Derry – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

Join us for our 1st Derry/Londonderry event on 23rd October – A fair deal for Derry?

Brian O'Neill on October 14, 2019, 3:52 pm | Readers 1883

For decades we have heard about the need to invest and connect the North-West. But how do we deliver on this promise and ensure that we help build a more prosperous city that can create good jobs and improves the lives of all of its people? This Slugger O’Toole event will examine the challenges and the opportunities that face this part of the island. Panel: Steve Bradley – Derry native & Commentator Karen Bonner – Derry native & Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, Queen’s University …

Brexit or not, the borderlands are changing…

Jay Burbank on October 4, 2019, 7:40 am | Readers 2301

Recently amongst all the usual Brexit coverage, the Economist took a different angle when assessing the impact of any sudden change to the border here. They went to Derry/Londonderry and presented a story very different to the doom and gloom of a hard border. The City Deal package, currently still under negotiation, was planned not just with the city in mind but the entire cross-border region. The Derry/Strabane district including the northern Donegal area have a combined population of over …

50th Anniversary of The Battle of the Bogside…

Robert Campbell on August 10, 2019, 6:40 pm | Readers 2790

In the summer of 1969 Clive Limpkin was a staff photographer on the now defunct Daily Sketch. He’d found the job unrewarding, and was wondering if he wouldn’t be more interested in copywriting, going to J Walter Thompson for an interview. He didn’t take the job because of the meagre salary. He went back to the Sketch, where the picture editor had got wind of his intentions: he said: — Ulster. Apprentice Boys march in Derry on Tuesday. We think the shit …

Why Derry? How a City that’s continually held back became a Dissident Stronghold…

Steve Bradley on May 2, 2019, 11:56 am | Readers 9053

Just two hours before this year’s Good Friday – a time of year which holds clear associations with peace and progress in this part of the world – a talented young journalist was murdered on the streets of Northern Ireland by Dissident Republicans. The murder has been widely condemned, and has sent shock waves through a British and global media that had mistakenly believed this part of the world had completed its transition towards peace. Amid the intense media coverage …

Podcasting Brexit

Paul Gosling on January 28, 2019, 8:28 pm | Readers 542

Podcasts are a useful medium, even though listener numbers are not always massive. But if considered as an alternative to a series of public meetings, their value is significant. They can be cheaper and gain more listeners than would be attracted to a meeting. They can be a way of collecting together different voices, without the need to bring them all together in one place, on one date. And, we can guess, they attract a very different audience. Since early 2018, the Holywell Trust …

“The bomb in Derry should instead act as a reminder that there are those on our island who will never be in favour of the peace process”

David McCann on January 21, 2019, 7:02 pm | Readers 2188

The recent events in Derry have been disconcerting to watch. Trying to make sense of it isn’t easy but Allison Morris in today’s Irish News really strikes a chord. She says on the link between Brexit and this bombing; The bomb in Derry should instead act as a reminder that there are those on our island who will never be in favour of the peace process. Rather than look to the Brexit referendum as a reason for this, it would …

I believe so strongly that we have a massive case to be heard. This is about a way of life. We cannot go back to any form of hard border.

Soapbox on August 17, 2018, 10:27 am | Readers 4876

I’m a 50 year old Derry Girl, teacher of Drama and English in a local all girls’ grammar school and mother of two teenage daughters. I’ve lived in Derry all my life. My parents instilled in us a deep love of Donegal, its wild and often soft scenery, its simplicity and the gentle, unassuming people. Every Sunday we made the pilgrimage to Bridgend and then on to Rathmullan for the Football Special; Ballyliffin for the 70s delight of Chicken Maryland …

Aside from heat and frustration, the inspiration for Derry’s young rioters is no secret…

Mick Fealty on July 10, 2018, 9:16 pm | Readers 5290

Interesting take on the spate of rioting in Derry that’s been going on for three days now on Morning Ireland. A local journalist tells RTE that no one local knows what it’s all been about or what sparked it. The preliminary target appears to have been the tiny Protestant enclave on the city side of the River Foyle, and according to the BBC, Sinn Fein MLA Karen Mullan said she believes dissident republicans have been orchestrating recent attacks: “Our youth workers …

Why is Derry So Poor? Part III – The Solutions

Steve Bradley on March 18, 2018, 7:35 pm | Readers 5754

It is clear that there are economic and social challenges facing Northern Ireland’s second city, and that little is being done to address them. So what type of solutions could be pursued to enable Derry to fulfil its potential as a key economic generator for the north west of the island ? Here are some suggestions : 1. Acknowledge the Problem The first step in dealing with any problem is to acknowledge its existence. Yet there has been no official …

Derry’s politicians should stop playing the victim and make more friends and influence people

Brian Walker on March 10, 2018, 8:22 pm | Readers 4299

Steve Bradley’s chastening post on Derry part 1 is remarkable for its detailed analysis and the volume of comment in response -greater I think than for any of the usual subjects I’ve seen in a long time. Certainly it touches a nerve with me. I left my Derry home to go to school in Coleraine and never lived there again after the fateful year of 1969 when the old order quite suddenly and easily fell apart, an arresting fact its …

Why is Derry So Poor ? Part II – The Reasons

Steve Bradley on March 10, 2018, 3:25 pm | Readers 10889

How did Northern Ireland’s second city find itself at the bottom of the pile? Before considering this it is important to acknowledge that there is nothing inherent to Derry which condemns it to the status of an economic outlier. Even its location on the north-western fringe of Europe should not be a major impediment – as proven by the relative success of locations like Galway, Limerick, Cork and Inverness. To the contrary, Derry features many of the things you would …

Why is Derry So Poor, and Why is Nothing Being Done About it ? (Part I)

Steve Bradley on March 9, 2018, 1:59 pm | Readers 24445

Twenty years after the Good Friday Agreement – whilst Belfast experiences a construction boom and tourists flock to the Titanic, Giants Causeway and Dark Hedges – a part of Northern Ireland is being increasingly left behind. Not just any part, but the north’s second city. A place which is supposed to function as the economic hub of an entire region of this island. And a city in which deprivation and inequality in previous decades lit the fuse that started Northern …

Memories of the October 5th 1968 Civil Rights March. The day The Troubles began…

Soapbox on February 4, 2018, 8:00 am | Readers 4800

I’ve never spoke on a public platform before, but feel moved to break my silence and contribute to the 50th anniversary civil rights Program. I always remind my twin brother, Fionnbarra, that I am his senior, being born one hour before him at 134 Bogside, which was then known as a single street which ran from the Slaughter House to the junction of Lecky Road & Rossville Street. My mother Mary Ellen, born 1908. hailed from Ballee, Ballymagory near …

Anger Over City Deal Snub, As Derry Grows Restless for Change

Steve Bradley on January 4, 2018, 1:27 pm | Readers 4287

Fifty years ago this June, a caravan was used to block the Lecky Road in Derry’s Bogside in protest at Londonderry Corporation’s housing policy. The Unionist-run council retained control over the majority nationalist city at that time by discriminating against Catholics in housing and votes. The caravan protest represented a marked escalation in tactics by the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC), who shortly afterwards contacted the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and persuaded them to hold a demonstration in the …

Six Things We Learned From Ireland’s Failed Rugby World Cup Bid…

Steve Bradley on November 24, 2017, 4:48 pm | Readers 2777

Last week’s surprise decision to grant the 2023 Rugby World Cup (RWC) to France was a huge disappointment for the Irish, who had been bookies’ favourite throughout the process. As the dust finally settles on the five-year effort to bring one of the world’s largest sporting events to these shores, here are six key lessons we can draw from the experience : Ireland CAN hold events of global significance. The positive message for Ireland in a disappointing process was that …

Long: “a battle of hope over expectation [but] good work is never wasted” #NWAP17

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 4, 2017, 6:07 pm | Readers 1508

In her speech to the party’s autumn conference held in Derry, Alliance leader Naomi Long this afternoon called for a way to be found through the current political impasse to “[demonstrate] through words and actions, mutual respect for both British and Irish Identity and our commitment to share this space together, in co-operation rather than conflict”.

Ulster Uni’s new Belfast Campus Shows it isn’t Serious About Magee Expansion. So it’s time for Derry to Look Elsewhere

Steve Bradley on August 29, 2017, 10:59 am | Readers 4945

Last week’s A’Level results not only signalled the start of the annual scramble to secure a place at University. They also pointed to a worrying development for the long-promised expansion of Magee campus in Derry. Student Numbers Falling Figures from UCAS (the University and Colleges Admissions Service) show a 4% fall this year in applications to go to University – the first such decline in five years. All parts of the UK are reflecting this drop, and the figures also …

The £400m for Infrastructure in the Conservative-DUP agreement will only exacerbate Northern Ireland’s east-west divide

Steve Bradley on June 28, 2017, 4:32 pm | Readers 47387

Northern Ireland’s infrastructure has drawn the prize ticket from the £1bn of new money in the Conservative-DUP deal – securing £400m, or 40% of the entire fund. This has been greeted with criticism elsewhere in the UK, but can be justified on two grounds. Firstly – Northern Ireland arguably has the worst infrastructure of any region in the UK. Only significant external funding will reverse the decades-long under-investment that has caused that. Secondly – the situation is worse still within …

“They’d have known from then that I couldn’t be counted on to fall into line.”

Eamonn McCann on May 31, 2017, 7:10 pm | Readers 6011

An organisation which plays a key role in distributing public money to community organisations in Derry has been found guilty of discriminating against a local man because of his opposition to what he characterised as a “Sinn Fein/DUP carve-up” of community organisation in the city. The Waterside Neighbourhood Partnership (WNP) has been ordered by a Fair Employment Tribunal to pay Gary McClean £10,000 compensation for denying him a job as a Community Development Officer (CDO) in the Curryneirin area despite …

Magee or not Magee – Time for for a graduate entry medical school in Derry / Londonderry?

Soapbox on April 1, 2017, 3:31 pm | Readers 3495

There is definite support in Derry for Ulster University’s proposal for a graduate entry medical school at Magee campus. After 53 years of exasperation that the city does not have a full sized university, actual excitement for such ideas is always tempered by fear that it will not happen. But at least the city’s response is definitely positive – unlike the apparent reactions in Belfast and Coleraine. A medical school in Derry should be a no brainer. There are …