Jude Collins

According to the blazers at the Irish Football Association, there is, apparently, no sectarianism problem. None. Nothing to see here. Just football. Pure, wholesome, politically neutral football — played in a region where even the weather has an identity. This is a brave position to take in NEI, a place where murals can start arguments […]

Ah yes — the great crisis of our age: who owns the bar stools. When the “80% Catholic pubs” statistic began clinking around political circles, Gordon Lyons didn’t so much respond as retreat into the comforting embrace of paperwork. While others heard a cultural tremor, Lyons heard… a licensing clause. As a minister from the […]

Claire arrived at the Orange Hall with the faintly anthropological air of someone observing a rare and self-congratulatory species in its natural habitat. The bunting was emphatic, the tea was stewed to a Protestant fortitude, and the mood hovered somewhere between parish fête and imperial afterglow. They had gathered to honour Noel Liggett , newly […]

It is, apparently, a “mistake” to suggest that the police service in Northern Ireland should look vaguely like NEI. The latest recruitment figures for the PSNI show 65.6% of applicants from a Protestant background and 26.7% from a Catholic background — the lowest level of Catholic applicants in more than a decade. In any normal society, […]

There are few things guaranteed to clear a unionist room faster than the phrase “strategic conversation about constitutional futures.” You can almost hear the chairs scraping and the kettle being switched off mid-boil. For many unionists, talk of planning for a border poll — as provided for under the Good Friday Agreement — carries the […]

by Joe McVeigh    Even though Sinn Fein has now achieved much electoral strength in the 6 counties, their power is still limited – thanks to the Orange Order, the Masons and the other secret societies that have held sway in the north since Partition. These Secret Societies still hold a lot of power and […]

There are photographs, and then there are Photographs — the sort that attach themselves to a public figure like a burr to tweed. The much-circulated image ofex-Prince Andrew  — red-eyed, chin receding into the lower hemisphere, camera angled somewhere near his sinus cavity — has been declared “iconic.” Iconic! As though it were the Mona […]

There are few spectacles more delicately choreographed than politicians debating their own salaries. At the the NEI Assembly at Stormont, the proposed increase in pay for MLAs has been presented, with commendable composure, as a matter of fairness and recognition. Currently, an MLA earns in the region of £51,500 per year. The proposal under discussion […]

Here are four solid reasons why controversy surrounding the man. once known as Prince Andrew  is very unlikely to spell the end of the British monarchy: 1. The Monarchy Is Bigger Than One Individual The British monarchy is an institution that has existed in evolving form for over a thousand years. Individual royals have caused […]

In a purely hypothetical Britain — the sort that exists somewhere between constitutional monarchy and late-night panel show — news breaks that Prince Andrew , Duke of York  has been arrested. Not charged by destiny, mind you. Arrested. The palace corgis are said to be “monitoring the situation,” which is palace code for “chewing something […]