Watch back the recent panel discussion about the work and legacy of Northern Ireland’s MEPs, organised by IACES on the back of the publication of “The Forgotten Tribe – British MEPs”. Jim Nicholson, Giada Lagana, David Harley and Carl Whyte, chared by Viviane Gravey.
As Northern Ireland heads into an Assembly election that is surrounded by uncertainty and division, it may be informative to look back to the Assembly’s earliest days, when optimism and hopes for a new beginning were high. In my new book, I do just that. It is November 1999 and Dr Ian Paisley – despite being an outspoken critic and opponent of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement – nominates himself to be Chairman of the Northern Ireland Assembly’s new Committee for …
Keith Duggan in today’s Irish Times discusses Garth Brooks’ return to Croke Park. Much like the statue in Ballinspittle a few years earlier, the sight of Garth Brooks storming the world brought out the evangelists. His music – this cannot be stressed enough – was inescapable. How you felt about the Brooks catalogue of twangy ballads and anthems was immaterial. Even Ireland’s hardcore metal purists of the early 1990s subconsciously came to know every single line of the Brooks staple …
The Officers of the Democratic Unionist Party have considered the report of the House of Commons Committee on Standards on Ian Paisley MP. The Party takes this report and the matters contained within it very seriously. The Party Officers have decided to suspend Mr Ian Paisley MP from membership of the Party pending further investigation into his conduct. The Party does not intend to make any further comment on these matters during the course of the above outlined process. …
Ian Paisley makes emotional apology to his North Antrim constituents. pic.twitter.com/7FinZgSxwK — BBC News NI (@BBCNewsNI) July 19, 2018 Some thoughts I watched his speech as he read it over in the House of Commons, he had Jim Shannon, Sammy Wilson, Paul Girvan and Emma Little Pengelly on the benches with him, after he sat down Jim Shannon patted him on the arm to offer support. It was odd watching Paisley get emotional, since we are so used to seeing …
10 years ago today, Ian Paisley announced he was resigning was DUP and First Minister. He didn’t officially go until May. Paisley was succeeded by his long time deputy, Peter Robinson. In a rare moment of North-South cooperation, Bertie Ahern stood down as Taoiseach at the same time and was also succeeded by his Finance Minister, Brian Cowen. Here is the story breaking on UTV and his interview with the station Political Editor, Ken Reid David McCannDavid McCann holds …
One single buff-coloured file, three or four inches thick, contains the stapled minutes of NIO meetings with political parties in May 1991 as they negotiated about the strand one, two and three talks. While perhaps the single most frustrating file I’ve flicked through in PRONI over the last couple of years, the level of detail in the civil service minutes of meetings is incredible, and the retention of humorous asides provides a lot of colour about the characters involved and their relationships.
COLIN BATEMAN’S screenplay for The Journey presents a highly fictionalised account that explores what the early conversations may have been like between Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness as they worked towards agreement at the St Andrews talks.
EIGHTEEN MEMBERS were removed from the Assembly Chamber at the behest of the Speaker after anti-Sunningdale members refused to move from the Executive’s front benches and disrupted proceedings. A 1974 letter describing events from the Sergeant-at-Arms to the Clerk of the Assembly has now been released.
Of the DUP membership, 1.4% self-identify as Irish. Yet the founder of the DUP was 100% Irish. This is not speculation or conjecture or troublemaking, this is a statement of fact based upon unequivocal and repeated testimony from Ian Paisley. Ian paisley wrote in 2012 on the centenary of the signing of the Ulster Covenant: “Edward Carson was a life-long Irishman, as well as being a life-long unionist, and that made all the difference… On this 28th day …
The BBC’s freedom of information specialist, Martin Rosenbaum, has been reading through transcripts of calls and meetings between US President Bill Clinton and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, between 1997 and 2000, which were released following a BBC freedom of information request to the Clinton Presidential Library. As he notes, [The transcripts] contain substantial redactions, especially of Mr Blair’s remarks… From the BBC report Much of their discussion was about the Northern Ireland peace process, in which President Clinton played a significant part. …
Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney have been confirmed to play Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness in the movie ‘The Journey’. The news takes us back to 2007 and that momentous event we remember fondly as the “Chuckle Brothers” moment. Contrasting that hope with the toxic partisanship of today it’s probably better to do as they did and laugh it off rather than to cry. Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More …
This morning’s Independent [not printed in NI, but article available online] carries an interview by David McKittrick with Ian Paisley Jnr on its front page. The DUP’s shopping list has got longer … On the fifth day of electioneering the DUP said to me: stronger controls on immigration and border security, no more bedroom tax, an EU referendum, two percent of GDP spent on defence, and hundreds of millions to ease the burdens in Northern Ireland. The North Antrim MP …
As the TUV annual conference approaches this weekend, I caught up with the party leader Jim Allister. We talked about his work on the Social Development Committee, the Irish language and his relationship with other parties in the Assembly. (Note I did this interview before Gregory Campbell’s conference speech) I began by asking him how he planned to expand his party and build on the gains they made at the 2014 election. Allister told me that the 2016 Assembly election …
You may have seen various posters of Ian Paisley appearing in the Cathedral Quarter Belfast, Corporation St car parks Belfast, the Holylands Belfast, Ballycastle, Antrim and even London. They are by a local artist TLO. I asked him for some background to the work, this is his reply: I am an artist and the Doctored Paisley posters are from a series I made in response to the visual legacy of the Troubles and the cult of Paisley in particular. I wanted …
Cartoon of Peter Robinson under fire. Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/
For the past few of months I’ve been buried in other projects, not least the Scottish referendum. So Northern Irish affairs are as inward looking and deadlocked as ever. Well I never! Paisley’s death passed off with little fuss amid the customary respect the Irish reserve with fingers crossed for the recently dead in contrast to the living. How amazing that at the funeral this most clerical and religious of politicians had no church service and no political salute. The elephant …
Any analysis of Ian Paisley in life or in death is tempered by one’s own views of him but also ones own view of post war Northern Ireland events: such is the extent to which the man came to define though actually rarely dominate events. There is circularity to Dr. Paisley’s life: he began as an outsider both religiously and politically. He then became an insider politically destroying the UUP and although not becoming a member of the Presbyterian Church …
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.” Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam The passing of Ian Paisley was always going to be a rough affair. He leaves a lot of enemies and not a little hurt behind. As Tim Stanley noted yesterday, it is almost impossible not to speak …
Many many words will be written about the late Lord Bannside, the Revered Ian Richard Kyle Paisley. The time for debate on his legacy is later. However on a day in which the First Minister of Northern Ireland Peter Robinson said “As a leader of men, a friend of the people, a servant of the state and a voice for the truth Ian Paisley excelled and shone,” and the Deputy Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party Nigel Dodds wrote “He …
