Due to an editorial stance I cannot agree with that may leave readers assuming my integrity is open to question, I no longer feel I can continue as a blogger on this platform. Despite some challenging issues, I have enjoyed the cut and thrust that goes with Slugger.
It has been a great outlet during a rollercoaster of politics both personal and generally. I’m sure it was a journey many of you didn’t appreciate me taking but hey that’s the rich tapestry of life.
I really appreciate having had this chance via Slugger to engage with you all, and for the opportunities, challenges and experiences my engagement has provided over the years.
For those readers interested, I hope to continue blogging in other venues shortly.
I wish you all the best.
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Good luck Mark. I enjoyed reading your pieces and it will be a shame to lose that input. From a broader Republican perspective, I hope that whoever is entrusted with the responsibility of pursuing the goal of unity in the decades to come, will serve us both well.
Tabhair aire duit fein 🙂
Well, that’s a pity Mark. One of the things I like about Slugger is the range of views and to lose a significant, although frequently controversial, blogger is sad.
I wish you all the best.
Continuity Slugger anyone?
Eoin,
It’s like deja vu all over again. 😉
“An editorial stance” ? Good Lord, spare us the coy peek at your no doubt swooningly becoming ankle socks man, get the full petticoat ripped off your loins at once and show us what you got.
Most unlike you to be quite so shy. Or even that dignfied, necessarily.
That’s a shame, can you tell us where you will be blogging?
Farewell Mark McGregor
Its been interesting and challenging. Good health and good luck to you and yours.
“One of the things I like about Slugger is the range of views”
Sadly Joe, it is not a big enough range for all of that. If you ignore the “range” which is Nationalist v Unionist and look instead at left – right, political perspective is overpopulated on the left and very much underpopulated on the right.
There are too many posts written about certain subjects and not enough on others. Much to much important news goes under the radar here, whilst too much trivia keeps repeating itself. I keep going onto Slugger out of habit and posting the odd comment here and there – yet I know in my heart that, most of the time, I am more often frustrated and disappointed by dullness of the posts than I am satisfied by a good read.
“Continuity Slugger anyone?”
Or “Caribbean Slugger” perhaps?
Good luck Eoin. Enjoy the trout fishing.
Mark, how many times in the last few years have you announced your ‘retirement’ from Slugger? Is it 3 times now? I’ve lost count. See you when you un-retire – again.
True, Seymour.
I was thinking only of local issues.
Sad to see you go Mr McGregor.
You kinda grew on me. Mainly because you were not a hypocrite and a faux letsgetalongerist.
Editorial stance eh? The Bland leading The Bland?.
Real shame – i never quite got your viewpoint Mark – but your detail was good always,
sad to hear Mark,
I thought you were getting better and better here.
Myself am taking a break, as not allowed to diagnose.;
which I feel is necessary sometimes to get to the truth behind the mask, reading between the lines ..
If you can’t do that then you only have a site for intellectuals.
Is it not fair to examine anxieties and fears?
I’m more interested in that, than people’s opinions.;
but am not allowed to ask those questions?
Is mór an trua go bhfuil ag imeacht agus is mór an trua go bhfuil ort dul. Beir bua.
.go bhfuil tú……
The site will be the poorer without your contributions, Mark. You articulated a political stance current in young left republicanism that I feel was important to be heard even if at times it annoyed me exceedingly to hear it, a combination on my part of the necessary application of the experience of age and the pang of regret of lost youthful passion.
But there is some mystery attached to your leaving – The Case of the Disappearing Dissident (?) – and I am sure that many are as curious as I am as to what lies beneath.
“Due to an editorial stance I cannot agree with that may leave readers assuming my integrity is open to question, I no longer feel I can continue as a blogger on this platform.”
Isn’t it a bit unfair to both readers and your fellow bloggers to post a coy explanation like that for your (latest) resignation?
If it is an editorial stance (sound very posh for a blog), do your fellow bloggers lack integrity and therefore do not resign on the principle of the thing (whatever it is)?
Is there a hidden agenda that readers should be told about that is important enough for you to resign over but not important enough to bother telling us about?
Why bother to tell us you’re going when we’d probably notice your absence anyway after a few weeks? Just for a wee pop a Mick and a wave of a hankie?
Well, goodbye then… just don’t expect a bunch of flowers and a kiss on the cheek.
Mark
A great pity. While I didn’t always agree with your posts, I found them to be interesting and well written.
All the best in the future and if you continue your contributions elsewhere, do let us know.
Cheers
Monk
Sorry to hear you are leaving Mark.
I’m sure other bloggers will be hanging their heads in shame as this ‘principled’ blogger leaves the field.
How can others continue under the editorial lash and retain a a wisp of “integrity”?
Your early pieces highlighting police ‘brutality’ turned out to be little more than black propaganda, so I think you got off on the wrong foot when it came to integrity. Your later pieces, particularly your very fair and even-handed reporting of the Twelfth, served to claw that back a good deal.
I agree with other posters that hinting at an editorial stance without explaining what you mean is not a dignified way to go.
Sorry to hear you’re out of here Mark.
Skinner
I understand from another blog that its supposedly a sensitive (legal) issue.