Two interesting events happened yesterday, one on either side of the Irish Sea. In the south of Ireland Leo Varadkar became Taoiseach and leader of the Fine Gael Party; in England Tim Farron resigned as leader of the Lib Dem Party. Farron first. He resigned as leader, he said, because he found it impossible to […]
June, 2017
‘The DUP & The Loyalists’ by Donal Lavery
As a 25 year old, I’m conscious of the fact that unlike many of you who will read this, I did not live through the long ordeal that was the conflict in the North of our country. But nonetheless, I was born prior to the ceasefires and I grew up in a home that was […]
THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR WALKING (WHERE THEY’RE NOT WANTED) by Tom Cooper
Despite marathon negotiations in 2014 between the political parties in the North chaired by Richard N. Haass; United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland and talks vice-chairman Professor Meghan O’Sullivan, the parties failed to reach a consensus on the seventh and final set of proposals. Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Alliance Party, despite some […]
‘The British Ethnic Community in Ireland’ by Ian Adamson
This year 2017 is the 1500th Anniversary of the birth of Comgall, venerated as the Father of Monks by the Protestant, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches and a significant figure in our Common Identity. Originally a soldier and not a nobleman, Comgall was born at Magheramorne, County Antrim in 517 of the People of […]
HISTORICAL DISTORTIONISTS by Donal Kennedy
When President Obama visited Ireland in 2011 he was briefed by distortionists . Those who wrote or heard his speeches may have imagined that Daniel O’Connell was the only Irishman supporting the rights of black people. But from the United Irishmen and women in the 1790s through John Boyle O’Reilly* in the 19th Century to […]
‘The Party’s Over: Can The SDLP Ever Change?’ by Donal Lavery
We have heard much these past days about the willingness and necessity for the SDLP to listen to the electorate and take heed of lessons learnt from a truly battering election result. All over the North, they were embarrassingly humiliated by a collapse in their vote, having been dragged into the campaign by a weak […]
On being British and neutral
British politicians like to be balanced in their approach to things Northern Ireland. Their argument is that for generations Northern Irish Protestants and Catholics have been fighting each other, and it’s Britain’s destiny to try to get them to work together peacefully . Having cast themselves in that role for decades, you’d think British politicians would […]
HOOK, LIONS and STINKERS (2) by Perkin Warbeck
Very clev of Mr. Duffy of RTE Radio 1, all the same, to invite Trev on to his show to – -Talk to Joe. As it were. Unless of course it was Trev himself (NI having just gone to h. in a hand cart) who actally took the smart intiative from his base in […]
CHANGED UTTERLY, BUT FOR THE BETTER? by Donal Kennedy
Watching BBC World (or was it SKY?) as the polls closed I saw Peter Kellner pooh-poohing the exit poll predictions which soon proved accurate. I was reminded of a piece written by him after a holiday in West Cork where he pontificated on the future of Ireland, where Southern Catholics were socially so […]
The perils of being talked about
What party is on the lips of everyone in Britain today? Why, the DUP, of course. I sometimes have to give myself a discreet pinch when I hear the party’s name mentioned in the same breath as the Conservatives, who at present are (more or less) running Britain. (Yes, I could insert an ‘i’ in […]