. My one insistence of the day was that I had to listen to Gerry Anderson at 10.30. It was like shot of something powerful and good in the midst of a less than good situation. Gerry’s was more than gallows humour. It was a light drop …

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Nelson Mandela dies at age 95…

Not sure there is much I can say… except he changed many people’s outlook on him, his struggle against anti democracy, and ultimately his own countrymen’s outlook both upon themselves and their place in the wider world… “People learn to hate. And if they can learn to hate then they can be taught to love” RIP Nelson Mandela. pic.twitter.com/ptxxtm2Vco — Eoghan McDermott (@eoghanmcdermo) December 5, 2013 18 years ago today, Nelson Mandela walked in to Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg …

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Ruairí Ó Brádaigh dies

All I can say about this is that Ruairí Ó Brádaigh was around for so long, and was so cogent and lively right up to his most recent media appearances, that I almost presumed he would go on forever. Usual obit thread rules apply. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and …

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An answer to Ruarai’s question on Christopher Hitchens?

There’s been a number of gems in the after flow of the gush that followed the death of Christopher Hitchens… not least this ascerbic ‘complement’ from his former comrade in arms at The Nation, Katha Pollett… But the gem of gems so far has to be this erudite and subtle take on Hitchens’ late discovery that both his mother and his grandmother (and therefore, he) were Jewish from Marc Tracey… It’s long but very much worth a thorough read, taking …

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