Some days, I come on statements and claims which make me wonder if I haven’t lost my mind. Can this person really be saying this? Have I totally misunderstood the King’s English? As I type these words, beads of perspiration popping out on my forehead, I’m staring at two newspaper reports that […]
Tag Archives | border poll
A border poll: what’s the hurry and who’s creating the hurry
I was talking to a person the other day and the subject of a border poll came up. (Indeed, Virginia – no surprises there – how wise you are.) This person expressed the belief that Sinn Féin were in a hurry to get a border poll and national reunification because many of its old soldiers […]
The question that must be answered
On Saturday last, I was in a very crowded lecture hall in St Mary’s University College where they were discussing the economics of a united Ireland. As I write I’m half-listening to a recorded radio discussion, where Jonathan Powell and Ray Bassett are exchanging views on the backstop and reactions to it. Buy a newspaper […]
Gregory bares his teeth
The main hall in St Mary’s University College on the Falls Road was busting with people last night. Car parks front and rear filled, pavements bulging with illegally parked cars, people stacked like grain in a granary inside the hall, people bunched outside the hall in overflow. And two lecture theatres providing a video view […]
How to shut up an articulate opponent
Hands up if you know (Lord) Paul Bew? I don’t mean know in the sense that you go for the occasional pint together, but know who he is? At the danger of teaching my granny to suck eggs, here’s some of his background. Once a member of People’s Democracy (remove that woman – she appears […]
Karen: cough up the criteria, please
The cliché is that Brexit has changed everything. Indeed. But you could have knocked me down with a q-tip this morning, when I heard Malachi O’Doherty announce that he would be open to the possibility of voting for a united Ireland because of Brexit. On the same radio programme, Declan Kearney of Sinn Féin said […]
David McWilliams, the demographics and a truly startling poll
I have never thought of David McWilliams as a particularly nationalist Irishman. He’s best known for his economic expertise, with the fact that he spotted the economic collapse of 2008 long before the vast majority of economic commentators attesting to his expertise. But this morning in The Belfast Telegraph, he combines economics and nationalist politics […]
Charlie and Bertie: twin towers of southern wisdom
Brendan Behan thought that the one thing capable of making a bad situation worse was the arrival of a policeman. If he were alive today, he might want to add “Or a dim-witted comment from a major Fine Gael/Fianna Fail politician.” What kind of dim-witted comment you ask, Virginia? In the case of C Flanagan, […]
Enda and Micheál and the border
The recent comments by various people on a possible border poll has excited widespread media attention. So who said what? Micheál Martin (FF) thinks the remain vote in the north “may show people the need to rethink current arrangements…However, at this moment the only evidence we have is that the majority of people in Northern […]