Caption competition: “Laat drank brand uw vertsand”
Yesterday’s 12th parades provided the usual mixture of personalities. And encouragingly the overall character of the day was rather open and family orientated. But, forgetting the Ardoyne chaos, the customary hotspots hosted their annual drink charged revelry: with its participants scattering their detritus, philistinism and brash carry on for everyone else to see, put up [...] more »
Peterhead, Annan, Elgin etc here they come…Revenge or Redemption?
The second (or third, depending who you listen to) most supported club in Northern Ireland will next season be playing against clubs who rarely break 700 as an average home attendance. To put that figure in context, on occasions there are probably more Rangers fans travelling over from Ulster alone to watch their team than [...] more »
“There was contact with senior PSNI personnel explaining whose home it was…”
More difficulties with “due process” for Sinn Féin. This time it’s in Londonderry, where the mayor of the city, Sinn Féin councillor Kevin Campbell, has had his home searched by police and laptops and mobile phones taken away. The BBC report quotes SF MLA Raymond McCartney. Sinn Fein have described the raid as “inexplicable” and [...] more »
Slugger online debate: What’s Eating Ardoyne?
There’s lots of comment on last night’s rioting in Ardoyne (which is becoming less of a news event more part of the cultural calendar, in north Belfast at least). There seems to be a remarkable degree of unanimity amongst mainstream politicians that further and renewed levels of engagement must begin now, and not wait for [...] more »
Why was Romney booed?
Over at the Spectator they’re covering Romney’s speech (7/11) to the NAACP as “Romney’s pitch for the new America.” What nonsense. In an extraordinarily lazy piece, Alex Massie doesn’t even bother to mention how this supposed “pitch” was received by the audience. Romney was booed. In a mangled piece of analysis the Spectator at one [...] more »
Euro crisis: “Welcome to Europe’s endless debt saga.”
I haven’t posted an update on the euro crisis for a while, and this European Diary piece by Arthur Beesley in the Irish Times might help explain why. Welcome to Europe’s endless debt saga. Sunshine is a rare enough commodity in cloudy Brussels – and a downpour follows any glorious spell. The hunch must be, however, that [...] more »
“the learned judge who granted bail [] did not have the power to do so in the particular circumstances of this case”
Despite earlier reports that the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, had ordered Martin Corey’s re-arrest following the judicial review ruling for unconditional bail in the case, it appears he merely sought a stay while an appeal was prepared. The Belfast Telegraph notes the Appeal Court’s initial ruling A judge who granted unconditional bail to [...] more »
Orders find solution to #Twelfth restrictions at #Ardoyne
The optics of this are pretty ridiculous. The BBC are reporting the solution to the restriction on passing Ardoyne by 4 pm as: Members of three Orange lodges will be ferried across Belfast by bus to meet a 16:00 BST deadline for passing the flashpoint Catholic area of Ardoyne. Orangemen say it’s a peaceful solution [...] more »
A happy and safe 12th of July (just remember it belongs to us all)
I got my first live call from an Orange demonstration from a dear and highly valued Orange friend (and, god help him, an Arsenal supporter) at about 8.45 this morning, with the sound of the bands in the background. I’m pretty sure if you’d asked my 1982 self, I might not have had such kindly [...] more »
Greenacres slavery trial: “The trial has been seen as a vital test case of new anti-slavery legislation…”
An update to Mick’s original post on the charges of slavery following a police raid on a travellers’ site in Bedfordshire in September last year. From the BBC report on the verdicts Four members of a traveller family have been found guilty of forcing destitute men into servitude. Tommy Connors Snr, 52, his son Patrick [...] more »
Gaelscéal na Seachtaine seo
An tseachtain seo in Gaelscéal léiríonn muid an Costas ‘fíorbheag’ a bhaineann le seirbhísí Gaeilge a chur ar fáil sa Phoblacht – aistriúchán san áireamh. Tháinig na figiúirí chun solais i bhfreagraí tugtha do John Deasy TD, Fine Gael, fear atá ag labhairt amach i gcoinne Acht na dTeangacha Oifigiúla le blianta. Tá go leor [...] more »
£36,800 a minimum standard income for the UK?
There’s a fascinating piece of research released on Tuesday by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), and launched today, which “used panels of ordinary people reaching a consensus about the items and activities that allow participation in society as well as food, clothes, paying the bills and a home”. What’s interesting is that it challenges a [...] more »
Parading issues require real political solutions not just an ad hoc sticking plaster…
So it’s the eleventh of July. And nearly all politician of all political stripes are making hay over who’s to blame for any impending trouble in Ardoyne (in the last few years the rioters have been nationalist, and they’ve not waited for those Orange feet to come anywhere near before venting their hatred for ‘the [...] more »
Platform proceedings: the Orders in their own words
With the County Grand Lodge considering a judicial review of the Parades Commission ruling, a spokesman for the County Grand Lodge of Belfast has said: In addition to the normal denials of rights and freedoms that the Parades Commission regularly impose, this impossible demand would deny these brethren the opportunity to attend the platform proceedings, [...] more »
Will the PSNI dance to the Orange tune tomorrow?
The Parades Commission ruling regarding the 12th July parade along the Crumlin Road has set the PSNI a challenge to prove their willingness to confront loyalists seemingly intent on responding violently to a Parades Commission determination in the same manner that the PSNI have annually responded to the challenge coming from nationalists responding violently to [...] more »
Live forever?
I rarely watch television news or, save the football, anything much at all on the small screen. But if anyone can find me 5 minutes of TV more interesting than the following interview with Futurist Ray Kurzweil, my gratitude will match my surprise. A taster: the next wave of your immune system boosters could be [...] more »
Youth unemployment: the proverbial white elephant
Ghost estates aren’t the only monstrocities that blight our landscape. Yes that’s right, a generation of young people who cannot find any meaningful work are degenerating en masse into a proverbial white elephant that could well leave a permanent scar on our demographic landscape. This is an issue that is very real to my friends [...] more »
Place-names and Politics : The 1st Ordnance Survey, Part 3
‘Ulster-Scots’ criticism of the Ordnance Survey : In recent times it has been reported that the 1st Ordnance Survey has come under criticism from Ulster-Scots groups. The geographer David Polley has written a M.Litt on Ulster-Scots place-names in Ulster which provides us with a useful critique of the Ordnance Survey from the Ulster-Scots viewpoint. [...] more »
Why Edwin’s Orange must practise what they preach
Edwin Poots’ guest blog on Slugger has provided a welcome opportunity to expose the absurdity of unionism’s position on contentious loyalist parades, helpfully highlighted by the recent comments of one time anticipated Loyal Order Luca Brasi and now simply UDA leader, Jackie McDonald (more on that later.) It also illustrates the fallacy of [...] more »
Memo to the National Trust…
The “intellectual baboons” behind young-Earth creationism at the National Trust’s Giants’ Causeway Interpretive Centre are singing your praises in letters to the editor and op-eds in the News Letter ‘Caleb’ had engaged over many months with elected representatives and the National Trust on this. The step taken by the Trust is a small, but welcome, move [...] more »
Atlantic Philanthropies “will complete grantmaking by the end of 2016″
The Irish Times reports Chuck Feeney’s Atlantic Philanthropies statement of intent to end the largesse. From the Irish Times report CHUCK FEENEY, the reclusive Irish-American billionaire who has given more than €1.25 billion to projects on both sides of the Border, is winding up his charitable operations. Atlantic Philanthropies, which was founded by Mr Feeney [...] more »
The trouble with Stormont’s MLAs is that they are not real politicians…
Well, the Irish News yesterday went fairly big on the possible abandonment of the ESA (Education and Skills Authority) that was supposed to streamline the running of schools in Northern Ireland by amalgamating a whole bunch of organisations, not least the many of the executive of the Department and the five Education and Library Boards. [...] more »
Has polling itself caused the shift in Scottish sentiment towards independence?
I think this is a classic case of how measuring something causes it to change… SCOTTISH voters are turning strongly against independence, according to the latest opinion poll, which shows the cross-party No camp charging ahead with a record 20-point lead. The snapshot by TNS BMRB – taken after both campaign launches – puts those [...] more »
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Stay out of Libya: counterinsurgency doesn’t work
A moment of some significance in journalism perhaps, as the New York Times reviews the current talked about book, The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan by Bing West. The author is no bleeding heart but a former assistant Defense Secretary from the Reagan era who stomped his way round the Afghan [...] read our review »
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A flexible library service for the 21st century?
Following Alan’s piece on libraries, I picked this ‘advertorial’ from Google plus this evening… about how a US county library system is cutting costs and improving flexibility in their free at the point of delivery services by enabling the whole library service act as a functioning unit as opposed to the one discrete library… read our review » -
Spare us a phoney row about racism, we’ve got enough on
A silly media row about racism just had to figure in the riots’ post mortem. Was the Tudor history expert David Starkey racist on Newsnight when he said: The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in [...] read our review »
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