Weeelllllll. Hands up if you saw that coming? Right, me neither. My prediction ability has remained firmly in place – I’m still rotten at it. On the other hand, even in their wildest naughty dreams, the DUP can’t have imagined their name resting on the lovely tongue of Mishal Husain. And few in the SDLP […]
June, 2017
Voting on a soft day (for adults only)
As I type this it’s a grey day out there. A soft rain is falling (unlike Bob Dylan’s famous Hard Rain) and things generally are getting a slow but cumulative drenching. It’s the kind of day where you might be tempted to stay indoors and read a book or watch the telly or look through summer […]
‘Human rights and human wrongs’ by Eamonn MacDermott
Theresa May has threatened to bring in legislation to deal with the heightened so called ‘terrorist threat’ in England in light of the recent attacks there. She has said that she will ‘rip up human rights legislation’ that stand in the way of her new laws although she has yet to spell out what those […]
‘In Defence of Abstentionism: The Conscience of the Republican’ by Donal Lavery
‘’A passionate attachment of one nation for another is the most baneful foe of Republican government.’’ – George Washington The thrust of this article is, as the title suggests, an examination of why abstentionism is the only respectable approach for Irish MPs to take, but also explores the underlying reasons why. What forces […]
B.A.N. ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA ! by Perkin Warbeck.
The trickle of disapproval in the Main Stream Media for Social Media has been gathering pace, apace, and has now surged to a tsunami of purgation. In a word or two: -Ban ‘em ! Ban, is right. Indeed, if the boot were on the other foot it might well be, erm, B.A.N.: -Barbiturates. -Amphetamines. […]
‘Ireland: dishonest deference to British imperial WW1 narrative’ by Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair
Re-writing history is wrong. It’s wrong even if motivated by a desire to reconcile differences and to heal divisions: history is what it happened, not a reinvention of events and motives. We can and must learn to understand our differences. We must, when necessary, learn to forgive wrongdoing against us and to let the past […]
Sean Kelly: should he be allowed to canvass for Sinn Féin?
I was in the middle of a blog on a separate subject which I may come back to later today when I got a call from the Nolan show to discuss the Belfast Telegraph front page story today (which was given a boost in advance by Jeffrey Donaldson last night) that Sean Kelly has been […]
A letter to the editor by Des Wilson and Joe McVeigh
This letter was first published in the Andersonstown News. A chara, Recent public discussion about ‘Brexit’ and Britain leaving the European Union has been about the financial implications of this departure. All aspects of this change and its possible consequences have to be discussed privately and publicly but one aspect of it needs much more attention than […]
Madness or just another day in the battlefield: A conflict of evidence? by Sammy McNally
Like the ongoing murderous turmoil in Afghanistan, the Alexander Blackman story continues to run and run. Blackman , the Royal marine who had his murder conviction for his killing of a Taliban fighter in 2013 reduced to manslaughter, on the grounds of diminished responsibility in March this year, continues to fascinate the public – with his […]
THE POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK
You know that the DUP are worried when Nigel Dodds is dug up to represent Arlene Foster in the leaders’ debate, last night on television. They’re obviously afraid to let the leader of the party ,Arlene , open her mouth so near an election. Every time she appears she easily puts votes into the Sinn […]