We all need a change, so today – rather than trying to analyse the latest Stormont dramas and the interventions from London, Dublin and Brussels that are making everything worse – I’m writing about the war against free speech. Published: 22 June 2021 I was at a debate...
As polls show many voters rejecting tribalism, the two main Unionist parties are likely to be devising a joint strategy Published: 19 June 2021 It’s easy to laugh at Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party: its followers are almost all Christian and socially...
As a friend of the Irish language, I hate the thought of the squalid deal now being negotiated between the DUP and Sinn Fein. Published: 15 June 2021 Irish has been ill-served by uncompromising advocates, few of whom seem no more fluent in it than Edwin Poots is said...
The President flaunts his Irish descent, but is blind to the truth about the EU’s imperialistic Protocol Published: 10 June 2019 Joe Biden is a classic of the type: a man of tenuous Irish descent who loudly declaims his Irishness yet clearly has little experience or...
I was delighted for two reasons on Sunday afternoon when I saw this tweet from the Northern Ireland Office. Published: 8 June 2021 “Secretary of State @Brandon Lewis has announced Trevor Ringland MBE as the UK’s first Special Envoy to the United States on NI. He will...
With goodwill, there is a solution that avoids a hard border either on land or in the sea Published: 5 June 2021 The briefing war between the EU and the UK led to headlines this week saying that Brexit Minister Lord Frost thinks the Northern Ireland Protocol is...
What a moment in the politics of Northern Ireland! Published: 1 June 2021 Just now, the DUP, Alliance and Sinn Fein should be very nervous. Now I know that at the moment some of the most bitter enemies of Edwin Poots are members – or about to be ex-members – of the...
“Well when the votes were counted one parochial, backward looking, regressive who is 50 something and from Lagan Valley beat another one,” tweeted Alliance councillor Michael Long after the DUP leadership election. Published: 25 March 2021 “What is clear is that...
Every time I hear the sanctimonious voice of Peter Hain — that one-time rebel and enthusiast for Irish unity who in 2015 swapped his Commons seat for a peerage — I struggle to understand why the media think him an expert on legacy issues. Published: 18 May 2021 There...
A new DUP leader and the anger of Unionists have opened Dublin’s eyes to its border miscalculation Publishded: 17 May 2021 My message to our friends in Europe,” wrote Brexit minister Lord Frost on Sunday, “is: stop the point-scoring and work with us. Seize the moment,...
