Apathy: greater threat to Nationalism than Unionism…

Although it is sadly missing from our archives (due to a nasty accident on the server of a previous UK-based host) our first on-the-ground foray was the November Assembly Election in 2003. It was an awesome experience. Not least because of the way activists and voters turned out in such huge numbers. But it seems apathy is a growing factor here as elsewhere in the UK. American Student Patrick Lane says it’s an element that Unionist politicians (whose base has always suffered much more from apathy than nationalism) should forge a strategy to use it to their advantage…

Mick Fealty @ 07:12 AM | Comments (0)

Question Time comes to Newry…

Right on Thursday night witness the usual mild form of political torture as our local politicians take stage that annually demands they talk about something other than themselves… Two years ago they scored an improvement (possibly with the help of the Slugger O’Toole Question Time Crib Sheet). What questions do you think they should be discussing on Thursday night? Slugger understands the production team may be listening in this year…

Mick Fealty @ 09:21 PM | Comments (29)

A quick update as part of the charity blog series focusing on The Billy Caldwell Foundation………

The Billy Caldwell Foundation (http://www.billycaldwellfoundation.com) is offering promoters a free house raffle ticket for every five they sell (£100 each). For every individual, club, business, voluntary group, church, school, etc, that raises £500 they also get a free house raffle ticket and a chance to win the brand new three, bedroom house for their organisation. So calling all sales people, people with generous or rich friends, folk who need an idea for a Christmas present, or anyone who just wants to help a good cause, register your interest with Anne Monaghan at

Anne Monaghan @ 08:55 PM | Comments (4)

Policing budget balanced.. for now..

Neither the Policing Board Chairman, Desmond Rea, nor the Northern Ireland Justice Minister Paul Goggins, MP, revealed much any detail of their agreed “way forward” for the Chief Constable to balance the £24.5million deficit in this year’s policing budget [Nor did Sinn Féin’s Daithi McKay - Ed]. But Ian Paisley Jnr does.. UTV Live mentioned it at 6pm and the BBC report confirms that detail

The police have agreed to delay projects costing £15m until next year, and the policing board will be allowed to spend almost £8m from next year’s budget.

[And next year? - Ed] “The board is to ask the first and deputy first ministers to lobby the prime minister for more money”.. provided the law isn’t changed.. Although, the policing and justice budget has already been set up to 2011..

Pete Baker @ 08:16 PM | Comments (3)

“the real issue is about P6..”

Anyone thinking they had spotted a possible thawing of positions in the polit-bureau over academic selection may have to think again.  On Stormont Live, after the initial opening gambits [also below the fold], the DUP’s Mervyn Storey and Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd resumed their customary positions on opposite sides of the barricade [and the Minister? - Ed] Playtime’s over.

Pete Baker @ 05:21 PM | Comments (21)

A Road to Croydon conversion

A Conservative Party councillor, Maria Gatland (nee McGuire) has resigned as the Croydon Council Education Cabinet member after her past involvement in the PIRA was revealed. She detailed her involvement in a 1973 kiss and tell book about the PIRA called “To Take Arms: My Year with the IRA Provisional”. (Hat tip Guido Fawkes).

Fair Deal @ 05:07 PM | Comments (27)

The Irishmen of the Irish Guards…

Fascinating piece from Tommie Gorman on that steady trickle of Irishmen into the British Army… The Irish Guards are 40% made up of people from the island and second and third generation Englishmen.

Adds: Aengus is not happy about “the British Army’s public relations offensive in Ireland is being facilitated by certain media outlets.” He also claims Irish neutrality is being broken, though most of those southerners who mention how they were recruited mention visits to Holywood, which although in Northern Ireland he alleges any local recruitment of British soldiers even “in the Six Counties, in violation of the principles underlying the Good Friday Agreement”.

Mick Fealty @ 02:25 PM | Comments (36)

Confusion over what Ireland really is, and what it once was…

Gavin points to a graph that tells the awful truth about the Irish Republic’s housing market… Elsewhere the same site records An estimated 4,239,848 people live in Ireland… Yep, it seems we have quite disappeared from sight and mind… No wait, “In 1841, before the famine, the population peaked at 8 million...” Some creative accountancy there. Come on guys, make your minds up and stick with it!!

Mick Fealty @ 01:24 PM | Comments (62)

Slugger’s Daily Blogburst…

Kicking off, Colm has a good old fashioned whinge about being a Dub in the Pravinces how when people refer negatively to Leinster House they talk about the Dublin government as if the capital was to blame for the rest of the country’s ills (well, they are aren’t they? - ed)… I must admit the last time I had the least sympathy for Dublin on the field of play was in the 1977 All Ireland Football semi-final; the single greatest football match in my recalling… but that may only because as a teenager I disliked Jimmy Keavney (who could turn on a sixpence and score from any part of the park) only slightly less than that goal poacher Owen Liston…

Mick Fealty @ 12:38 PM | Comments (5)

“open for business” - redux

A short video clip from yesterday’s Stormont Live where Jim Fitzpatrick and Mark Devenport discuss “our very own lycanthropes” the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers’ trip to the US.. where they do, indeed, appear to be “drawing a discreet veil over that” recent little local difficulty.. [Open for business, again? - Ed]

From the BBC report

Speaking to dinner guests from some of the largest and most profitable companies in the US, Mr McGuinness said Northern Ireland had the “skills and location to build business”. “Our location and infrastructure give ready access to the developing all-Ireland economy, access to the British market and into Europe,” he said.

All-island, perhaps.  But not, necessarily, all-Ireland..

Pete Baker @ 12:04 PM | Comments (3)

Local angles are not always cheering

A game many of us play is “you’re one of us” when we spot a local link to the wider world. Usually it’s that accent, which is sometimes a bit poshed up after years of exile.  So we cheer on Christine Bleakley on Strictly Come Dancing and Eoghan Quigg on X Factor (don’t we?). Not many cheers are raised though for the deposed leader of Haringey Council from Donegal and the departed head of children’s services Sharon Shoesmith “ from Co Antrim.” Purely out of curiosity does anyone know anything more about their Northern backgrounds?

George Meehan, 65, has been a councillor in the borough for 33 years. He first won a seat in 1971, eight years after he arrived from County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland. He has taken a detailed interest in children’s services and, as well as acting as a governor at several schools in Haringey, he was elected as executive member for children and young people in May 2004.

Ms Shoesmith, 55, from Co Antrim in Northern Ireland, spent most of her professional life in education rather than social services. She rose from being a teacher to a school inspector and worked in the school improvement division, monitoring schools with serious weaknesses and requiring special measures.

Brian Walker @ 08:07 AM | Comments (10)

“In any other society government would be under pressure to act..”

The BBC NI TV news report on the confirmation that PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde has applied for the position of the next head of the Metropolitan Police used a line which is also in the online report

Sir Hugh is credited with helping to make the new police service more acceptable to Catholics.

Perhaps they should ask what former Assistant Chief Constable, and the force’s highest-ranking Catholic officer, Peter Sheridan thinks of that argument? The BBC NI online report also includes this line

During his time in office, Sinn Fein has joined the policing board and the number of Catholic officers has risen to 25%.

And perhaps the associated reduction in the perceived threat to Catholic officers had something to do with that?  As Peter Sheridan also said

“You’re in a peace-building context. People have this view that the peace is done and it’s all over. And to some extent that part of the conflict is over but it’s by no means stable yet. Yes, a lot of the engagement has been at the top political level but actually the grassroots hasn’t been engaged in it.”

Pete Baker @ 10:55 PM | Comments (19)

“appearances in the future should perhaps be cross referenced with the lunar cycle..”

As Mick continues to chart the reverberations from the recent affront to Parliament, the suggestion from the First and deputy First Ministers that they should halve the number of times, to once a month appearing alternately, that they spend answering questions in the Northern Ireland Assembly should provoke similar concerns from assembly members - in Scotland and Wales the First Ministers answer questions weekly, as Michael noted. Apparently it’s their suggestion for improving question time in the Assembly.. BBC NI political editor Mark Devenport has some thoughts on the matter, and his comments on Stormont Live are below the fold.  But here’s the SDLP leader Mark Durkan giving the case for the opposition to such a move in the face of an apparent pattern of the formation of a de facto polit-bureau within [and without? - Ed] the NI Executive.

Pete Baker @ 06:45 PM | Comments (8)

Accountability?

The First and Deputy First Ministers have suggested that having to appear before the Assembly to answer questions is too much, and that once a month would be better (in contrast to every other First and Prime Minister in the UK).  Although, during this assembly, the FM and DFM have been taking it time about, so they would, one assumes, now each answer questions only once every two months.

Michael Shilliday @ 06:37 PM | Comments (12)

Orde to go?

Sir Hugh Orde has confirmed that he has applied for the biggest job in UK policing.

Michael Shilliday @ 06:35 PM | Comments (3)

How the web is saving journalism…

As promised, my slides from my talk at the Reuters Institute on how the web is making journalism better… although the caveat I did not enter at the time is that it’s not making life any easier for newspapers; the two are not precisely contiguous… The economics of the net is squeezing the value out of papers such that Bryan Appleyard is forced to admit that

“In this climate I console myself that it’s better to be an old hack than a young one and even better, of course, to be an upmarket one.”

Note: the slides are less an argument than a series of illustrative texts and diagrams…

Mick Fealty @ 05:58 PM | Comments (7)

Slugger’s Daily Blogburst…

Okay, kicking off with news from across the sheugh, it’s the Damian Green story… Anthony’s worried it will “fuel the bloggertarian paranoia about Gordon Brown being a Stalinist dictator"… But not everyone on the left, it seems is taking the Whistleblower aspect of the story seriously… Iain takes issue with several leftist bloggers to task. He notes of previous Whistleblowers: “neither Tisdall or Ponting were Parliamentarians. Ponting leaked information to Tam Dalyell. No one even considered arresting him.” Danny Finkelstein has a very helpful list of leaks to Labour politicians in the past…

Mick Fealty @ 01:34 PM | Comments (0)

Why can’t I see the Bertie Ahern series?

Mick’s post involving access to RTE’s Questions and Answers reminds me how I disappointed I was after settling down to watch the first on the three parter doc series on Bertie. To be greeted by the caption after the ad:

We’re sorry but this programme is only available to play in the Republic of Ireland.”

News and Current Affairs yes, but a big doc series of wide interest, no, it seems. When I responded to RTE’s invitation to go their info site for an explanation, I got a “not found” then “ temporarily unavailable”. I know that complex and expensive rights costs and broadband width issues are involved as is fairness to licence fee payers. But at a time when the BBC not only run the hugely successful iPlayer and are about to stream BBC 1 and BBC 2 on the web, which makes it harder and harder to trace licence fee defaulters, it would be great if RTE caught up a bit.

Brian Walker @ 12:55 PM | Comments (13)

Victology

I don’t know if this one will work, but we’ll see. I am going to update this thread periodically. Go with gut reactions and try not to double guess what I’ll post next.

****UPDATE 4 *****

Kensei @ 12:30 PM | Comments (76)

What date is it again?

Does Sinn Féin’s Francie Brolly have supernatural powers? I’m just asking..  Update Apparently not.. Explanatory screenshots below the fold.

Pete Baker @ 12:23 PM | Comments (14)

Not always what it seems…

Here’s an interesting thing that happen to me in the last ten minutes (anything longer than that is ancient history on Twitter)… First I see a note from the BBC on a new report saying that 1/3 of the Scottish population is breadline poor… Ten minutes later I get a twitter message from Mike Power who says the research involved is ‘utter tosh’, and links this annotated facsimile of the original… Hmm… Clever…

Mick Fealty @ 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

Ireland, the Commonwealth and history

In an Irish Times article headlined , Historical amnesia is not a sign of maturity John Waters argues strongly against the idea of the Republic joining the Commonwealth, a fairly easy Aunt Sally, you would have thought. (Waters can be forgiven for failing to keep up with the forms of Commonwealth terminology; the term “British” has been dropped now for at least a quarter of a century). But irrelevance is not as you might expect the preferred reason for spurning the notion.  Rather, Waters cites as the main reason that the Commonwealth

remains also the embodiment of what our forefathers spilled an ocean of their blood trying to escape.

Weren’t “oceans of blood “ spilled in say India and Kenya who joined and largely define the modern very shadowy Commonwealth? And if blood is the arbiter, what about blood shed in a common cause by Australians, Canadians, Indians, Africans - and of course as we now commemorate, the Irish? If the others joined there must be more to it than “oceans of blood.”

Brian Walker @ 12:12 PM | Comments (33)

Even the Republic’s retailers are heading north…

For many years the border has cast a gloomy economic shadow by turns on either side. For a long time, towns on the northern side of the border have suffered economically. Letterkenny prospered at Derry’s expense. And Dundalk at Newry’s. In fact the shoe has been on the other foot for some time now, but it has only recently become a major issue in the Republic since the global credit crunch has fouled up the steady flow of FDI, and tax revenues have plummeted. Now it’s eating into the supply chain, the unpatriotic flow of shoppers out of Ireland the Republic into Northern Ireland may only be the tip of the iceberg… If you missed it last week, try and catch last week’s Question and Answers…

PS: Suzy wants to know why Tesco is whacking it’s prices upwards..

Mick Fealty @ 11:48 AM | Comments (27)

O’Leary strikes again

O‘Leary, although predicting losses for the second half of the year makes a lower bid.

Ryanair, Europe’s largest low-cost airline, on Monday offered to buy Irish rival Aer Lingus for €750m ($970.4m), or just half the price of its bid in 2006 which was blocked by the European Union.

Why should it not be blocked again?  Aer Lingus’s, first reaction is keenly awaited. The unions have no doubt.

The initiative was “doubtless” designed to coincide with a dispute in Aer Lingus. “However workers and management in Aer Lingus have managed to formulate a proposal to save the airline, frustrate Ryanair’s monopoly ambitions, continue to promote choice to in the Irish airline industry and maintain some semblance of civilised working conditions.”

I heard an analyst say this morning that EU and the Irish government wouldn’t tolerate an Irish airline monopoly. So what’s the difference between Ryanair/Aer Lingus and the merged Air France/KLM and Lufthansa/Swiss?

Brian Walker @ 10:16 AM | Comments (8)

“We aren’t just having the meeting in Washington..”

Having come to a new “indigenous” arrangement, whereby Sinn Féin quit claiming they have invisible commitments to a deadline for devolving policing and justice powers, and the Northern Ireland Executive resumes business while they and the DUP work towards building the necessary public confidence in the ability of the NI Executive to handle those powers responsibly, “Even if there are setbacks in the months to come..”, the First and deputy First Ministers have now absconded to the US.. where they, apparently, hope to secure even more US investment.. Although not, perhaps, for jobs in the financial sector.. obviously..

Pete Baker @ 10:22 PM | Comments (8)