Talks, eh? Is there a people anywhere in the world that’s done more talking than people here? I’m not talking (that word again) about yarns in the pub or in the back room or on the street: I’m talking about political talks. Who won’t talk to whom, who insists on talks about talks, before they’re […]
Author Jude Collins
THE FALL AND RISE OF POLITICAL FORCES by Donal Kennedy
The once great British Liberal Party last won a General Election on its own in 1906 and when it last formed a Government of its own was dependent on the support of Irish Nationalists following the 1910 election. It, or a section of it, which had gone into coalition with the Conservatives during the Great […]
Archbishop Eamon Martin, the Necrology Wall and Framing
“It hardly matters whether you’re agreeing or disagreeing – what matters is that certain frames are used, while others are excluded.” That’s a quotation from Framing: A Short Primer ( https://newsframes.wordpress.com/framing/) . The framing of news is an idea that owes much to the legendary Noam Chomsky, perhaps the most outstanding figure in twentieth-century linguistics. Framing is about […]
‘Cutting Corporation Tax: A Left Republican Analysis’ by Donal Lavery
As someone who identifies with republicanism and the need for a left-wing sovereign government in Ireland, it sometimes appears confusing to people (particularly from other countries) that a consensus exists on reducing corporate taxation in the North. I mean surely left-wingers want businesses to pay more, to garner the revenue for better public services? That […]
Good News: play promises to sweep away shibboleths surrounding Orange Order
I see that a new play has been touring the Derry area recently. It’s called “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way from the Twelfth” and is a comedy. It will, the Londonderry Sentinel promises, attempt to “break down some of the shibboleths” around the Orange culture. A shibboleth, my dictionary tells me, is “a custom, […]
SATURDAY PICS OF THE WEEK
Pics 1-4 are by Perkin Warbeck Pic 1 Pic 2 . Pic 3 Pic 4 SUB-PLOT by Perkin Warbeck Pic 1 .Teatru Manoel is the third-oldest working theatre in Europe. A bijou theatre for the bijou city of Valletta. I It dates […]
‘The anti-equality axis in the North is blocking political progress’ by Declan Kearney
“Restoration of public confidence in the political process, reestablishment of the political institutions; and future stability now depends upon implementation of the agreements, equality and respect for all in society and adherence to the GFA.” – Declan Kearney An equality ‘revolution’ in the north of Ireland has been bubbling just below the surface […]
‘The Plight of the Palestinians’ by Joe McVeigh
A key factor in preventing the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the steadfast support of the USA government for the Israelis. The pretext of course is that the Palestinians support ‘terrorism’. This policy was very pronounced during the years of the two Bush presidents but also during the Clinton/Obama years. In spite of the best […]
THOSE WERE THE DAYS, MY FRIEND, WE THOUGHT SOON WOULD END! by Donal Kennedy
“PREPARATION FOR WAR”, a set of guidelines written for a seminar for members of the Northeast Thames Regional Health Authority in November 1979 begins with the Block-Head premise that “A Nation is like a forest and the aim is to secure the survival of the Great Trees………..The Planning Policy is clearly elitist and is so […]
Empathy with unionism: a scary experience
Not many people do empathy. I mean the Full Empathy, where you put yourself as completely as possible in the skull of someone else and try to see the world from their point of view. I’ve been driven to this notion of empathy recently by the small matter of James Brokenshire, British Secretary of State […]