Society

One of the things we highlighted as most damaging in the allegation that Sinn Fein was trawling for sex secrets at Stormont before it closed was the alleged targeting of gay members of the Unionist opposition. Eoghan Harris argues that this highlights the long overdue need to have a public debate on sexuality in politics. …an IRA operation aimed at gathering sexual intelligence on Sinn Fein’s political opponents in Northern Ireland. Naturally you can be certain the IRA’s dirty tricks …

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Remaining with Derry, according to a report on Protestant alienation released by the University of Ulster in the August identifies several key concerns within that community, not least the feeling that the Council is operating to an exclusively Nationalist agenda. The report makes a number of recommendations: These include: promoting community led regeneration; improving access and mobility within the city; that Derry City Council should examine the report and fund a workshop to explore the issues further; the development of …

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Alex Kane notes that the drop in voting levels which has been apparent in all parts of the developed world is finally making itself felt in Northern Ireland. He examines the shifts he’s witnessed in almost thirty years in politics and argues that simple blanket solutions like making voting compulsory simply ignore the reasons why politics is being sidelined in the ordinary citizens priorities.By Alex Kane There have been a number of recent demands for voting to be made compulsory. …

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One of the difficulties facing the Orange Order in urban areas is the inevitable social mobility of the middle classes. When people move out of older urban heartlands they tend to lose touch with order in whatever new part of the city or new town they move to. According to the Newsletter, the Independent Loyal Orange Institution, has set up a new “Friends of the Institution” organisation which “takes into account the pressures on time which people today experience”. One …

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With EU funds looking like they may dry up and Westminster apparently eager to cut deeply into Northern Ireland’s subvention (estimates vary between £5 and £8 billion per annum), private money may become the most effective way to drive social projects. Traditionally strong in the US, this FT article looks at the problems of transfering it to Europe, where different approaches may be needed in the Protestant north and the Catholic south: …simply transferring the US model of philanthropy to …

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A quick summary of today’s events.. nothing much happened here.. but the leader of one political party confirmed his struggle with alcoholism, and called a leadership election, while another, the George of Galloway, as predicted on Harry’s Place, signed into Celebrity Big Brother.. modern politics, eh? Pete Baker

In the Belfast Telegraph, Eamonn McCann points out that 2005 was the year when scepticism about the 1998 Agreement went mainstream, and identifies its fundamental flaw as “The Agreement was always certain to consolidate sectarianism in that it established a system based on striking a balance between the wishes and interests of “the two communities.” This ensured that the battle within each community concerned which party could be counted on to vindicate and advance its interests vis-a-vis the interests of …

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..the IFA have thon football match on DVD.. you can order it here.. although it doesn’t seem to be in stock until 19th December.. and a nomination for quote of day from Talkback [the presenter’s name escapes me, apologies] to Gerry Armstrong – “Do you think there’s a danger of over-doing this?”.. Ya think? Pete Baker

Yesterday, NIO Minister Angela Smith welcomed the lowest ever NI unemployment figures – of 4%, 2nd lowest in the UK, and revealed that there were 693,450 employee jobs filled in September 2005. So, in light of the claim by one commenter in a previous thread on the percentage of the workforce employed in the public sector I though I’d have a closer look at those figures – see over the fold.The Equality Commission recently released its findings on the NI …

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An interesting wrinkle in the Connolly-McDowell saga reported in the Irish Times. According to the report by Mark Hennessy and Liam Reid, “Billionaire Chuck Feeney hired a private investigator last July to inquire into allegations that Frank Connolly had travelled to Colombia in 2001 on a false passport.”[subs req] and that “The investigator, Dermot Benn of Risk Management International, which is based in Dublin, initially gave a qualified bill of health to Mr Connolly”More from the report in the Irish …

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Yesterday’s Observer carried a report, by Henry McDonald, on the Democratic Dialogue report, commissioned by the IFA, and its recommendations for extending the Football Offences Act, an end to the policy of no soccer games on a Sunday, and replacing “God Save the Queen” with a less controversial anthem, in line with both Wales and Scotland, the anthem to be selected through a competition. Paul, The Northern Irish Magyar, adds his thoughts here – “All but one of them I’d …

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The Equality Commission has published its 15th Fair Employment Monitoring Report – part 1 here and part 2 here [pdf files], a summary is also available[pdf again] – and they have stated that, “The imbalances in employment recorded in the early 1990s have, in effect, disappeared. The composition of the workforce is now Protestant: [57.7%] and Roman Catholic: [42.3%].” [the Non-Determined are, of course, not counted] Good news? Not according to both Sinn Féin and the DUP.. as this Press …

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An unnecessarily sensationalist article in the Guardian today, that covers the entire page 3 of the main section of the paper, reporting on the Near Earth Object Apophis – “It’s called Apophis. It’s 390m wide. And it could hit Earth in 31 years time” – Sensationalist because the article firstly relates out-of-date assessments of the risk of Apophis hitting Earth, from reports in 2004 [taking up half the article], before quoting Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer from Queen’s University Belfast on …

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Royal Mail’s Christmas stamps issue quickly degenerated when BBC Radio Ulster’s Talkback attempted to discuss the matter today, and certainly the DUP’s Mervyn Storey deserved the criticism he got, but spare some of your criticism for Royal Mail.. as the quotes in the Newsletter article point out, before the DUP councillor escalated the row, Royal Mail had already apologised to one religious minority for the supposed offence caused by the iconography used on the Christmas stamps – images also over …

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Other weddings get the headlines today, but in Kilsheelan, Co. Tipperary, over the weekend there was a somewhat better-kept secret than the ceremony hosted at Sir John Leslie’s castle in 2002. Brian Warner, aka Marilyn Manson, married burlesque dancer Heather Sweet, aka Dita Von Teese, [who is rather pejoratively described as a stripper in the Belfast Telegraph] in, according to this report, a midnight ceremony with “children in makeup, dressed in these wonderful 19th century outfits, serving absinthe frappe”.. the …

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Once again the BBC pre-empts an official announcment, expected tomorrow, to report that the new Parades Commission Chairman, taking the place of Sir Anthony Holland, is to be Roger Poole, a former trade unionist who was involved in the formation of Unison. In addition they report that a former candidate for the Woman’s Coalition, Ann Monaghan, has also been appointed to the Commission, along with two other women, out of a total membership of six commissioners and a chairman. As …

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What has been described as a ‘crude but viable’ explosive device was found at Belfast City Hall and dealt with by a controlled explosion. Further security alerts are taking place in other areas, including a controlled explosion in Derry, and part of the North West Institute has been evacuated.. no group has been identified as claiming responsibility in the reports.From the BBC’s brief report – Device is made safe at city hall A controlled explosion has been carried out on …

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While Mick has already noted some of the tributes to George Best, I had hoped to link to the Michael Crick report on Newsnight last night. But it doesn’t seem to be available. ANYway the Guardian’s David Lacey has an excellent article, published today – “The artist who was greater than the team”. Also in the Guardian, David Meek, who was the football correspondent with the Manchester Evening News, 1958-95, recalls “The greatest game I ever saw him play”From David …

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I was wondering how to note this Belfast Telegraph report about a court case in North Carolina in which a judge appears to accept that there are parallels between Irish set dancing.. and lap-dancing. Thankfully the Irish Eagle, who adds his own reminiscences, spotted another article on the story in the Irish Examiner, which ends with an appropriate quote from the director of ethnochoreography at the University of Limerick’s Irish World Music Centre, Dr Catherine Foley – “People can take …

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In the Dáil today, the leaders of the political parties upheld the tradition of not speaking ill of the dead.. instead, for the most part, focusing on criticism of the coverage of Liam Lawlor’s death in Moscow. One party leader carefully stepping through the sensibilities of those concerned was Pat Rabbitte as RTÉ reports – “[Labour leader Pat Rabbitte] said he would have liked to be able to say that Mr Lawlor had used his prodigious talent exclusively for public …

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