Republic – Page 21 – Slugger O'Toole

A great example of cross border cooperation. More needed

Brian Walker on October 15, 2014, 8:42 am

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This is a key example of the sort of all-island planning that should be speeded up in all sectors. Good to see that flag waving doesn’t come into it. But the “black hole” must be filled. .. fears have been voiced that more families will face a uncertainty over where operations will take place in England until Dublin has the capacity to cope.. “Surgery stops in Belfast in eight weeks – there is a potential black hole for months with children …

Is Stormont fit to take the gamble on a lower corporation tax?

Brian Walker on October 8, 2014, 11:25 am

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The economist James Stewart of Trinity College Dublin has revealed details of the extent of legal tax dodging (£) involved in the Republic’s tax much vaunted 12.5% business tax rate in the Financial Times He argues that the Republic’s government seems not be aware that a vast quantity of profits are not subject to corporation tax anywhere in the world because of “double Irish” tax strategies. This dodge means that two Irish companies, one of which makes sales to customers and pays …

The “what ifs? ” of our past play a part in dealing with it today

Brian Walker on September 29, 2014, 10:09 am

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The row over former taioseach John Bruton’s regret that the Easter Rising ever happened goes on. Will historian Diarmaid Ferriter have the very last word? In his latest sally in the Irish Times, Ferriter attacks the exaggerated use of the counterfactual, the “what if” school of history. His argument to Bruton is basically simple –look, the Rising had the obvious effect of radicalising nationalist Ireland. It happened, get over it, stop regretting it. In an important sense Ferriter the historian …

The British goverment must set a better example before the case for an amnesty is properly heard

Brian Walker on May 28, 2014, 12:20 pm

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Adrian Guelke a South African a Queen’s academic and a leading authority on post-conflict resolution joins the growing list of reputable figures calling for an amnesty. He criticises the two governments for lack of involvement (although the unfortunate Eamon Gilmore can’t be faulted for trying almost right up to the moment of his resignation as Labour leader) Extracts. An unfortunate sequence of events has unfolded that has the potential to threaten the peace, including the failure of the Haass talks, histrionics …

Irish and English election results so different, so much the same

Brian Walker on May 27, 2014, 2:39 pm

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Similar trends and outcomes are apparent when the British and Irish elections results are compared. They are of course part of a common European picture. But the immediate effect on the coalition governments at Westminster and in Leinster House differs. The Irish coalition is rocking. The Irish Times is even speculating that pressure from Labour may bring forward the 2106 election date. This would seem a perverse response. A factor for the longer term may be the relative revival of Fianna …

Personal memories of Sunningdale and the UWC strike – the lost opportunity for a generation

Brian Walker on May 22, 2014, 7:10 pm

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Although I couldn’t attend the conferences they’ve sparked off vivid memories. This was a time when not only Northern Ireland seemed ungovernable but Britain too. At the Sunningdale civil service college in Berkshire we in the media were stuck in the conference annex for days because of the difficulty of getting taxis during the three day week, then in full force. TV had to close down at 10 o’clock each night – it was that bad. In spite of the atmosphere of crisis in England hopes …

The peace process sceptics need addressing as the governments prepare to intervene

Brian Walker on May 6, 2014, 7:13 am

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People who had to catch their breath over Gerry Adams’ arrest are now be having second wind. The former Labour secretary of state Shaun Woodward has called for a referendum over the heads of the local parties on what sort of mechanism they want to deal with the legacy of the Troubles. This may be commended as an initiative for jolting what remains the sovereign government and its Dublin partner into exercising their responsibilities in a low intensity existential crisis. But …

After the Adams arrest there is a way through, you know

Brian Walker on May 5, 2014, 11:07 am

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The IRA is gone, it’s finished.” I want to make it clear that I support the PSNI.” My reading of Gerry Adams’ statement on his release with his anger only just held in check, is that he wants to limit the damage while capitalising on the circumstances. Snap reactions are notoriously unreliable. But the events of the last four days have allowed the rest of us to speculate on what might have happened if he had been charged. Most people’s thoughts I …

If Gerry Adams was ever immune, that immunity has now been lifted. What next?

Brian Walker on May 1, 2014, 2:58 pm

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The Adams arrest raises acute questions about a comprehensive approach to dealing with the past I discussed just before the news broke. Depending on the outcome, the prospects could go either way. The cry of selective or one sided justice from one side produces an inevitable echo. Justice all round is unlikely to become better served, neither are truth or political relations. If the PSNI draw a blank, we’re where we were. If they don’t, we enter the unknown. A heavy burden is placed on the operational independence of the police, …

After the Visit, the greater epiphany?

Brian Walker on April 12, 2014, 12:28 am

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What we saw in Windsor Castle this week was a delayed act of official reconciliation that should have taken place fifty years ago but was held up by the Troubles. It was in reality the unfinished business of closing a sequence of turmoil that began over a century ago, whose shadow is finally lifting only now. Carping like that below fails to recognise that such formalities can only be afforded when the reconciliation they celebrate is safely secured. So what …

Faint echoes from Ukraine reach home

Brian Walker on March 19, 2014, 10:25 am

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From Timothy Garton Ash’s piercing analysis in the Guardian. Start by abandoning the labels “ethnic Ukrainians” and “ethnic Russians”. They mean almost nothing. What you have here is a fluid, complex mix of national, linguistic, civic and political identities. There are people who think of themselves as Russians. There are those who live their lives mainly in Russian, but also identify as Ukrainians. There are innumerable families of mixed origins, with parents and grandparents who moved around the former Soviet …

United Ireland’s struggle against gay rights wins RTE damages

Brian Walker on February 4, 2014, 6:45 pm

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Is it defamatory to accuse opponents of same sex marriage of homophobia? Or are they fairly exercising their consciences in declining to recognise equality with heterosexuals? Irish Times columnists are on opposite sides of an argument which is part of the Republic’s slow emergence into the modern era. Sadly though the columnists haven’t gone head to head over it yet; let’s hope they do. The issue arose when John Waters and Breda O’Brien, both Irish Times columnists as it …

The Irish archives are a partial model for information retrieval today – if the politicians ever let it happen

Brian Walker on January 17, 2014, 5:09 pm

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The release of papers about the rank and file – and the women – of the 1916 Easter Rising should prompt greater depth and detail in the writing of history you might have thought had been well turned over already. But you’d be wrong. The eminent historian Diarmaid Ferriter explains the crucial role of the Bureau of Military History, the archive of accounts of veterans recorded mainly in the 1940s and 50s well after the main events. The bureau began document release …

Despite the Haass setback we are not the prisoners of the past but masters of our own fate

Brian Walker on December 31, 2013, 10:22 am

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The issues of the Haass process are only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed it might be said that the talks were unlikely to succeed without rigorous challenge and examination of the beliefs and assumptions the parties brought to the table. Behind the tortuous details of flags, parades and the past are the competing narratives which need to be challenged and explored before we can reach the point of agreement of how to live with them. Beyond the groves of …

Northern Ireland reflections on the “real” Mandela, man and myth

Brian Walker on December 11, 2013, 12:21 pm

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Hooray. There is still a role for newspapers. The Guardian proves it with their balancing coverage of the early obsequies for Nelson Mandela who it might be thought is one of their natural heroes. Restoring a human dimension after the hours of adulation and longueurs of 24/7 TV news is Simon Jenkins’ column and the obit by David Beresford, a brilliant South African born reporter and a former Ireland correspondent for the paper who was sadly ill for years. His …

Trinity academic to become first woman cardinal shock!

Brian Walker on November 3, 2013, 6:52 pm

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No, Not Crocodile Dundee’s soon to be ex -wife but the vice provost of Trinity College Dublin. A real Sunday flyer From the Sunday Times (£) SHE may be a woman, married, a feminist and only 49, but an Irish theologian called Linda Hogan is being tipped as the Vatican’s first lady in red. There has never been a female cardinal, but since Pope Francis took charge in Rome eight months ago and emerged as a social liberal the unthinkable …

The Glenanne story proves the time for frank admissions is overdue: further prevarication over collusion implies Briitsh government cover-up

Brian Walker on October 24, 2013, 11:40 am

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Like most of the atrocities of the Troubles the story of the Glenanne gang isn’t unfamiliar Suzanne Breen for one gave a detailed account of the 1976 Kingmills and Reavey brothers massacres in January 2011 based it would seem on “ imminent” HET reports. Of the Reavey murders she stated as a matter of established fact: The attack was carried out by the UVF’s infamous Glenanne gang, which operated in a murder triangle between south Armagh and mid-Ulster. Made up of …

The decline of traditional patriotism in Britain and Ireland

Brian Walker on September 21, 2013, 10:17 pm

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Remember the great closing episode of Blackadder from the trenches of the Great War where the artful dodger meets his nemesis at last : “ We need a futile gesture?” The “futile gesture” being that he was to lead his men over the top to be mown down by the German machine guns. But it was in Ireland that the futile gesture worked best, in the blood sacrifice of 1916. The Irish Times had some fun at the taoiseach’s expense …

More on the trend of reconciliation in the decade of commemoration

Brian Walker on August 25, 2013, 1:21 pm

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Stephen Collins writes in the Irish Times: So far the decade of commemoration for the great events spanning the 1912 to 1922 period that led to Irish independence has been marked in a similar spirit or reconciliation and compromise. The tens of thousands of Irish men who fought in the first World War have finally received due recognition and the State has even given formal recognition to the Ulster Volunteers, whose entire purpose was to block independence. However, …

The Maze is part of a shared past

Brian Walker on August 24, 2013, 12:41 am

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Malachi O’Doherty is magnificently right. The best result for the Maze project would have been/ still should be to provide an unsparing and comprehensive account of the Troubles, murders, conspiracies and weasel politics, including the narratives without which it is a meaningless recitation of horror. Conflict resolution could come in the last gallery just before the shop. What a powerful statement it would be coming from the post-Agreement generation of parties and what avenues it would open for collective cognitive therapy. …