March, 2011

Is the GAA feeling pleased this morning, now they’ve been awarded £61.4 million of public money to develop Casement Park? Ask a silly question – of course they are.  Are they more pleased that they’ve ended up developing their own Casement Park rather than sharing with rugby and soccer a ‘national’ stadium on the Long […]

Is the GAA feeling pleased this morning, now they’ve been awarded £61.4 million of public money to develop Casement Park? Ask a silly question – of course they are.  Are they more pleased that they’ve ended up developing their own Casement Park rather than sharing with rugby and soccer a ‘national’ stadium on the Long […]

So  – one thing we know for sure: Fr John McManus is innocent. He’s the priest against whom “child protection allegations”, we learn today, have been leveled.  He’s the chancellor of the Diocese of Down and Connor (that means he runs the diocese’s administration), he’s a member of the diocese’s committee on child safety and […]

So  – one thing we know for sure: Fr John McManus is innocent. He’s the priest against whom “child protection allegations”, we learn today, have been leveled.  He’s the chancellor of the Diocese of Down and Connor (that means he runs the diocese’s administration), he’s a member of the diocese’s committee on child safety and […]

A young man called William Saxe-Coburg and  a young woman called Kate Middleton “thrilled well-wishers” in Belfast yesterday, says this morning’s VO, and do you know, they kind of thrilled me too. Maybe it wasn’t the omigod-I’ve-actually-seen-in-the-flesh-one-of-the-Saxe-Coburg-family-and-his-fiancée thrill that the well-wishers in Belfast felt. More a thrill of astonishment at the way people manage to […]

A young man called William Saxe-Coburg and  a young woman called Kate Middleton “thrilled well-wishers” in Belfast yesterday, says this morning’s VO, and do you know, they kind of thrilled me too. Maybe it wasn’t the omigod-I’ve-actually-seen-in-the-flesh-one-of-the-Saxe-Coburg-family-and-his-fiancée thrill that the well-wishers in Belfast felt. More a thrill of astonishment at the way people manage to […]

I don’t normally read The Belfast Telegraph but I see from the BBC’s online newspaper review that it – the BT – reports today that five major streets of Belfast are going to get a name change. For example, Royal Avenue is to be renamed Mary Anne McCracken Avenue (Mary Anne was Henry Joy McCracken’s […]

I don’t normally read The Belfast Telegraph but I see from the BBC’s online newspaper review that it – the BT – reports today that five major streets of Belfast are going to get a name change. For example, Royal Avenue is to be renamed Mary Anne McCracken Avenue (Mary Anne was Henry Joy McCracken’s […]

Maybe better start by asking “Why not?” Every year thousands of English people visit Ireland north and south, and we fall over ourselves to welcome them. Apart from our natural disposition towards friendliness – and it does exist – these people bring much-needed revenue. The notion of making them unwelcome because they’re English is so […]

Maybe better start by asking “Why not?” Every year thousands of English people visit Ireland north and south, and we fall over ourselves to welcome them. Apart from our natural disposition towards friendliness – and it does exist – these people bring much-needed revenue. The notion of making them unwelcome because they’re English is so […]