April, 2014

Roy and the Dublin baby-snatchers

In my experience,  people hate mergers. When I was working for the Ulster Polytechnic and we merged with the New University of Ulster to become the University of Ulster (a lollipop if you spotted the word common to all three titles),  a lot of my colleagues were very critical of the union, as were many […]

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Peter’s Predicament

OK, hands up all here who’d like to be Peter Robinson? No, I’ not thinking of the Iris thing – I mean who would like to be in his political position? There’d be the salary, of course – over £70,000 – and a pretty plump pension. ( Although even that’s relative. When Peter and Iris […]

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The top and the bottom: mind the gap

Sometimes, in our joy at headline change, we forget what’s going on at the bottom of the story.  The election (and re-election) of Barack Obama caused a tumult of delight, particularly among African-Americans. But if you look at educational attainment,  prison population,  unemployment,  you’ll still see an unsettling story about the African-American population of the […]

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Cead míle failte mo thóin – at least north of the border

Two women have written in two separate papers reently and both articles are informative. Placed beside each other, they tell us something about the nature of our society, north and south. In the Belfast Telegraph two days ago, Finola Meredith pointed out that race hate crimes in the north are on the increase, particularly in Belfast. Over […]

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Guilt by association and shock-horror

I once was refused an interview by a man. Not a unique experience for me, but the reason given was: the potential interviewee didn’t like my father. My father was dead at this time, as were a number of his brothers, whom the man didn’t like either. So no interview. At the time I was wide-eyed […]

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The Irish media: blast and counter-blast

Blimey. That was quick. I was talking to a good friend yesterday and mentioned the obvious headway, according to the opinion polls, that Sinn Féin were making in the south. “Put on your helmet” my friend told me. “Stand by for a media counter-charge”.  And ‘strewth  – this morning I tune into Good Morning Ulster […]

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Gerry Adams: he’ll have to go

  At the time when much of the Irish media was baying for the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady, I remember making the point that people who hitherto had been indifferent to the welfare of the Catholic Church or even openly hostile to it appeared to have developed a sudden concern for its welfare in […]

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‘The Gate in the Field’ by Randall Stephen Hall

  One man’s field is another man’s prison. My father died from heart complications, at the age of 52 in Belfast, 1981. He was an architect and a Civil Servant. He was born in Milford, Co. Donegal, a distant field. His father was born in Newry, another field. His father, my great grandfather, was born […]

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Thoughts and descriptions of Easter 1916

 Paul McCartney doesn’t seem a natural bed-fellow for George Bernard Shaw but on one matter they do come together.  In his famous song Give Ireland Back to the Irish  (banned by the BBC), McCartney poses a question: Tell me how would you like it If on your way to work You were stopped by Irish […]

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Sombre thoughts on Easter Sunday

I was on BBC  Raidio Uladh/Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence  this morning, talking with others about death. Specifically about the way insurance companies try to estimate how long you’ll last and factor in a lot of things about you in making their calculation. From there it was a short hop to “What effect would it have […]

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