On Monday 4 April Belfast City Council agreed to a proposal to make Belfast a ‘City of Sanctuary’. The motion described a City of Sanctuary as “a place that provides a welcome and safe place for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants and supports the conditions that will allow people from these backgrounds to feel safe, valued and included in Belfast.” At 1.20 on the morning of Friday 8 April police were alerted that a fire was discovered in the premises …
The concept of a polarisation of politics is one often talked about in today’s society, and in Brexit Britain and Trump’s America and so many other cases it is easy to see evidence of this polarisation. People follow different narratives that offer different (or alternative) facts and there is a demonised view of the motives of politicians that you do not agree with. In Northern Ireland polarisation of politics is nothing new to us, and it continues to this day …
The Lord Mayor of Belfast, Nuala McAllister visited an A level Politics class last week to ask students how they viewed Belfast and, in line with her theme for her year as Lord Mayor of ‘Global Belfast’, how the city could be more welcoming. The Alliance Party politician expressed her dismay at the rise of hate crime in Belfast and explained to the students that she believed that sectarian attitudes were still prevalent in Northern Ireland. She drew a contrast between …
Just because we haven’t covered it for a while doesn’t mean it’s not still going on. Attacks against often isolated Orange Halls in rural Ulster continues, as Eilis O’Hanlon notes, with very little in the way of consequences for those who do it: Alas, so far there have been no convictions, and the attacks go on with shocking regularity in all six counties. The latest was the destruction of Salterstown Orange hall in Ballyronan on the shores of Lough Neagh …
