I was asked to take part – at short notice – in a BBC Radio Five Live discussion of the Haass talks yesterday. The prospect of being hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully, and I found the prospect of being live on Radio Five Live forced me to think hard about what’s been happening and what’s […]
December, 2013
Flags and parading: two modest proposals
So. This is the day. Today we find out how much our politicians are capable of achieving together. However much or little, let’s remember that this is not a collective report. Some may have approached things in a constructive, accommodating manner, some with a dogged determination not to yield an inch of ground. Shouldn’t […]
A flag prediction: there’ll be no concession or modification by unionist politicians
Compromise: a middle state between conflicting opinions or actions reached by mutual concession or modification. We’re told that the sticky one is the flying of flags. That’s a turn-up, given that everyone was telling us that the past would be the really difficult matter to resolve. I still think that’s the case, regardless of […]
When I Lived with a Teenager
Note: This was written over twenty-five years ago. Our relationship has, of course, matured since then… My sixteen-year-old confides in his mother. Tells her things. Like “I’m going to kill Dad. Seriously. Some day I’m going to cream him out of existence”. Yes I have asked my wife what she says to this but she […]
Unionist politicians and the non-starter flag
I can do no better than quote from my friend Squinter this morning. He tweets: “I have come to the conclusion that the local media is not even aware of its total focus on unionist concerns when reporting Haass”. Despite the fact that we’ve been told that people are only concerned with bread and […]
Mary and the queen: prepare to have your credulity stretched
Mary McAleese is a lovely woman – intelligent, caring – but every so often she seems to lose the run of herself. In The Irish Times this morning, for example, she reveals that her husband spent two days on the phone in 2009, persuading loyalists not to retaliate when two British soldiers were killed […]
The good Lord Kilclooney and his flag
Ah, the voice of Christmas past. Somewhere in the political undergrowth there is a rustling of leaves, a grave opens and out emerges Lord Kilclooney, aka John Taylor, to tell us what to think about flags. First, we should have a Northern Ireland flag. Just the way Scotland and Wales and England have their […]
Unionist reaction to Haas: strategic or second nature?
It doesn’t sound as though the Haas talks are going to reveal anything new about the parties here. By and large the SDLP and Sinn Féin have been positive about possibilities, open to them if a bit cautious. The same could be said of the Alliance Party. The DUP and the UUP were a […]
Enda does an Irish fireside chat
If you’ve ever been in the audience of the Nolan TV show, you’ll know they have a comedian on before him to warm the audience up. Eamon Gilmore was the comedian last night. He was on the evening news warming the people of the twenty-six counties up with talk of “a major milestone on the […]
The Alternative Tour (guest blog)
Stephen Travers, extreme right, above and below… It was a beautiful late afternoon and I hardly noticed the long drive from Cork to Belfast. As I passed that lonely spot between Newry and Banbridge, where, in a matter of minutes, my life had been changed forever, I thought how different the world was now […]