Suzanne Breen: Supposed show of solidarity that exposed gulf between DUP and Sinn Fein
They were meant to be there in a joint show of solidarity against the dissident republican Wattle Bridge bombers.
Home › Opinion › Columnists › Suzanne Breen
They were meant to be there in a joint show of solidarity against the dissident republican Wattle Bridge bombers.
An easy analysis of the attempt to kill police officers along the Fermanagh border is to blame it on Brexit or the political paralysis at Stormont.
The scenes we've witnessed in the New Lodge area of Belfast in recent days have been nothing short of shameful.
Boris Johnson was already in a precarious position in the House of Commons, and now he's clinging onto power by his fingertips.
New Secretary of State Julian Smith is being portrayed as some sort of DUP stooge.
As a boy, Boris Johnson's dream was to become "world king", his sister, Rachel, recalls.
Brexit: This is the most urgent issue in Boris Johnson's in-tray with Northern Ireland at the centre of the action.
A DUP MP tells a story about Boris Johnson that offers a telling insight into the man who is on course to become Prime Minister today.
Don't whisper it softly, shout it from the roof-tops. The days of the bigots and the backwoodsmen are numbered. Northern Ireland is poised to let in the light and finally move into the 21st century.
The message from the people of Northern Ireland from the legacy consultation is loud and clear. They don't want a Troubles amnesty.
Boris Johnson and Arlene Foster regally standing together on the balcony at Stormont, looking down at the city below.
On paper, Willie Frazer and I should not have got on. We disagreed on countless political issues but from the moment we first met, we hit it off.
Ian Paisley squandered whatever goodwill existed towards him in the DUP's upper echelons by his reaction to the petition of recall's failure last autumn.
Standing in the room in Finchley where Margaret Thatcher was selected as a Westminster candidate 61 years ago, Arlene Foster left the Tories in no doubt about her party's main political priority.
Assembly members sipping G&Ts; at a Stormont summer drinks reception hosted by the Secretary of State and paid for with public money.
The words of the New IRA claiming responsibility for trying to kill a senior PSNI officer were distinctly old ones.
The two Chief Constables were tripping over themselves to stress how much they believed in press freedom at yesterday's Policing Board meeting.
All the runners and riders in the Tory leadership race are vying for the DUP's endorsement.
Not so long ago it was Hello Mary Lou. After Sinn Fein's disastrous election results in the Republic, there's now speculation of a quick goodbye to Ms McDonald.
It was billed as a tight race for Northern Ireland's third EU seat. In the end, it was anything but close as Naomi Long coasted home with a vote twice as big as the Ulster Unionists and almost 30,000 ahead of the SDLP.
It was always going to end this way. Theresa May in tears on the doorstep of Number 10 announcing her departure.
It's been an awful week for Karen Bradley. The Secretary of State was lambasted by the victims of institutional child abuse on Monday, who then picketed her royal garden party.
Under the shadow of Sir Edward Carson's statue, the survivors of institutional child abuse fought back tears after yet another useless meeting at Stormont.
The politicians gathering at Stormont today for a new round of talks will all make upbeat statements about the chances of progress.
They're exhausted, elated, and in some obvious cases deflated - but Northern Ireland's political parties now must dust themselves down and prepare for another election.
The cynics said it would be a dull, tedious affair bringing more of the usual offering that passes for politics here.
The political VIPs were lined up in the front rows of St Anne's Cathedral for the funeral of Lyra McKee.
The New IRA's statement on the killing of Lyra McKee fell shamefully short of the words that were needed.
Lyra's dead. Lyra's dead. Lyra's dead. That's not true. Lyra isn't dead. I spoke to her on the phone a few hours ago.
Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill pose for a photograph together at a charity event. Big deal. What is the issue?
Say what you like about the DUP but they aren't fools. Arlene Foster travelled to Brussels on Thursday to meet EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and tell him that his approach to the Withdrawal Agreement is fatally flawed.
In the Tories' 2017 general election manifesto, Theresa May pledged that the UK would no longer be a member of the customs union after Brexit.
The DUP will be praying hard that Jeremy Corbyn does what it has spent most of its political existence doing - saying no.
Our political parties are gearing up for the council elections on May 2 with posters already adorning lampposts and candidates hitting the campaign trail. But the party machines could well remain in operation for another three weeks after that because a European election may be on the cards.
There is perhaps only one thing that the public would find more monotonous and frustrating than the endless Brexit debate - another lengthy round of Stormont talks.
A thousand days after Brexit and the UK is the laughing stock of the world.
Rarely a day goes by without the DUP being centre stage in the Brexit debate. Its 10 MPs have surely secured power and publicity beyond their wildest dreams.
One soldier. A single member of the Parachute Regiment that shot dead 13 innocents on Bloody Sunday prosecuted after almost half a century of campaigning.
Theresa May's dying voice is a perfect metaphor for the malaise that is currently paralysing British politics over Brexit.
Given the recent succession of unexceptional Secretaries of State, Karen Bradley is quite extraordinary. Extraordinarily inept, inane and ineffective.
Both sides may be terribly polite to each other, but Mark Durkan's decision to run for Fine Gael has inflicted massive damage on the SDLP leadership.
It's a sign of how seriously the PSNI took the Police Ombudsman's latest revelation that it held a press conference to address the matters raised before they were even in the public domain.
It wasn't a day for anyone on either side of the Brexit debate to mince their words. At Stormont our political parties tore strips off each other, and Theresa May, over the way forward.
For an audience who have been let down by the Prime Minister on Brexit so recently, they were all very polite.
It's a sign of how bad things are for the Government that yesterday was a good day at the office for Theresa May.
After a week of political fireworks at Westminster, yesterday's statement by the Prime Minister to the House of Commons was very much a damp squib.
Unionists and nationalists are deeply divided on whether there should be a second Brexit referendum.
When the DUP fought the 2017 Westminster election, it could not in its wildest dreams have hoped to be in the staggeringly powerful position it currently occupies.
The fact that one of the most underwhelming Prime Ministers in British history has just entered the record books sums up the extraordinary nature of our political times.
Theresa May made a last minute plea to MPs to give her Brexit plan a second look - but despite putting on a brave face even she knows that victory is next to impossible.
Nightlife
Nightlife
House and Home
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Film and TV
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Brexit
Sunday Life
Sunday Life
Joris Minne
Brexit
Company List
Film and TV
Archive
Northern Ireland
Opinion