“What is legal is not necessarily moral”, Pope Leo XIV said in Lourdes on 27 Sept 2026. Pope Leo was referring to euthanasia which has been legalised in France and other countries in Europe. How relevant are these words from Pope Leo during the latest attempt by the Orange Order to walk down the […]
How do we explain October 7, 2023?
Today marks the anniversary of the attack on Israel by Hamas. Using bulldozers,, vehicles and hang-gliders, Hama poured through the defence breaches and slaughtered some 1200 Israelis and took 120 captive. This must have involved months of meticulous planning, as well as an astonishing lapse in border defence. Israel’s IDF has always been on the […]
Saturday on the Garvaghy Road
For a long time, people have said that the South has moved on from the North. Saturday on the Garvaghy Road suggested otherwise. People travelled from across Ireland to stand with a nationalist community in Portadown, and they came in their thousands. Nobody makes a journey like that for a stranger’s problem. They came because […]
PAT+JUDE TALK ABOUT 2,000 + MARCHES EVERY YEAR – IS IT RESTLESS LEGS SYNDROME ? AND WEARING GAA TOPS
Why hasn’t the Garvaghy Road dispute been sorted years ago – all sorts of other parades have been, including the once -toxic Apprentice Boys in Derry? Would a joint unionist-republicans march/walk work? And have all those marches that were resolved – is that because nationalists allowed stripped-down versions of Loyal Orders to march?If so, […]
Bridgeen, the Gap – By Randall Stephen Hall
Bridgeen, the GapBy Randall Steohen HallA Drumcree Weather Forecast . . The tensions were high at DrumcreeBut three women left their friendsAnd headed across the narrow ground.Out beyond the soundOf the stand off protesters.Into the clearingAnd a certain calm.With less pushback from the rainOr any man.Moving forwardFor love takes you there.“I want to shake their […]
Law-breaking at the Garvaghy Road
I’ve just watched the B(ritish)BC’s ‘Sunday Politics.’ Two people were interviewed in depth: Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin president, and Carla Lockhart, the DUP MP. Mark Carruthers asked Mary Lou how she viewed the fact that she was a law-breaker and not a law-maker, by standing with the Garvaghy Road residents. Her answer was […]
The legacy of the Diamond
In September 1795, at a crossroads in County Armagh called the Diamond, a dispute over who had the right to walk down a road ended in bloodshed and the founding of an institution that is still arguing about who has the right to walk down roads. Few origin stories have aged so consistently. The […]
The Orange Order Does Not Speak for Protestants – by Peter Irvine
The dispute over the Garvaghy Road is still too often presented in familiar communal terms. Protestants on one side, Catholics on the other. That framing gives the Orange Order a representative status which the evidence does not justify. In the 2022 “Northern Ireland” Life and Times Survey, people were asked whether parades […]
When Civic Buildings Take Sides – by Peter Irvine
On 28 September, Dublin’s Mansion House was illuminated green for ‘International Safe Abortion Day’. Belfast City Hall was scheduled to follow. The National Women’s Council coordinated the Dublin illumination as part of a Europe-wide campaign promoting abortion as a reproductive right. In Belfast, an attempt to reverse the decision to illuminate City […]
PAT+ JUDE TALK ABOUT – WHAT ELSE? – THE OO AND THE GARVAGHY ROAD. SHOULD THE OO BE OUTLAWED?
SO – Would you be one of the one-and-done brigade who’d be OK with the Orange Order going down the Garvaghy Road and then promising never to do it again? Will Michelle O’Neill and Mary Lou be prosecuted for fomenting civil unrest? Maybe we should just ban the Orange Order – after all, it […]