SIT INS: This caught my eye last night, but over the past few weeks a group called Fossil Free QUB have staged a number of protests about the issue of the university investing in Fossil Fuels. However, last night the group have occupied the Administration Building on the campus and have vowed now to leave until the university acts on this issue.
LISTEN BACK to Ministers Charlie Flanagan and Arlene Foster explaining their differing positions on what Brexit might mean for Northern Ireland at a QUB-hosted event today. Agreeing that a wide debate about the issues is essential was perhaps their only point of agreement.
VOICES FOR THE VOICELESS was part of QUB’s Celebration of the Arts and Humanities festival. Culture minister Carál Ní Chuilín spoke about her vision for equality in arts provision, followed by contributions from Anandi Ramamurthy, Feargal Mac Ionnrachtaigh and Ken Fero with his film ‘Burn’.
BREXIT – Has Northern Ireland even begun to discuss the European Union referendum that is likely to be held in September 2016? Have we a handle on how the issues peculiar to Northern Ireland? Listen back to the discussion at QUB’s event earlier tonight.
EXCLUSION & MARGINALISATION: How do communities use culture to express and counter their exclusion and marginalisation? A screening of Ken Fero’s short film “Burn” looking at aftermath of 2011 English riots and killing of Mark Duggan followed by a discussion about culture and community resistance – Voices for the Voiceless on 15 October by QUB ICRH.
DON’T WAIT FOR THE POLITICIANS: Take the example of open source software and hardware movements and create your own urban commons says Michael Bauwens in a lecture at QUB on Thursday evening.
A research group from QUB’s Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities (ICRH) hosted a conference today to look at Cross Currents in British and Irish Working Class Life. Alongside the talks were songs, films and plenty of debate. All the presentations and panels are now online … and you can look back at images, quotes and photos in tweets from the conference that were tagged with the #WorkingClassLife hashtag. Graham Walker opened the conference. Sophie Long introduced the opening …
A research group at the Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities at QUB has spent a year organising public-academic engagements posing and interrogating new research questions relating to working class history, politics, culture, literature and music. They’ve been asking … How has working-class life been created in Northern Ireland’s imagined and material worlds? Have the commonalities of class, across sectarian lines, been distorted, or indeed effaced, by the perennial focus on national division in NI politics? How can we …
The researchers from QUB’s Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice behind The Flag Dispute: Anatomy of a Protest report [PDF] held a seminar in Queen’s University this morning. [Gladys Ganiel blogged in detail about the report when it was published in December.] Two of the six researchers behind the report introduced the main findings. Paul Nolan quickly revisited the background to the protest (the “archaeology”). The PSNI gave researchers open access to operational logs from the …
An illustrated lecture on Thursday evening in the Duncairn Centre for Culture and Arts (Duncairn Avenue, Belfast) will explore Women, War and Welfare: the Co-operative crusades of Margaret Taylor McCoubrey (1880-1956). Margaret played a crucial role in the Suffrage movement, Pacifism, the Co-operative movement and Labour politics in early 20th century Belfast. Dr Myrtle Hill will deliver this inaugural lecture exploring the dynamic engagement of women in the social and political history of Ireland. Thursday 6 November from 7pm to …
As many of you may be aware, the Sinn Féin students at Queens University in Belfast have succeeded in gaining sufficient votes to trigger a “united Ireland Poll” among the student body. This matter seems to have energised parts of the mainstream media to an inordinate degree, particularly the Belfast Telegraph. Personally I am all for for radical student politics, there is a long, proud tradition of rebellious students being at the forefront of political change and anger at the …
Whatever the outcome, the referendum on Scottish independence on 18 September will have a profound significance for relationships spanning Britain and Ireland. That was the assertion at a one-day conference organised through the Political Studies Association and Queen’s University Belfast today. In his opening lecture “Tangled Histories” Prof Graham Walker (QUB) unravelled some of the historical narrative and timeline of the British Isles and Scotland’s place within the Union. Irish partition and Ulster unionism had a major impact on Scotland. …
I was 11 months old when the Ulster Workers’ Council strike occurred. And given the absence of Irish history on the school history syllabus – at least until the point I gave it up for Geography and spent two years studying Brazil – it’s a part of local affairs that largely passed me by. There are two conferences on the subject this week. The first at Queens on Monday. 40 Years On: The Strike Which Brought Down Sunningdale brought together …
Queen’s University Students’ Union from the 1970s until at least the mid 1990s suffered from extremely divided student politics. It even reached the stage that the Northern Bank was excluded from Freshers’ Fair; whilst assorted IRA members were made honorary life members and a number of members of the executive went on after graduation to gaol for IRA terrorist offences.(one popped back up again recently as a Deputy Headteacher) Bizarrely they also voted to ban Nestle products from the Students’ …
The phrase “peace journalism” was found wanting by organisers and delegates alike at today’s workshop in Belfast. Partly because the journalistic ethics that apply to conflict equally apply to peace (and every other situation), and also because Northern Ireland may be on a transition between conflict and peace, but it’s definitely not yet altogether post-conflict. The main speakers (Deaglan de Breadun, Mike Gilson, Jane Morrice and Malachi O’Doherty) and panellists (Laura Haydon, Alex Kane, Lyra McKee and Julia Paul) all …
So Micheal Martin’s speech last night, revisited with my own analysis appended. First the word cloud (kindly generated by John) of Micheal Martin’s speech has one word which stands far out above any other. And it’s Agreement. Not surprising perhaps since the speech was themed around the coming 15th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement. And, it seems, he came to Belfast not to bury, or even just to praise it, but remind his audience of young students at Queens last …
This evening, Micheál Martin gave the following speech to Queens University Politics Society and Ógra Fianna Fáil in the Canada Room that was by all accounts was pretty packed to the gills. It’s long and detailed, and picks out some policy areas (not least north south development) where Martin argues there has been a shortfall by what passes in Northern Ireland for the ‘political establishment’. More detailed comment will follow tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’d appreciate your own thoughts: As we …
Good piece from Liam Clarke noting that the Scottish First Minister’s cunning plan to close the funding hole in his Higher Education budget by charging non Scotland domiciled students up to £9,000 pa whilst delivering it free to local students is facing a legal challenge, creates further problems for Higher Education minister Stephen Farry… It’s a particular problem for Queens – a member of the prestigious Russell Group of Universities, many of whom will have the freedom in England to …
With all this talk of Irish general elections and cricket victories, Slugger missed the chance to look at one of Belfast’s annual electoral events – the campaign leading up to the election of QUB Student Union sabbatical officers. The Gown has been following the process in detail with some great coverage in a series of blog posts looking at hustings, debates, interviews, turnout and the results. As often is the case, the campaign was brutal and emotional, and involved claims …
A QUB graduate is challenging his degree classification in the High Court yesterday claiming that better supervision would have helped him achieve a 2.1 rather than the 2.2 he was awarded in June 2010. Legal challenges to the actual awards given (or not given) by universities are rare enough, never mind querying the final degree classification. What makes this one to watch is that, like all other universities, QUB already has pretty lengthy and detailed regulations which govern exams, awards and appeals. This …
