Picture by @AntrimLens Several years ago Sinn Féin set out our view that the most effective truth recovery mechanism was an International Independent Truth Commission set…
The Palace cinema, one of several in Derry at the time,was in Shipquay Street. With its brass-railed kiosk and braided usherettes it has long ceased to…
Where is Ulster without the Scots? Where are unionists without soft nationalists and cosmopolitan Protestants? These are the gaps that have widened since June 23 2016.…
Easter, 1916 - a terrible beauty was born. It had a dark and little seen twin; a terrible ignorance of the people of the North. South…
George Bernard Shaw portended Northern Ireland as “an autonomous political lunatic asylum”. How right he was. I’m not sure that was the creator’s intention, however. The…
We’re all unionists now. Being a member of a group of nations that pools power and decision-making is all the vogue. For unionists, having a partition…
“Gee, I wish we had one of them doomsday machines.” General “Buck” Turgidson, Dr. Strangelove DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson opened his mouth in Westminster…
I’ve felt green of late. Not a political conversion, rather, the green of envy. Jealous of the energy, vision and action of the Irish unity lobby.…
The loser in this episode of the peace process will be those who oppose the Belfast Agreement. In July, Stormont was deadlocked, with no end in…
To look for meaning in difficulties has never been strong within unionism. To focus blindly on what has happened rather than the opportunities presented by…
I have no connection to the Loyal Orders. I’m not the Green of the Gael, rather very, very pale Orange. I have a Protestant inheritance, Church…
A fever and cloud of infection had been hanging over North Belfast - dark and ominous but we hoped it would dissipate. We wanted peace, forbearance…
‘We had a break in August, theirs was in July But when one drop of rain would fall we’d all look at the sky’ - Colum…
The peace process in Northern Ireland has been a failure. The logjam of mandatory coalition is as predictable as it is inevitable and the only solution…
We read to know we’re not alone. The moment when words mirror life and lived experience is stirring and emotive, even numinous. Being a middle-class suburban…