Tuesday was a dark day for Ulster, with the House of Commons amending the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill 2018 to nudge the province in a direction which devalues both human life and marriage.
In George Orwell’s book 1984, the central character Winston Smith talks about the nature of the Party’s power over the people of Oceania. He says the Party insists that people “reject the evidence of your ears and eyes” and believe only what Big Brother tells you to believe.
Summer has arrived and with it the annual controversy about Feile an Phobail. Originally known as the West Belfast Festival, it was founded by Sinn Fein in the wake of the murder of two Army corporals, who were beaten and shot dead by the Provisional IRA on March 19, 1988.
Yesterday morning the Metropolitan Police in London started their fifth murder investigation in six days after a victim in a triple stabbing died in hospital.
There is a considerable interest in some sections of the media, especially the Left-leaning media, about sources of funding for political parties, political organisations and lobby groups. There has been talk of "dark money" and "secret sources" and the need for greater transparency, so here is a modest contribution to that transparency.
Sinn Fein’s demand for an Irish Language Act is one of the obstacles to the restoration of devolution, but it is not the only problematic issue. The legacy of the Troubles and the investigation of the past are another area of inter-community contention and we have a reminder of that this coming Sunday when around 5,000 people will march to Belfast City Hall.
On Wednesday morning I expected the news to be dominated by electoral politics — the count is still under way in the Republic, the Conservatives are looking for a new leader, Labour is in turmoil over Brexit and even greater turmoil over anti-Semitism and Sinn Fein are trying to work out what went wrong for them south of the border.
Last Friday the Queen’s University branch of the University and Colleges Union (UCU) issued a Press release about statements that had been made by a number of named and unnamed unionists. I was one of those named, and the Press release made specific reference to several columns that I had written over the past few years in this newspaper.
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After the recent local government elections, political parties in Northern Ireland are entering a period of negotiations and also preparing for a European election. A lot of their energies will, therefore, be directed towards these immediate priorities. However, I am sure they will also be taking time to reflect on the results of the elections.
As so often, it’s not what republicans say that is important, rather what they don’t say, writes Nelson McCausland.
Last Thursday, journalist Lyra McKee was murdered in the Creggan area of Londonderry by a republican gunman, a member of the faction known as the New IRA.
This weekend, Sinn Fein, on both sides of the border, will be commemorating and celebrating the 1916 Easter Rising. They will also be using the opportunity to promote their party in the lead-up to the forthcoming local government elections and a European election.
Brexit seems to dominate the news these days and Sinn Fein, anxious to prove their relevance and always ready to exploit any situation, have certainly been busy. They have had their “No Brexit” poster campaigns, their “No Brexit” demonstrations and conferences and even “No Brexit” white-line pickets in west Belfast.
Too many MPs, in spite of their manifesto commitments, are refusing to respect the Brexit referendum result, writes Nelson McCausland.
Room 101 is a BBC television comedy series in which celebrities discuss their pet hates and try to persuade the host, Frank Skinner, to commit them to oblivion in Room 101.
The far-Right terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15 left 50 people dead and many others injured.
Recently two former and prominent GAA stars spoke out on the subject of the organisation, a border poll and a united Ireland.
Last week saw the emergence of a new republican pressure group, Trade Unionists for a New and United Ireland, which is supported by 150 signatories. There was a Dublin launch on Monday at the offices of the Communication Workers’ Union and then a Belfast launch on Tuesday.
Last week I was invited to a preview of a new three-part BBC Northern Ireland television series entitled The Band. It is about marching bands and most of the audience at the preview was made up of members from bands featured in the programmes.
Over the past year we have seen a series of political initiatives organised by a somewhat opaque group of ‘civic nationalists’ that includes Niall Murphy, a solicitor who has canvassed for Sinn Fein, and Chris Donnelly, a republican commentator.
A recent intemperate outburst by Professor John Brewer highlighted a problem at Queen's University, Belfast. Donald Tusk certainly ratcheted up the rhetoric over Brexit when he spoke about "a special place in Hell" for the promoters of Brexit, but Professor Brewer tweeted: "Special place in Hell for no-deal Brexiteers. Hell is too good for them."
This week I am turning away from politics, Westminster, Brussels, borders, Barnier and Brexit and turning instead to a local cultural travesty... and it is all about the name of a roundabout.
Brexit was certainly on the political agenda on Saturday, with two separate, but related, events. One was the conference of “civic and political nationalists” in the Waterfront Hall, with the title Beyond Brexit: The Future of Ireland; the other was a short piece of amateur dramatics at Carrickcarnon, close to the border.
Dr Jennifer Cassidy is a lecturer in politics and international relations at St Peter’s College, Oxford, and contributes to public debate through Twitter, as well as in print and on the television.
During much of the 20th century, the two dominant political parties in Great Britain were the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. It seemed, to many people, that this would always be the case, with two fairly cohesive and stable parties, but all that has changed and we are now in uncharted waters.
Is there no limit to the double standards and inconsistency of Sinn Fein? And yet, time after time, they don't seem to see it. Most political parties use Facebook and other social media to communicate their message and announce events and Sinn Fein are no exception.
There is always a plethora of Christmas messages from religious and political leaders, with most of the media focus in the United Kingdom on those delivered by the Queen, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Prime Minister and the Pope.
One of the notable features of the ongoing Brexit debate is the scrutiny of the organisations and individuals who campaigned for Brexit. I have not seen anything like the same level of scrutiny with those who campaign for Remain and for a second referendum.
When anyone mentions Europe, the focus is almost always on the UK and Brexit. That is true whether it be in day-to-day conversation, on television and radio programmes, or in newspapers. It has been true since the people’s vote in 2016 and it is certainly true today, with Parliament debating Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
Over the past few weeks Brexit has dominated the news and other stories compete for the limited space available. I was therefore struck by the fact that a number of those stories related to problem gambling and the gambling industry.
The day after the People’s Vote, David Cameron resigned and was succeeded by Theresa May. In her first speech, she declared: “The full title of my party is the Conservative and Unionist Party and that word unionist is very important to me. It means we believe in the Union, the precious, precious bond between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.”
There were the amateur dramatics on the border, with Sinn Fein supporters dressed up as police officers and then the Sinn Fein poster campaign against Brexit. They are clearly positioning themselves as the primary voice against Brexit.
Last week was another bad one for Sinn Fein — and for three main reasons. Former Sinn Fein Finance Minister Mairtin O Muilleoir had to appear before the RHI Inquiry and it exposed something of the inner workings of Sinn Fein. Statements and emails published by the inquiry revealed that O Muilleoir was in close contact with three senior republicans at party headquarters and would not sign a key document until he had cleared it with one of the three.
During the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull paid for a billboard poster with the message, “Woman, women, noun, adult human female”. It cost her £700, but the billboard company removed it after LGBT activist Dr Adrian Harrop complained that the billboard represented a “hate group”, was part of a “transphobic campaign” and would make “transgender women” feel unsafe.
The Supreme Court decision in what has become known as the ‘gay cake’ case is not only a victory for Ashers Bakery and for the McArthur family, it is an important victory for religious freedom, here in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom.
On October 1 the Police Service of Northern Ireland launched a new recruitment campaign for 400 officers and this led to some discussion about the level of recruitment among Catholics.
Tonight at the White Horse Hotel in Campsie there is an event to reflect on the massive migration of Protestants from the West Bank in Londonderry, across the Foyle, to the East Bank and even further afield.
We the People ... that is the opening phrase of the preamble to the United States constitution. It is also the title of a recent BBC television programme exploring and explaining the influence of the Scotch-Irish in the making of modern America. The programme was supported by the Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund (USBF) and, in truth, without the support of that fund it would probably not have been made.
The RHI inquiry is ongoing and the headlines are often devoted to what is seen as sensational, or unsavoury, especially if it can be attached to a politician. There is still much that is disputed and that is why I have refrained from commenting. I believe we are best to await the final report before coming to conclusions.
Morgan Phillips, a former Welsh miner who was general secretary of the Labour Party in the 1950s, is reported to have said that the Labour Party owed more to Methodism than to Marxism.
Claims and counter-claims about discrimination are commonplace in Northern Ireland and they featured during a recent discussion on Radio Ulster. I was one of the contributors, along with Mark Durkan, the former SDLP MP, and Chris Donnelly, a schoolteacher, commentator and former Sinn Fein election candidate.
The first march to be organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) took place on Saturday, August 24, 1968 between Coalisland and Dungannon.
Thirty years ago, in 1988, two Army corporals were dragged from a car in west Belfast and savagely beaten by a republican mob. They were beaten, stripped of their clothing and brutally murdered by members of the Provisional IRA. That evening the sheer savagery of the murders reverberated around the world as film footage was shown on news programmes.
Under direct rule the Northern Ireland Office used to prepare papers titled ‘Iceberg Watch’ for ministers. They identified issues which were not up there in the news, but were problematic and had the potential to cause difficulty, hence the name.
This past week we have had two interesting events in local politics, one concerning the leader of Sinn Fein and the other concerning the former leader of the DUP.
Baron Adonis of Camden Town was in Northern Ireland recently for a few days to talk about Brexit. Andrew Adonis is usually one of the shadowy figures at Westminster, where he sits in the House of Lords, and I suspect that, prior to his visit, very few Ulster folk knew anything about him.
In an unguarded moment in Enniskillen in 2014, when he was addressing a Sinn Fein gathering, Gerry Adams let the cat out of the bag. He described equality as the "Trojan horse of the entire republican strategy" to break unionists. He said: "The point is to actually break these b******s and what’s going to break them is equality. That’s what we need to keep the focus on and that’s the Trojan horse of the entire republican strategy."
Today is the Twelfth and across Ulster as many as 40,000 Orange brethren and sisters will be on parade, along with hundreds of bands, to mark the 328th anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne. The victory of King William's army secured the benefits of the Glorious Revolution and was of both national and European significance.
Last Saturday Angela Ponce won a beauty competition and will now represent Spain in the Miss Universe 2018 pageant. This attracted some newspaper coverage because Angela was born as a biological male, but has undergone “surgery for sexual reassignment” and identifies as a woman.
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