May, 2011

Can we amuse you, Ma’am?

Elizabeth II Somewhere in his writing,  that great Irishman George Bernard Shaw says that the Irishman, faced with a group of expectant English people, tends to play the fool.  I thought of Shaw this morning when I heard that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, when she visits the twenty-six counties next week, will be entertained by […]

Continue Reading

Can we amuse you, Ma’am?

Elizabeth II Somewhere in his writing,  that great Irishman George Bernard Shaw says that the Irishman, faced with a group of expectant English people, tends to play the fool.  I thought of Shaw this morning when I heard that Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, when she visits the twenty-six counties next week, will be entertained by […]

Continue Reading

Unionism today: in the driving seat or careening downhill?

Tom Elliott, UUP Leader We had our last book-club meeting of the season last night  (Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin, and very good it was too) and after we got to discussing politics. All those present, I’d feel safe in saying, were nationalists, but not everybody in the room saw things, post-election, the […]

Continue Reading

Unionism today: in the driving seat or careening downhill?

Tom Elliott, UUP Leader We had our last book-club meeting of the season last night  (Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin, and very good it was too) and after we got to discussing politics. All those present, I’d feel safe in saying, were nationalists, but not everybody in the room saw things, post-election, the […]

Continue Reading

The election – what will people think of us?

Pat Sheehan MLA “What will people think of us?” the BBC presenter asked, and when he said it he reminded me of my Auntie Maggie. “What will people think of you?” she would say “with your elbows on the table and you chewing with your mouth open?” The BBC man – I think it was […]

Continue Reading

The election – what will people think of us?

Pat Sheehan MLA “What will people think of us?” the BBC presenter asked, and when he said it he reminded me of my Auntie Maggie. “What will people think of you?” she would say “with your elbows on the table and you chewing with your mouth open?” The BBC man – I think it was […]

Continue Reading

Open the box! (Old catch-phrase, new Assembly)

Maybe it was the lack of gouge and head-butt during the campaign or the failure of the media to treat the election with half-decent attention. (RTÉ on its nine o’clock news bulletin the day before the election had an item on AV in Britain, nothing on the North.)  Either way, there’s a noticeable quickening of […]

Continue Reading

Open the box! (Old catch-phrase, new Assembly)

Maybe it was the lack of gouge and head-butt during the campaign or the failure of the media to treat the election with half-decent attention. (RTÉ on its nine o’clock news bulletin the day before the election had an item on AV in Britain, nothing on the North.)  Either way, there’s a noticeable quickening of […]

Continue Reading