We all know communication is important. It’s at the heart of nearly everything that we do; how we form (and end) relationships; how we work and play; how we support each other or fight with each other. It makes sense to want to be able to do it well. Our desire to improve our communication skills has created an industry of communication “experts”. The internet is full of articles and videos telling viewers how to improve their communication. Self-help books …
An August Economist magazine featured a timely article [PAYWALL] looking forward to the Autumn party conference speeches. Focussed on the main English conferences the unnamed writer noted: The process can begin as soon as June. An early task is to cook up one or two big policy announcements, without which no conference is complete (an unwritten rule that has cost taxpayers many millions over the years). Welcome to NI where the Executive agree policies and ministers *never* announce policies outside …
Here’s the full text of Gerry Adams speech in the Dail this afternoon in a debate entitled Statements on the current situation in Northern Ireland. Mr Adams segues from a long justification of his party’s murky past to an imagined future. However, there’s barely a reference to the actual ‘current situation in Northern Ireland’. Indeed the party press office has handily rethemed it, Dáil statements on the North: I welcome the fact that we are having this debate. I have …
So, Obama’s speech? As Fionnuala O’Connor pointed out on BBC NI yesterday comparisons with past speeches are ill-placed. When Clinton spoke in 1995, she argued there was a lot riding on it. There was virtually nothing riding on Obama’s delivery yesterday. The regular mis-pronunciations were testament to the downgrading of Northern Ireland both in the President’s own strategic hierarchy and the amount of resources set aside for it at State. As Barak headed west to Fermanagh, Michelle wasted no time …
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 …
So at last David Cameron delivered his long awaited speech on Europe. Arguably the most important speech, by a British Prime Minister, since Tony Blair’s speech proposing the case for war in Iraq. British politics, it seems, has entered the era of the referendum arguably started with the referendum on the voting system in 2011 with a vote on the Scottish Independence and an In/Out vote on the EU. Here in Northern Ireland, we have Sinn Fein calling for a …
So one of the big set pieces of the weekend was Peter Robinson’s claim was that a majority of Catholics now (ie, right now) would prefer to stay with Britain than take their chances in what (as Ruarai points out in the comments zone) remains a hugely undefined united Ireland. On the face of it he’s pushing further than Trimble’s famously self defeating claim that 35% of NI Catholics where unionists. Self defeating because such weak attachment did not and …
Martin McGuinness’ keynote speech to the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis is up on the party website. It’s worth quoting at length, because at risk of invoking a trite pun it is worth noting at least as much for its reference to Tone (Wolf Theobald) and its generally emollient tone. Partition created two conservative states on our island. The rights and entitlements of ordinary citizens were secondary to the needs of the political class in both states. That is why every …
The following is the body of a speech given this evening in Dublin by Northern Ireland’s First Minister and leader of the DUP, Peter Robinson… The Edward Carson Lecture, “Reflections on Irish Unionism” in Iveagh House in Dublin… Though a statue of Lord Carson takes pride of place in front of Parliament Buildings at Stormont, a Northern Ireland Parliament was an institution he had not sought. Though he did so much for unionism and Northern Ireland, he regarded the failure …
