Author Harry McAvinchey

It’s never a good thing to get into a bout of whataboutery live on television when debating the current state of affairs in Norneverland.Mark Carruthers had set up a panel of party representatives currently about to joust the coming election. All the usual suspects were there ,prepared to have their say .Sinn Fein, the DUP, […]

There’s not a whole lot to write about at the moment. You couldn’t scare up a scandal these days for love nor money …..and yet when we had an Executive here in Norneverland , there was hardly a week that went by without some scandalous political nonsense oozing its stink out under the door like […]

Nelson McCausland is on the radio , wittering on in the lugubrious ,disingenuous, deliberately measured way he sometimes does , speaking slowly as if to add extra weight to his pontifications, or possibly because he imagines, mistakenly, that his words carry some weight. He appears to be dragged onto the airwaves almost daily to rail […]

So what good was a principle if she couldn’t get that great job back, she thought.They barely allowed her to speak about anything these days, but this idea that Nigel cobbled together just might do the trick and get those old wheels rolling again.It was worth a punt .This Irish language out-reach scam might just […]

Apparently unionists worry about certain things. They are unsure whether or not some Irish Nationalists really want local government to succeed. They are dubious that republicans might want this to fail even though Martin MCGuinness attempted everything short of walking -on -water to prove to them that he wanted it to work. Unionists have some […]

So the DUP say they still want to go into coalition with Sinn Fein in a revived Executive, but already they are insulting that party for it’s essential republicanism, as they ready themselves for this shiny new unexpected election.Coalition partners indeed!! It’s not as if we all don’t know thta these parties are like chalk […]

Nelson McCausland the ex-DUP politician, is still beating his “Culture” drum. It has become a kilted obsession with the little, bearded red-cheeked man . He’s been banging on about Ulster-Scots; paradiddling and drumrolling his tartan roots and promoting this odd, local lucky-bag dialect as an independent language ,for a few years now .It’s all a […]

“We do want to respect and indeed better understand the language and culture which we are not a part of and to that end over the next short period of time I do intend to listen and to engage with those from the Gaelic/Irish background, those without party political baggage or indeed demands, people who […]

‘Irish language crusade is leaving unionist minority uncomfortable” That was the quote I read that made me feel uncomfortable , myself. I could barely understand why the person who uttered such a line did not realise the absurdity of what he had said.The context of this was that there were concerns about the potential impact […]

  We live and we die.There is always a funeral to be attended.It is what we do. It snowed earlier in the week and then there were a few starbright ,open sky nights of hard ,diamantine frost glistening on the rooftops. As if surprising itself by its own audacity , that fat old sun shimmied […]