February, 2017

Following a complaint and in keeping with my disclaimer under ‘About Me’ I’ve taken down the guest blog ‘Ulster – mainstream media is part of our problem’

  I think it’s important to write about things which are near and dear to people. Without doubt, the most popular articles are those with a local edge to them because people can fully relate to the context therein. And a subject which has crossed my mind a lot lately is how the reduction in […]

Is there room for decency in politics or does that concept have to be abandoned completely? Is a “decent politician” in reality , an oxymoron? It’s a while since I heard the expression.”He was a decent man”.The word “decent ” or even the word “decency” seem like very old -fashioned words these days.They’re the kind […]

Pics 1-4 are by Perkin Warbeck   Pic 1 Pic 2 Pic 3 Pic 4   THE   MUST-SEE   of   MOSTA Mosta is a high town of twenty thousand souls in the centre of Malta. Its biggest claim to fame is the Dome of its parish church: it is the third largest in Europe, exceeded only […]

OK – this thing about voting ‘cross-community’ – who’s for it or against it? The Belfast Telegraph is for it. Or says it is. In an editorial a while back it lamented that ‘Tribalism still reigns after twenty years of peace” and commended Mike Nesbitt’s statement that he was giving his second-preference to the SDLP. […]

I grew up in a home with parents and grandparents close by who had a habit of watching the clock and hearing the hands tick with obsession. I used to ask what their fascination was with the time, and when I got old enough to stomach the reality of it they informed me it was […]

As many of you will know, I have an affection that borders on love for Nelson McCausland. But the affection is,  mór an trua,  one-way: Nelson has weighed me in the balance and found me wanting: “One of the most sectarian journalists I have ever come across”. Now that hurts. To be called a journalist […]

I was at the annual Pat Finucane memorial lecture last night in the Europa Hotel. In some ways it was a moving evening, in some ways disappointing and in some ways enraging. There was a fairly large audience, but far from lan go doras – completely full. Professor Bill Rolston, who was the MC,   made […]

  Heather Humphries TD Minister for Something or Other in the Free State/Republic was asked about the idea of Fine Gael joining Sinn Fein in government in Dublin after the next election. ‘No’ she replied categorically, “Definitely not!  That would not work. They are like oil and wather”. She’s right there.  I always knew FG […]

Sinn Féin: red-lines, conflict narratives and remembering our dead Equality of citizenship in a civilised modern society is not a privilege to be gifted by Unionist politicians. Sinn Féin must expose the red-lines within the UUP-SDLP sham union – before the resumption of Stormont are these parties able to agree a timetable to implement the […]