You know summer is on the way in Northern Ireland, when we get 3 straight days of sunshine, prompting an outbreak of ‘taps aff’. Anyone unfortunate to witness the sight of some local men wandering the streets half naked, knows that a row about flags is just around the corner. A few weeks ago, just off the Ravenhill Road, a part of the world I call my home, four loyalist paramilitary flags went up on lampposts overnight, near a shared …
As we stand in the voting booth on the 2nd of March, can we really vote believing that the current system has fundamentally made a positive impact on the amount of money we have left in our pockets at the end of every week? Can we support a system that prioritises flying a flag over feeding a family? Can we truly believe a language act will increase employability skills to ensure the next generation are better equipped to generate and …
This has been a recurrent theme in Trevor’s outlook ever since I first got to know him for the research and writing of The Long Peace: Trevor Ringland refused to visit Croke Park for many years because of the ban on members of the security forces playing GAA games, which has since been lifted. Today he visited the ground to address a meeting of British and Irish parliamentarians, which included the DUP and other unionists. “As we look to reconcile …
After the recent debate about the make up of Alliance’s party membership, Lauren Mulvenny-a party staffer writes for Slugger that its candidates in the upcoming elections have a diverse range of backgrounds. On the back of the Party’s 44th successful Conference, Alliance champions the individuality of its membership base, proving it is the only Party open for everyone If what drives Alliance was ever in question, the Party’s Conference sounded loud and clear – diversity is the heartbeat of the …
Found this interesting piece in today’s Newsletter by the Chairman of the Antrim Road Traders Association, Paul Carlin who has been writing about his experiences as a businessman in Northern Ireland. Carlin makes some interesting points about how local businesses can play a direct role in improving within communities through creating jobs and getting people from both sides to interact with one another. He ends with an optimistic vision for the future which I find a bit refreshing as sometimes …
Eamonn McCann notes that previous visions of the Belfast Agreement (or, as he terms it, ‘the pact’) as a precondition for future change, have, after six years of a joint DUP-Sinn Fein led coalition retreated to the cold lines of the agreement itself: Observers who see the recent outbursts of liveliness as threatening to the agreement should ponder the possibility that the agreement doesn’t challenge but rather consolidates the attitudes underlying the same fractiousness. If the agreement is the best …
Agenda NI have a piece on the Obama speech worth looking through.. Their conclusion? Northern Ireland, as the President implied, can never take its peace for granted. Neither can such a small country always assume presidential attention. In summary, Obama’s expectation is that Northern Ireland will depend less on external goodwill and take more responsibility for creating a better future.[emphasis added] David McCann writing in his occasional column for the journal.ie put a slightly different twist on it: Where the …
Now relax… The St George’s flag still flies over Enniskillen Castle as a reference to two former British regiments raised in the town’s defence in 1689. Can’t say I’d ever noticed before, but apparently there’s a row brewing over it’s removal from a leaflet for the G8 Summit… Here’s the council’s reasoning… “The design team gave long and detailed consideration to the content and design of the leaflet. In relation to any decision around the inclusion of flags, the design …
Men it has been well said, think in herds. It will be seen that they go mad in herds while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one. Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841) Speaking of Fionola, her essay in an excellent collection from the British Council, gets a mention from Robert Fisk this morning (h/t Kate), where he quotes her saying, “springtime honeymoon period is over, the cherry blossom blown away, and we are now …
I’m sure there is some glib joke to be had along the lines of “how many social workers does it take to change a lightbulbs” about the peace processing parties that have inherited leadership in this post Belfast Agreement era.. As Duncan Morrow notes in the Irish Times today, things are immeasureably better than they were fifteen years, or ten. Why then, he asks… …if things are so good, do things feel so bad? And what should be done? The …
Interesting snippet from Mark Devenport which says an awful lot… The layman might think that the obvious big gesture for Stormont to make would be to publish the long delayed Cohesion Sharing and Integration strategy, a draft of which the BBC obtained back in January. However, publishing the whole document might be fraught with difficulties. As the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness explained at a Stormont Castle news conference at lunchtime, the parties are still nowhere near resolving their differences …
One thing I learned from an earlier life working with collective forms of narrative is that stories (and histories) don’t just end when someone says they do. The world did not stop with the Belfast Agreement, nor yet the St Andrews Agreement. Brandon Hamber in the Bel Tel has some useful questions in this regard: As the agreement has unfolded, what has become apparent is that what reconciliation means to different parties is not clear. The original commitment to promoting …
Interesting outake from.John McCallister’s oped in yesterday’s News Letter: “..he says of the SDLP’s professed vision of reaching out to unionists: “Centre-ground, moderate unionists can take no pleasure in the fact that this vision has not come to pass. “Rather than being a standard-bearer for civic, moderate nationalism, the SDLP has retreated behind the tribal barricades. “It is, of course, understandable. The temptation for both unionism and nationalism has been the same: forsake moderate, pluralist politics and go hunting for …
Like their last election Manifesto, the Alliance Party’s “blueprint for an Executive strategy to build a shared and better future” [PDF of Executive Summary] is not a skinny tome. So far I’ve got about a third of the way through the seventy or so pages. While I read the rest, here’s a synopsis of some of the key points in the “For Everyone” blueprint for you to ponder and comment on. David Ford’s introduction: [Building a shared society] won’t be …
If you have not read it yet, check out Brian Walker’s analysis last night on how Stormont’s incumbents are failing the populations of Northern Ireland by leaving the real and contentious business of politics to a small band of hyperactive terror merchants. The leader of Fianna Fail, Micheal Martin has a few similarly hard truths to deliver this morning’s Belfast Telegraph: The problem as I see it is this – if politics is not demonstrably and tangibly about making people’s …
At the annual Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) conference at the Ramada Hotel, Belfast, I attended a panel discussion on shared future policy. The event was facilitated by Councillor Ross Hussey. Panellists were Duncan Morrow, Bill Manwaring, Lesley Macaulay, Kenny Donaldson. The session began with an introductory presentation by Duncan Morrow, Chief Executive of the Community Relations Council: http://vimeo.com/17487489 Mr Morrow described the opportunities that shared future policy presents, including attracting inward investment, encouraging young people to stay and make their …
Peter Robinson’s attack on the funding of Catholic education was one of the rare examples of deft politicking in that it had a broad appeal to unionist voters from the most hard core to the most liberally minded. What could be more ‘shared future’ than educating all NI’s children in the same schools? Erm, well… And, as Duncan Morrow pointed out on Monday, the Shared Future strategy, launched by Des Browne in 2005 has found very little purchase with either …
First Minister Peter Robinson has launched a stinging attack on ACC Alistair Finlay who challenged him and Martin Mc Guinness to show a united front against the rioting in recent days. As I noted this morning, Mr Finlay said on the Nolan Show this morning that neither the First or deputy first minister had been in touch with him in the run up to the Twelfth. This afternoon Peter Robinson and Matin Mc Guinness issued a statement. Mr Robinson roundly condemned …
Fascinating response from Alex Kane to Norman Hamilton’s presentation at our post election breakfast. It’s feisty and combative and he takes on the idea that government should take on the task of creating a shared future that remains deeply unpopular at the polls: What Mr Hamilton, along with a veritable army of heavily funded, self-justifying community workers and peace activists have failed to notice, is that the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland have already agreed upon a ‘community …
Suzanne Breen talks to protestant women in the troubled area in East Belfast, kindly reproduced by Newshound. The three women all live right on the peaceline in the Clandeboye Estate. Jean grew up in the staunchly unionist Newtownards Road area. She has five children and moved into the Short Strand 30 years ago. “Since May our homes have been under sustained attack from loyalists day and night,” she says. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers …
