October, 2019

North Belfast: will John Finucane sort out Nigel Dodds?

As candidates strap on their election battle gear, I wonder how Boris Johnson is feeling. Is he confident that his energy and willingness to engage in banter will be enough for people to forget that he is an unscrupulous opportunist and a mortal threat to the NHS? Will Jeremy Corbyn feel relieved to be on […]

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Happy, happy talk – but where are the structures?

 I wasn’t at the Lansdowne Hotel last night when there was a meeting about Brexit and a border poll, but I see David McCann quoted this morning on Twitter:  “Young people are increasingly  coming to the opinion that the north’s future is outside the United Kingdom.” That’s an optimistic but also a vague -to-the-verge-of meaningless […]

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GAEILGE ++++ by Lambert Simnel

Regarding Gaeilge, COMPULSORY Gaeilge would involve a situation where we would NOT, repeat NOT, repeat NOT hear Síle & Seán in Conamara asking what the point of speaking Gaeilge to the children is.We would hear Deirdre and Steve in Dublin asking what the point of speaking ENGLISH to the children is.In a PRACTICAL way COMPULSORY […]

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Donald Trump: the perfect anti-role model

Sometimes parents are anxious that their children should have a positive role model: someone who, by their words and actions, by the way they live their life, illustrates the notion of a life well-lived.  I have an alternative suggestion: go instead for the anti-role model, someone whose words and actions are low and nasty, who […]

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If we had COMPULSORY Gaeilge by Lambert Simnel

As a matter of interest, the last group that had to learn Gaeilge to live here was the Cromwellians over 300 years ago. We never had compulsory Irish, and Irish was never force-fed to anybody. That is why, children emerge from school, with A+ in Honours Irish sometimes, after twelve years of ‘learning Irish’ unable […]

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