The Ulster Unionists appear to have succumbed to the revulsion many unionists feel at the very idea of sharing power with the spawn of the IRA that most of them have suppressed every day since 1998. The danger now is that they will set off a chain reaction and take the DUP with them. The DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson says the UUP’s move does nothing to support the DUP’s aim to exclude Sinn Fein from the Executive, even if this …
The Financial Times (£ paywall) which is so good at making its limited space for non-financial themes count, reports a new boost for the Scots language which the writer Mure Dickie suspects is part of the longer term drive for independence. In language policy, the parallels as well as contrasts with both Irish and Ulster Scots hardly need much spelling out. But I hope you will – enjoy, is that the word? – the distortions of what we think of as …
Anxiety and anger over budget plans including welfare cuts continue on both sides of the water. Amid the attacks on George Osborne for “ Tory austerity” in his plans to cut public spending by a further £20 billion or 40% for unprotected areas, a rough comparison of public spending as a share of GDP suggests that UK and Irish spending by this measure will remain roughly comparable to the end of the decade. I float this out in the hope …
Official Ireland’s well known discomfort over how to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising has just been exposed over the prefiguring event, the funeral the previous year of the physical force Fenian, O’Donovan Rossa. With the failure to consign this heritage to the past in advance, it seems possible that there will be a full blown struggle over the ownership and character of the republican tradition in an election year. If not, it will not be for Sinn Fein’s …
“The UK is still in breach of international law for failing properly to investigate unresolved killings, especially and most controversially where state agents might have been involved”. So states Brian Gormally the director fo the legal lobby group the Committee on the Administration of Justice, quoting the UN Committee on human Rights, No doubt Nuala O’Loan agrees. The UK government does not take kindly to lectures from this committee. More potent pressure may come from the “ hooded men” case against the …
Some reflections on the state of the centre of politics culled from recent writing. We begin with a focus on Ireland in two pieces which reveal the underlying fear of the further rise of Sinn Fein, although the main topic in each case is wider. First, an excellent survey of the ongoing study of the period of the 1916 rising and its contemporary resonance by the English historian David Reynolds, in the News Statesman. Perhaps in 2016, a century on, …
The FT (£,unfortunately) reports a strategically timed interview with the Irish ambassador to the UK , the Yeats-loving Dermot Mulhall. Remember when the Irish people reversed their “ wrong” answer in the first referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? It was the bold Dermot who fund the way through, apparently. Now he’s recommending that the UK follows a similar route to avoid the calamity – for both islands – of Brexit . But eventually the rest of the EU agreed to the …
The Irish Times reports that it is launching “ full proceedings” against the Times ( of London ) following its failure to win an injunction against the Murdoch- owned paper in its bid to use the title “The Times Irish edition” for a new digital edition of the paper linked to a subscription for Sunday Times version which already exists. This move will be very expensive and a sign that the Irish Times board believes much is at stake. For …
This piece by Aaron McKenna , businessman and columnist in the Journal.ie is not holy writ but it does make some interesting north-south comparisons. The UK government spends 24% more per head in Northern Ireland than it does in England, some £10,876 for every person in the province. If we got Northern Ireland tomorrow, that would translate to €15,464. In the Republic, we spend €11,120 per head. Of course, the Northerners could spend what they like if they earned it. …
Two interesting blasts from non-natives in the abortion debate have appeared in – can you guess? Yes! – in the Guardian and the Independent. In the Indy, London-based Siobhan Fenton has been combing the statistics just out, to find that that 828 women who had abortions in England and Wales last year gave Northern Ireland addresses and 3754 were recorded as coming from the Republic. Almost certainly these figures are an underestimate, the real NI figure being around 2000, according …
It was probably inevitable but the UK coverage of Prince Charles’ handshake with Gerry Adams exaggerated its significance. The heavy lifting for reconciliation was done by the royals when the Queen and Prince Philip shook hands with Martin McGuiness in the Lyric Theatre, opening the door to a filmed audience as DFM last year. Prince Philip’s handshake is worth emphasising. Mountbatten supervised his early upbringing when he came to England to be educated when his parents split up, his mother being …
I am delighted to take up the role of Southern Editor here at Slugger O’Toole. It is the perfect time for ‘Slugger’ to expand. Over the next year we want to bring that unique approach to the Irish political scene. In the past I was deeply involved in grass root politics. Ireland has a great tradition of this across all parties and none. There are many people who possess a deep understanding of the political game and how it works. …
In the shadow of black Ben Bulben, news of a visit by Prince Charles more than a quarter of a century later to the site of his great uncle Earl Mountbatten’s murder in Mullaghmore harbour, brings back vivid memories. It will fill gaps in his own experience and knowledge of Irish and family history. There is a tangled web of history here, of different classes, politics and outcomes. Uncle Dickie” was the last of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren to be held …
Why is it when the search is on for instructive examples, that Ireland is seldom looked at by British movers and shakers? Over the behaviour of militantly anti-austerity parties when the focus is on Greece, an alternatively financed health service, the behaviour of coalition governments, what a constitutional convention might achieve, Ireland has a wealth of experience good and bad, to draw on. I suspect the reasons for ignoring Ireland is rooted in a mixture of British guilt and its close …
In the Irish Times Paul Gillespie floats the idea that the North might benefit by a federal deal with the south. He invokes the useful hand played by the Republic in the recent Stormont House agreement. Certainly Charlie Flanagan waxed more eloquently than Theresa Villiers but that isn’t saying much. I discern a much bigger hand played by HM Treasury in setting the financial deal and in monitoring future Executive performance. This is surely appropriate as they put up such …
In Northern Ireland God seems to work in mysterious ways his wonders to perform at peak moments in the Christian calendar. Sixteen years after the Good Friday ( or Belfast ) Agreement, we have the Christmas ( or Stormont House) Agreement. Behind the details the main features are: Apparently genuine efforts by the parties to end deadlock by tackling it through a highly ambitious, comprehensive agenda . Against expectations, the dam seems to have broken. Regular monitoring of the conduct of the …
Well, perhaps amid the encircling gloom the political parties have seen some light at last. The details of the agreement on welfare reform are awaited but it looks as if any new money will come from Westminster mainly to deal with the past which is surely fair. Adds: United Executive request for a total of £2.1 billion over 10 years. Quite a gap with David Cameron’s £1 billion extra borrowing.. but perhaps smoke and mirrors will narrow it once the welfare deal surfaces. Nothing from that …
The credibility and effectiveness of the devolved institutions is on the line, writes David Cameron. Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy warned if a deal isn’t done then the Northern Executive will “crash”. “The implications are that the Executive can’t continue to function. You go into a crash and you go back to an election and let the public decide how the issues are resolved, Peter Robinson said last week. SDLP negotiator Alban Maginness, reflecting some expectations of a limited deal, …
In an Irish Times piece subtitled “If the UK leaves the EU, the North’s status will change, perhaps disastrously” veteran commentator Dennis Kennedy gets bogged down in in his own “fantasy.” He’s right in one respect, that any bid by a Conservative- led government to quit the EU by referendum would undoubtedly shake a union that is already exposed as fragile. And true enough, we surely know that the last thing on the minds of Cameron and the massed ranks of …
Two cheers to the Financial Times (£) for giving space to one of the many topics that people in Northern Ireland who live close to it take for granted but shouldn’t. The story is headlined “Irish two-speed economy puts integration under pressure”. Sixteen years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement that ushered in a fragile but enduring peace in Northern Ireland – and helped boost the “Celtic Tiger” economy that was then taking off in the Republic – the …
