british army

Not even a global pandemic can bring Sinn Fein to welcome help from the Brits…

Alex Scates on April 14, 2020, 8:52 am | Readers 13359

Sinn Fein’s recent criticism of Stormont’s Health Minister Robin Swann was a curious occurrence in even more curious times. The UUP MLA’s decision to utilise the UK military to support logistic functions like distribution of PPE and construction of a NI Nightingale facility, was layered with realism, a sense of urgency and for once, relative political neutrality. And yet, Michelle O’Neill criticised the decision, based not on the intended use of the UK military, but on the lack of consultation that …

Picks of the Week – First Communions, Protestant Gaels, Squaddies and Stuckness

Claire Mitchell on February 24, 2018, 9:23 am | Readers 2144

There’s a lot of highfalutin political goings on at the moment. But what are the ordinary humans talking about? Here are some media magpie treasures from the last week… RTÉ Documentary on One rebroadcast the gorgeous 2014 doc, Mairead’s First Communion. It follows two culturally Catholic, but non-religious, parents’ experience of their daughter’s First Communion. They didn’t like the idea of her doing it, but 8 year old Mairead really wanted to, so they let her. There’s so much to …

SAS commander Blair Mayne’s reputation reviewed in an authorised history

Brian Walker on September 22, 2016, 12:13 pm | Readers 4309

Well whaddya know! The last shreds of mystery have been torn away, as the UK government has authorised “Rogue Heroes, an authorised History of the SAS” by Ben McIntyre. The Times (£) has been extracting from it as he is an assistant editor. The history is limited to the WW2 and the immediate post war period. It doesn’t take in more recent SAS activity like the “war on terror” in Iraq and even Syria and long days spent on surveillance …

Somme: May Trench Raid – death of a great great uncle

Kilsally on May 7, 2016, 12:51 pm | Readers 590

Tonight is the one hundreth anniversary of the death of my great great uncle during a German bombardment of the trenches after a succesful trench raid by the Ulstermen – a talk was recently held in the Masonic Hall (the old Tamlaght / St Lukes Church of Ireland Church Hall), Coagh on Private Robert Sands and other men from Coagh who died in the Great War. In this centenary year of the Battle of the Somme the tragic and brutal slaughter of the Great …

1987 and the day the RUC saved me from the Lancashire hot pot boys…

Soapbox on February 20, 2016, 9:13 am | Readers 2035

There was so much violence back then. That year alone saw 98 people lose their lives. Like the violence itself, the people who died came from all perceived sides in the conflict. However, almost half those who died were recorded as ‘civilians’. I was a 15 year old civilian in the summer of 1987. Despite the violence that raged around me, my life went on as normal- as normal as it could have been. Each evening, now that school was …

Britain’s Postwar Wars

Turgon on December 2, 2015, 10:28 pm | Readers 1127

The list of wars involving the UK since 1945 is long and chaotic. Looking at some of them especially the most recent does suggest some themes which are not especially encouraging when one considers the prospect of British involvement in Syria. In the early post war period most of the conflicts Britain was involved in were either against expansion of communism (Greece and Korea) or else imperial entanglements. Greece and Korea had fairly clear objectives and the prospect of functional …

71: A story of remembering and interpreting the past

David McCann on October 9, 2014, 8:36 am | Readers 763

Film buff, Dan McGinn has an interesting review over on his great blog ‘They’ll love it in Pomona” A new picture by Yann Demange called 71 tells the story of one of the brutal years of the Troubles. It was the year in which Internment was introduced, Ballymurphy massacre took place, the Tripartite summit between Ted Heath, Brian Faulkner & Jack Lynch attempted to find a solution to what the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs called “a tragic and most tractable problem.” …

More than ever, the “crisis” shows the need to face up honestly to the end of Troubles prosecutions

Brian Walker on February 27, 2014, 11:40 am | Readers 69

Fair enough. There are genuine grounds for shock and anger but there is a good deal of grandstanding too. The pity of it is, the growing recognition among unionists of the case for limited immunity tied to truth recovery will be set back. Taking the optimistic view (somebody has to), the full extent of de facto amnesty will emerge a lot more clearly and can no longer be denied. The pretence should end, that “ justice” is attainable were it …

“Not so much the rise of a new Scottish sentiment, but the gradual decay of what it meant to be British in Scotland”

Mick Fealty on July 5, 2011, 11:26 am | Readers 8

Thanks to Peter for this acute report on the strange disappearance of British identity in Scotland from Alan Little for last night’s Newsnight… Here’s the real kicker, in almost the last line: “Independence no longer means separation in any meaningful sense, and that’s the game changer.” See also Gerry Hassan‘s take on it… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest …

As Irish as Catterick? They won’t be going away you know

Blank on March 5, 2011, 7:51 pm | Readers 42

Thanks to irishrepublican.net for photographs of British military vehicles on the streets of Creggan yesterday. Some republicans hailed the ending of the British Army’s longest deployment, Operation Banner in 2007. Others knew British Army missions in Ireland had been merely renamed Helvetic to reflect hopes of a normalised population: In their usual astounding display of chutzpah Sinn Fein have produced a T-shirt depicting the IRA expelling a Brit soldier, claiming that the ending of ‘Operation Banner’ (the deployment of troops …