As many of you will know, I have an affection that borders on love for Nelson McCausland. But the affection is, mór an trua, one-way: Nelson has weighed me in the balance and found me wanting: “One of the most sectarian journalists I have ever come across”. Now that hurts. To be called a journalist is a blow well below the belt, Nelson. But I still have truly warm feelings towards the man.
For a start he is neither a journalist nor sectarian. Which is why it comes as a shock to hear that he has refused an offered hand-shake with Máirtín Ó Muilleoir, the Finance Minister, in the course of a recent televised election debate.
When I first heard of this, I assumed Nelson had spotted that Mr Ó Muilleoir’s hand was soiled in some way, perhaps grubby from printer’s ink, perhaps a hand that Nelson suspected carried disease of some kind, like man flu.
But no. The man I admire and respect said his not shaking hands with Mr Ó Muilleoir had nothing to do with respect: “I am not averse to shaking hands with anyone.” But apparently Nelson was insulted/outraged/made angry by Mr Ó Muilleoir’s comment that “in Sinn Féin we believe in live and let live.” This really got my favourite unsectarian human being quite upset. He claimed that the IRA had killed an awful lot of people, so it was hypocritical for Mr Ó Muilleoir to say “live and let live”. He also felt upset that Mr Ó Muilleoir had implied the Gay Pride parade was bigger than the Orange Parades. Nonsense. The Orange parades on the Twelfth are bigger (and less sectarian) than any other parade.
So I think it’s somewhat insensitive of Mr Ó Muilleoir to have offered his hand to a man – a legend, in some people’s eyes, including mine – to a man who is not averse to shaking hands with anyone. Has Mr Ó Muiilleoir got no respect for the sensitive and gentle nature of his political opponent? He has hurt and upset one of the most unsectarian politicians I have ever met – or dreamt of. (No, Virginia, I have not literally had a dream featuring Nelson. Although I would not be averse to such a dream.)
Please, Mr Ó Muilleoir. No more callous digit-extending in the direction of my favourite unionist politician with a beard.
By the way, you do know that Nelson is named after the great Admiral Horatio Nelson? And that James Joyce, in Ulysses, has the character Stephen Dedalus refer to the Admiral as “the one-handled adulterer”?
Really, these Irish respect nothing.
It may have been my poor hearing but I’m sure, Nelson refused to call Máirtín by his name the other night, referring instead to someone called Martin. That to me is the absolute height of bad manners, much more serious than not shaking hands.
I seem to remember reading a book about the troubles, out about 20yrs ago that mentioned the above politician. Can’t remember much about it, it might even have been a television programme but not a play nor a film. See my memory?
I did not see the absence of a handshake but it sounds like the usual nonsense from Nelson.
I did see him struggle over the question of donations to the DUP Brexit campaign, looking as though there was something to hide.
Mairtin did not come across well either I thought seeming rather smug and patronising at times.
Also he appeared to contradict Michelle O’Neill on the position regarding returning to government with Arlene still in place.
Is it a red line or is it not?
noticed that myself gb,sitting there making faces to himself,thinking hes important or summat.
There’s no political commentator as bigoted and sectarian nor one more full of hate as you, Jude.
Colin – I’ll grant you a fool’s pardon on that bit of abuse. But I promise you it’s your last.
Only trying to learn from today’d lesson. Jude. Like it’s not as if I didn’t say SF are the provisional movement.
Anyway thanks for the foolish pardon
And what about a Nazi emblem superimposed on the national flag of a democratic nation?
What’s the reason for that ‘pardon’?
You’d need to ask the author, PF. However, there’s a series on TV at present about WWII ending with German victory and how Britain/England might have been at that time. That seems to me what’s being explored, hence the Nazi insertion, Why don’t you write a blog and make your case if you disagree with the approach?
“You’d need to ask the author, PF.”
Oh, there’s plenty of comments on that article, but no one (funny how no one ever) replies.
“However, there’s a series on TV at present about WWII ending with German victory and how Britain/England might have been at that time.”
Yea, noticed that was on. But it wasn’t really the comparison being made, was it?
” That seems to me what’s being explored, hence the Nazi insertion”
So, your explanation for a Nazi Swastika emblazoned on a Union Flag, with a comparison being drawn suggesting that the ‘British presence in Ireland’ was like a Nazi Germany presence in Britain, is that some wondered what it would be like in Britain if Germany had won.
Oh, yes, that’d be right, Nazi Germany wouldn’t have flown their, then, national flag had they conquered Britain.
Jude, that’s just pathetic.
Interesting, though, how bigotry can be explained away.
“Why don’t you write a blog and make your case if you disagree with the approach?”
I can disagree with the approach quite easily via the comments section. More pointedly, at the moment, given the plethora of deliberate and provocative anti-Unionist sentiment, I’d prefer not to be associated in any other way.
“Interesting, though, how bigotry can be explained away.”
Unionists have been explaining bigotry away for a century Peter and we are still no more than crocodiles in 2017.
Not sure if that is better or worse than the stench unionists have to hold their noses to work with from 2016.
Are things getting better or worse would you say?
….. full of hate THAN you, Jude.
Oh dear. You’re a slow learner, Colin.
Nelson is mentioned in a book titled The Committee. Even if a tenth of the allegations in the book are true, it is Nelson’s hands that are dirty
The beard is needed to partially cover his embarrassment. However you can still see the Red Sky hue come through at times.
As an aside, there is an SF candidate in W Belfast called Órlaithí Flynn. Any info on the forename? Curious .
I wonder would Nelson go to France and call Jacques ..James , probably….. not being the most intelligent of people-as they say down our way ” there’s air gettin’ in ” . It seems to be mandatory within unionism to insult , abuse , maltreat and generally be the most base and morally bankrupt epitome of human that’s possible to portray…….they’re a laughing stock , petering slowly to a self-inflicted extinction….but unlike other endangered species no one really gives a damn !
I agree with everything you say about Unionist politicians, but they are not anywhere near extinction. Seems the majority of Protestant/Unionist voters like them that way. To be straight and blunt about it Unionist politicians reflect the opinions and attitudes of the Unionist people ..!!
Ah…the unrequited love that has no name, Jude.I thought that the owlish Horatio was on fine foolish form myself, especially when he giggled like a schoolboy about Brexit. He had no clue about that at all. So much for a political brain……but you gotta love the comedy eh …….
I just think of the look on his face when Unionism loses the border poll. Sure we’ll be getting many of them faces framed – maybe they could be the new flag?
Goodness, and there was me thinking that this Irishman was welcome in a United Ireland.
According to Nelson, he is British. He probably has an Irish passport too.
I was talking about me; anyway, what’s to stop someone being Irish and British? The other Celts around the isles don’t seem to have a problem with it.
Maybe they are more tolerant?
Maybe they are more in need of a comfort blanket than we are. Unlike them, I wasn’t born in Britain so why would I call myself British?
“I wasn’t born in Britain so why would I call myself British?”
I see that neither etymology or history are strong points on this blog.
“I wasn’t born in Britain so why would I call myself British? I see that neither etymology or history are strong points on this blog.”
Nobody born in any part of Ireland was born in Britain. That is just a fact Peter
Neither …… Nor
You’re a great man P F for trying to get Jude to answer your meandering queries. Now explain the etymology and history smart aleck remark.
Jaysus but you get up early in the morning and walk a loooooooong way to be offended.
If yer a bitter bigot like Nelson then why would any reasonable human being have any time for ye. If you are one of these Unionist unicorns that doesn’t spew bile at all things Irish then you are of course welcome in a United Ireland.
And given you seem to be taking offense at criticism launched at McCausland types I am going to guess you just told us which of the two types of Unionist you are. Of course, I am happy to be wrong if you want to clarify the situation 🙂
Are you referring to me?
(Nelson “neither a journalist nor sectarian”. Well 50 per cent is something. But are you losing it Jude?
You should take it as a compliment Dr C; when the DUP are stumped they simply cry fleg/bigot/sectarian rather than deign to debate or concede a point.
I’ve never once detected anything even approaching sectarian in your (own) blog posts.
As it happens you let all manner of opinions on your blog, Nelson does not (Lord knows i’ve tried).
BTW, Did you know that the ship surgeon who pickled Nelson was an Ulster man? Some old school pragmatism there methinks!
“when the DUP are stumped they simply cry fleg/bigot/sectarian rather than deign to debate or concede a point.”
Sooner or later we will have to debate the benefits of unity seriously.
Brexit has changed everything, a lot of people will be receiving notification letters that their jobs may be at risk over the coming months.
The wedge the DUP hoped would go into the Irish border will actually go deeper into the british border.
The people of britain will not want any part of the UK having a land border with the EU.
They will not replace the benefits we received from Europe and they will not even campaign for the north of Ireland to remain in the UK.
More likely they will offer those who do not want to live in a united Ireland the option to come live in britain.
That is the british solution to such a problem.
Thank you, AG. It would be nice if people who confuse ‘sectarian’ with ‘you disagree with me’ could maybe take a course in the English language and then come back to the debate…
” It would be nice if people who confuse ‘sectarian’ with ‘you disagree with me’ could maybe take a course in the English language and then come back to the debate…”
Would that be the course you take, Jude? We talked about that before, and I’m quite sure, that subtly must have been a one of the topics.
That last time I asked a question about your understanding of the concept of ‘Unionist bastards’:
” It’s a bit like those unionists who were outraged (that old word again) when Gerry Adams was reported as saying that the implementation of equality would break the [Unionist] bastards: they bridled at the word ‘bastards’ but missed the claim that they were opposed to equality.
So, which is it, ‘unionists are bastards’, or ‘unionists oppose equality’.
Personally I’d say there was sufficient sectarianism in that to be going along with.
But you probably missed it.
Cue, explaining away…
I know you enjoy a good (or even middling) argument, PF, and actually so do I, but I find these days I haven’t the time for it. However, since you’re a decent (wo)man I’ll try to explain (again). If someone told me I was a thieving bastard, I’d respond by becoming upset at being called a thief rather than being called a bastard, since I have the paperwork that covers that particular epithet. So I find it odd that unionists who’ve objected to GA’s comment are fixated on being called bastards (who hasn’t been called one? I know I have…) but don’t seem to be concerned that they’re being accused of being unable to cope with equality. Surely that’s the graver charge. And certainly there are unionist politicians who don’t want equality of anything with their political opponents or even sections of the population here….Now. There’s another three minutes of my life i’ll never get back…
“Now. There’s another three minutes of my life I’ll never get back.”
Save your minutes next time then, Jude, you answered nothing anyway.
And anyone who had tutored an English course would have known that my “Cue, explaining away…” was rhetorical.
Maybe it touched a nerve?
But you chose then and you’ve chosen now to miss my point; because when I pointed out to you that both being called ‘bastards’ and being called ‘bastards who are opposed to equality’ are equally not only offensive, but also examples of intolerance themselves, which they are, and you know they are, you side stepped it. Not to mention the horse malarkey
It’s sectarianism, plain and simple.
GA did not call unionists bastards, he said equality would break the bastards, i.e. those who rule the north for their own kind only.
If you think the crocodiles who are expected to be happy with the scraps from the DUP table and not to be asking for more, will be concerned that Gerry Adams referred to the same unionists who see us as such dirt and look down their noses at as bastards, I can tell you, you are wasting your time.
I am in total agreement with him.
But what he also did, was make sure that his remarks would not be forgotten and when the nationalists community got sickened by Sinn Fein being walked over by the DUP, would not be able to deny that Sinn Fein were all along allowing the DUP enough rope to hang themselves and at the very least, suspected that the DUP would not be able to match Sinn Fein in reaching out and pursuing reconciliation and that in their failure they would turn the people of Ireland against them.
Ireland will be united, but now it cannot be united within the UK.
Who on any part of this island could trust england enough to re-join the UK?
No thank you.
See you later alligator 🙂
Knew it was a wasted 3 mins. Hey-ho…
You can do better than that, Jude.
You see, if it wasn’t ‘equalilty’, it would be something else. Quite simply, from the context of the comments, the point was not, ‘equality’, the point…
“But what’s the point? The point is to actually break these bastards – that’s the point. And what’s going to break them is equality. That’s what’s going to break them – equality.”
But I’m sure that if you wasted another three minutes of your life you could find another excuse to explain it away.
Aye Am Ghob … imagine ruining a good barrel of booze by introducing the body of the bold Horatio to it….Other sailors who died in battle were simply shovelled over the side in their various bits ,or sewn -up in a bag with a cannonball at their feet and consigned to Lir and the fishes…
If you belong to a sect of any sort – and remember a sect is a group of people with a common interest – you could be described as sectarian. Think the Caleb Foundation. If you have opinions which you believe to be correct and will defend strongly you are a bigot. So who isn’t bigoted and sectarian?
Half Admiral, Half Giant
He who opts to, the culture of the Celts, shun
(Were wood chips used in d’ ovens of Belsen?)
The beard gives him an edge*
A farmer looking thro a hedge
Who else, son, but the one and only Half-Neslon.
*intellectual
Is it not more shameful that, “equality” might be used to break the resolve of a section of society, for whom equality is anathma. I mean in these so called enlightened times, is that not the tragic aspect of the matter? That is thee point.
No, Freddie, it’s more shameful that “the point is to actually break these bastards.”
It doesn’t matter who the bastards are, breaking anyone is shameful, and hardly equal.
But we’ll leave the hypocrisy out of it this time.
“It doesn’t matter who the bastards are, breaking anyone is shameful, and hardly equal.”
Who are you defending Peter?
If people in power misuse that power and are allowed to get away with it because the over ruling state doesn’t care. That is what is shameful in my eyes.
Unfortunately this conservative government is part of these bastards who need to be broken.
Their veto over state murders under the guise of national security must be broken.
Just as the DUPs veto over just about everything they didn’t agree to had to be broken.
Not a shameful goal, but a vital one.
Not defending anyone in particular, just noting (1) the intention of the comment, whether Jude chooses to accept it or not, and (2) that talk of ‘breaking bastards’ is neither democratic nor tolerant.
But whatever floats your boat.
Peter, I am not always tolerant.
I can be, I was in fact feeling positive about our conversations at one point.
But things have taken a tor for the worse.
The DUP behaved badly in public. I am not talking about recording private meetings and putting them out there, I am talking about the arrogance and insolence of the british state representatives as well as unionists in what they come on to our television screens and say publically.
There is no talk of reconciliation, of building bridges, of uniting our people.
We get told a lot about the difficulties unionism has in treating us as equals and sharing power on that basis. We are crocodiles who keep coming back for more according to Arlene. To some we are a stench.
Theresa May feels it is ok to call us terrorists from Westminster. That was the last straw for me. The brits want to call us terrorists and at the same time cover up the dirty war the ran in Ireland, protect their state financed murderers, deny evidence, documents and names of individuals within state security forces known to have collaborated with loyalists all on grounds of national security.
Am I the only one who finds this grossly offensive?
As for Gerry Adams, if he came on television and said a bad word about anyone I would be surprised. This was a private meeting that he may or may not have suspected was being recorded. I imagine Gerry would be well aware most of his words are recorded but I don’t consider words said in a private context with coming on public television and making sectarian remarks the way unionists do. It is as if there is some sort of inherent privilege in the mind-set of many unionists. Certainly in your political leadership.
The nationalist people may be treated like sub human fools, but we can think for ourselves and while the leadership of unionism are still treating us as inferior and behaving like fascist bastards, don’t expect us to be up in arms that as much is said in private conversations.
I don’t agree with using that terminology about any group. But I think that is really just flannel and is inhibiting discussion about the important point that unionism has shown scant regard for equality since the state was created. Someone saying that they would use equality as a Trojan horse should really force some people to pause and search their souls, because we truly would not be where we are now if the ruling political class in NI had shown a little true ‘christianity’ from the outset.
I honestly still don’t think they get that Freddie.
How can you be simply equal to a crocodile you throw meat to and get annoyed because it comes back for more?
It does not even compute to them that such a remark is wrong.
Yea, sure, and talk of horses, breaking people and bastards is really going to help.
If people want to take the moral high ground then that’s fair enough, but standing up there shouting ‘bastards’ lacks credibility.
And I reckon you know that, Freddie.
“because we truly would not be where we are now if the ruling political class in NI had shown a little true ‘christianity’ from the outset.”
And I probably agree with that, but who said they were necessarily Christians anyway?
If Christianity as I understand it had of been applied even over the more recent history, home rule would have been established in the late 1800s, Ireland would be self ruling from Dublin and still one united country. We would probably have remained within the UK as an equally valued partner.
Here we go back to equality.
Britain did not treat Ireland like an equally valued part of the UK.
Some would say it doesn’t treat Scotland as an equal partner to this day.
Inequality has been taught from the top down within the UK.
If the PM is going to call us terrorists from the political pulpit, it only goes downhill from there.
Ireland has proven we can stand on our own two feet without Britain, and I want to be a part of that self governing independence.
This particular reply PF is completely disingenuous on your part. You try to use the word ‘horse’ to equate the use of the word ‘crocodile’ to describe Nationalist/Republicans. However Gerry Adams used the words ‘Trojan Horse’ to describe, well, I know I don’t have to explain that one to you,you see what I mean. So your comparison is nullified in this instance. He wasn’t talking about ‘Breaking’ people either, rather, he was describing breaking a mindset or political direction. and no one was standing up shouting ‘Bastards’. But none of this is surprising given your un-daunting support for anything unioinist and your blind hatred for anything Nationalist or Republican, it is to be expected, still c’est la vie.