I was standing in Guildhall Square in Derry yesterday with 12,000 people listening to British Prime Minister David Cameron’s apology for the killings of 14 innocent people on the Bloody Sunday parade of January 30 1972. Judging by the rapturous applause from the crowd, most were as surprised as I was by the frankness of [...]
Archive for the ‘Politics, Northern Ireland’ Category
Cameron’s Apology
Posted in Politics, Northern Ireland on June 16, 2010 | 3 Comments »
Did Nelson evolve or was he intelligently designed?
Posted in Culture and Society, Politics, Northern Ireland, Religion on May 27, 2010 | 3 Comments »
It’s not hard to imagine the jaws dropping onto desktops when the letter arrived from Culture Minister Nelson McCausland asking museum heads to pay a bit more attention to matters of vital concern to him like the Ulster Scots heritage, the Orange Order and the origin of the universe. On reflection, museum managers might have [...]
Double Identity
Posted in Belfast, Culture and Society, Politics, Northern Ireland on April 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Tim Brannigan’s new book, Where Are You Really From? recounts the life of a black boy born in Belfast who became a Republican activist. Is having two identities a freedom or a burden? That’s a question I explored with him and others in similar double identity situations.
Irish Graffiti
Posted in Belfast, Culture and Society, Politics, Northern Ireland on February 22, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Here is some graffiti I spotted in the last couple of days. Actually, the first one has been on a wall on the main Omagh Road out of Strabane for months. The bit I have deleted shows a car registration number, presumably an invitation to attack that car. You’d think the police would have moved [...]
Crisis Fatigue
Posted in Politics, Northern Ireland on February 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A sampling of voices on a Belfast city street suggests that people have very little interest in the political regime that serves them – crisis fatigue, perhaps.
A Shame and a Disgrace
Posted in Belfast, Politics, Northern Ireland on January 28, 2010 | 1 Comment »
This piece was carried on the front page of the Belfast Telegraph on January 28, the day after Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen gave up mediating between Sinn Fein and the DUP on how and when to devolve policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly. (See also.) The British prime minister, Gordon Brown [...]
The Churches and the Troubles
Posted in Politics, Northern Ireland, Religion on November 16, 2009 | 1 Comment »
One overlooked aspect of the Eames Bradley report on the past was the charge that the churches have a responsibility for sectarianism. [You'll note that there is a new player format here now. It's a bit brash, I know, but I'll find something more suited to the genteel people who visit this site.] Rev Lesley [...]
Digging
Posted in Culture and Society, Politics, Northern Ireland on November 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
There can be few more grim and ghoulish jobs than sifting a wet and mucky bog for a body. Those who consigned Gerry Evans and others into the dark grime in remote country areas intended that those bodies would never be found. And the most benign interpretation of their failure now to give precise location [...]
Checkpoint
Posted in Politics, Northern Ireland on August 26, 2009 | 1 Comment »
One thing can be said with confidence about the decision of dissident republicans to mount a checkpoint in South Armagh on Friday: they had made the judgement that it would be safe for them to block the road and to display weapons in the open air. That judgement was vindicated. They were right. A PSNI [...]
Libyan Days
Posted in Culture and Society, Politics, Northern Ireland on April 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Northern Irish politicians are campaigning for compensation from the Libyan government for their having armed the IRA. I wish them every success. But if they encounter a certain Colonel Juma, I’d love them to ask him if he remembers me. In the early 1980s I taught English to conscripts of the Libyan Air Defence Forces. [...]
