Last week I was on Talkback disagreeing with the journalist Susan McKay about her charge that Kate Hoey was sectarian — one piece of evidence being that Hoey had attended “a barbecue for the extremist TUV party” (as she wrote in an Irish Times article on January 8)....
“What Kate Hoey says is not terribly important,” sneered Susan McKay in the Irish Times, after the furore over Hoey’s forthright foreword to the Unionist Voice Policy Studies report, Vetoing the Protocol: Restoring Cross-Community Consent Protections. Published: 18...
My apologies to Professor Colin Harvey of Ireland’s Future, an organisation whose mission is ‘Paving the way to the reunification of the island’. Published: 11 January 2022 When just before the New Year I wrote my annual list of people I would like to send to a desert...
An unlikely trio were linked in the news last week: Kenny Donaldson, Joe Brolly and Bernadette McAliskey. Published: 4 January 2022 My friend Kenny was recognised in the New Year Honours list with an MBE for his magnificent work as Director of Services at the South...
Last Christmas was the first for years that I didn’t write a column about people I would like to deport to a desert island. Published: 28 December 2021 With Covid busily ruining the lives of so many, it seemed tasteless to wrench from their families even people like...
Having claimed for decades that the majority of the electorate in the Irish Republic just pay lip service to the idea of a united Ireland, I got a momentary shock the other day when I saw the Irish Times leading with ‘Large majority of voters favour a united Ireland,...
Doug Beattie, leader of the UUP, and Mary Lou McDonald, president of Sinn Fein, were in the United States last week. Published: 7 December 2021 Separately, they met many of the same people and addressed several of the same New York and Washington audiences, but they...
“You may strip yourself naked, cover yourself in butter and worship a daffodil,” said an (sadly unnamed) Belfast Unionist 50 years ago, who was quoted on Irish radio programme on Sunday. Published: 30 November 2021 “All I ask is that you don’t make me do it.” He...
I‘ve recently been reading too much about the UK-EU Brexit negotiations past, present and to come, and am delighted that at last some substantial work is being produced that answers some questions that have been bothering me for a long time. Published: 23 November...
In the week in which Austin Currie died, two members of the SDLP — the party he co-founded — made comments about the RUC that would, I believe, have shocked that anti-sectarian. Published: 16 November 2021 As his friend the UUP’s Lord (Ken) Maginnis said of him,...
