March, 2017

  As we sit at this point of impasse in Northern Ireland, once more the two leading parties at the Assembly refuse to budge.They get their bullish hard masks on to play the wee game for a further round of talks. The public look on and the majority of reasonable everyday folk  shake their heads […]

We must be doing something right…

  You catch the BBC’s Spotlight last night?  I did. It was presented by Jim Fitzpatrick and considered Martin McGuinness’s life. There were interviews with Bertie Ahern and Ian Paisley,  Gregory Campbell  and Denis Bradley, and Patsy Gillespie’s widow Kathleen. Chris Donnelly  was given a few brief comments at the end.  Although it was made since Martin […]

I love chatting to people who I disagree with. There are some people, usually in the Unionist community, who always get angry when they are wrong; while I always get angry when I am right; and as you can imagine we are frequently angry with one another. Personal feelings don’t come into it, we are […]

GET OVER YOURSELVES By Randall Stephen Hall © 28.3.17   Ah, will you just Get over yourselves. Get on with it, make a move And just do your jobs. What’s your job description? To serve the people? Who are you serving? Self serving, self service. Self, self, self. Your main agenda. Wrapped up in a […]

It would be wrong to suggest that Martin McGuinness didn’t divide opinion; anyone with a strong set of ideas and an underlying philosophy behind them will inevitably have detractors. Just like Fidel Castro or even his foe Margaret Thatcher, he didn’t care what people thought of him personally, he knew what he believed and pursued […]

I’m not sure….but I’m almost certain that I have never before come across a man such as our current Secretary Of State ,Mr James Brokenshire ,who could talk with such great facility for long minutes…possibly hours on end , like a practised filibuster and actually say very little at all.It is a skill that most […]

Here’s the British Secretary of State James Brokenshire on 10 March: “If no agreement is reached in the short window following the election, there would be a number of significant consequences. There would be no Executive, no real budget, no Programme for Government and risks to public services. Ultimately we would also be facing a […]

    A MEETING TO MARK THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NORTHERN IRELAND CIVIL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION IN THE LINEN HALL LIBRARY, 17 DONEGALL SQUARE NORTH, BELFAST – SATURDAY 8TH APRIL AT 1.30 p.m. SPEAKERS: ANTHONY COUGHLAN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR EMERITUS TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLINKEVIN MCCORRY FORMER ORGANISER NICRA   NICRA was unique as a political movement in the […]

I was on BBC Radio 4’s The World At One today and I feel like curling into a foetal position and weeping. The other contributors were Bertie Ahern (proof positive that there is life after death) and Ian Paisley. I caught just a bit of what Bertie had to say: it appeared mainly to consist  […]