Bill Breathnach is Writer and TV researcher based in Connemara. Interested in economics, politics and all things cultural… Sinn Féin held their National Hunger Strike Commemoration in Cork nearly a fortnight ago. Even before it took place, the event sparked controversy and heate … | Continue reading
It cannot have escaped the attention of anyone using our highways and byways on weekday mornings that with the summer holidays behind us, the dreaded school-run has resumed, with everything that brings with it. Estimates suggest that during the morning rush-hour, home-school trav … | Continue reading
It’s been three weeks since Tom Kelly called for the resignation of the Chief Constable after the data breach. What brings this to a crisis though is yesterday’s judgement that he disciplined two officers ‘to allay a threat to Sinn Féin policing support’. I feel about Chief Const … | Continue reading
Earlier this month I saw ‘Face Down’, a powerful and heartbreaking documentary by the Dublin film-maker Gerry Gregg about the IRA’s 1973 murder of Thomas Niedermayer, the German manager of an electronics factory on the edge of West Belfast, and the consequent devastation of his f … | Continue reading
Yesterday was the five-year anniversary of the #wedeservebetter peaceful demonstrations here, to try and restore government in 2018 the last time Northern Ireland was without a functioning government. It begs the questions, where are the people this time around?, why are the peop … | Continue reading
I have a particular fondness for the border town of Clones; it was a place I frequently visited during my 14 years running the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh. It was in the news earlier this month for all the wrong reasons. Two lovely teenage girls (one of them the dau … | Continue reading
The free thinking nationalist Jarlath Kearney has been doing some interesting break-out thinking. Couched in strategic language to distance his message from the old zero sum debate, he laments the cooling of the British -Irish relationship whose revival he sees as the only way t … | Continue reading
The Green Party TD, Patrick Costello – a member of the Oireachtas Good Friday Agreement Committee – recently suggested that the 12th of July should become a public holiday in the South as a way of uniting “all the peoples of this island”. There is no significant political or civi … | Continue reading
‘Derry Day’ takes place this Saturday, the second Saturday in August, when thousands of people within the city and beyond will commemorate the Relief of Derry after its 105-day siege of 1689. My childhood memories of Derry Day, in the late 1970s, are of more frugal times, with Wa … | Continue reading
Continued from Sovereignty 2024: My meeting with Rishi Sunak My second private briefing in Chequers in August 2024 wasn’t all that different from the first. The rumour was that the PM was considering calling the general election for October. He didn’t want to have to reconvene pa … | Continue reading
So poor old Huw Edwards has been revealed as the BBC presenter at the centre of a supposed sex scandal. It does not matter that the police have said there is no evidence he has committed any crime, he has been found guilty in the court of public opinion, and that is all it takes … | Continue reading
YET another anniversary, 25 years on from the Drumcree/The Garvaghy Road dispute which made headlines the world over. But there is a different ‘orange’ protest in the news that has caught my eye. That would be the ongoing ‘JUST STOP OIL’ campaign. On Saturday a member of the pub … | Continue reading
In Dáil Elections 2024 – Predicting the Northern Six Counties… David Nesbitt paints a benign picture of elections taking place for Dail Eireann in the northern 6 counties after a shock border poll for a united Ireland in 2024. He assumes there will be a smooth transfer of soverei … | Continue reading
This is the third time I have felt compelled to respond to a speech or Opinion Piece by my friend Andy Pollak whom I hold in the highest regard despite disagreeing with him so fundamentally on several issues. On the first occasion, I took issue with his assertion that The South i … | Continue reading
I listened to a good podcast during the week. It was Dr Chatterjee interviewing Dr Russell Kennedy about his book Anxiety Rx . The good doctor suffered terrible anxiety for decades, so he had a personal reason to help himself and others. The core message of the book is anxiety i … | Continue reading
I have discovered that I share something in common with Eamonn McCann, Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody and local writer Glenn Patterson. That something is a Northern Irish identity. While writing this article I have come to realise how differently people from this part of Ireland (t … | Continue reading
By 2013, when Derry/Londonderry hosted the UK City of Culture, the 2002 warning of Church of Ireland cleric Kenneth Good, Bishop of Derry and Raphoe that Unionists in the city felt ‘frozen out, alienated and insecure’ carried less resonance. Taking the view that ‘it is their city … | Continue reading
The veneration of the dead is common across humanity, in some societies even to the extent of praying to dead ancestors. Most countries do not go to that extreme but it is common for nation states to venerate leaders from the past. In the USA politicians even now talk about what … | Continue reading
Andy Farrell has announced his 42 man training squad for the world cup, and true to form, has not been afraid to make some hard choices. The dominant theme is one of loyalty to the players who have enabled Ireland win a Grand Slam and maintain their place at the top of the world … | Continue reading
This is not a story, just a request for help on a particular line of inquiry. If you have had any odd or unsatisfactory experiences on any journey within and between any airport in Britain and Ireland I want to hear from you via editor@sluggerotoole.com. As such there’s no facil … | Continue reading
With the dust almost settled after a tumultuous election that turned many red areas a deep green, it’s time to look at the impact of some key points. This local election was fraught with disinterest, a lack of media coverage, and a general apathy amongst the public for electoral … | Continue reading
Chris Heaton -Harris NI Secretary The Northern Ireland parties are fighting on a fantasy agenda for Thursday’s council elections. Few seem to have noticed and nobody seems to mind, preoccupied as they are by the electoral struggle, the local media mostly included. This at any … | Continue reading
The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Slugger Team | Continue reading
In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Slugger Team | Continue reading
There was a glut of greatness at Queen’s and Hillsborough yesterday, so much so that even the local media could manage only a few snapshots, the BBC excepted . Nearly every big figure who brushed against Northern Ireland in decades spoke and dined. A very heavy UK presence of s … | Continue reading
Having got off to a good start in its first two episodes and earned the admiration of boxing legend Frank Bruno, many ‘Blue Lights’ viewers have been wondering how the show will kick on as it reaches the halfway point. Adam Patterson and Declan Lawn’s series has done a pretty goo … | Continue reading
As the Great Anniversary approaches, unionist opinion in its supporting press is in turmoil over whether or when to return to the Assembly. Worryingly there is talk of being resigned to loyalist violence in the event of a border poll. Opinion is tilting against accepting the … | Continue reading
The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Slugger Team | Continue reading
In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Slugger Team | Continue reading
The figures in today’s Lucid Talk poll for the Belfast Telegraph reveal the sheer scale of the challenge facing Jeffrey Donaldson. His initial reaction to the Windsor Framework was to avoid committing himself and to set up a mechanism – the panel of 8 chaired by Peter Robinson – … | Continue reading
If you object to any trace of the EU in Northern Ireland future affairs, look away now. Even Lord Frost who delivered the discredited Protocol isn’t quite with you. Sunak’s deal will help he admits “but it’s a bitter pill to swallow”. Whereas Sunak stresses NI ‘s recovery of UK s … | Continue reading
The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Brian O'Neill I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics … | Continue reading
In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Brian O'Neill I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketi … | Continue reading
Interesting story on Sinn Féin’s unique approach to managing its own political expenses in the Irish Times this weekend. This time it’s blown up in the south, where SIPO is investigating several well off-centre anomalies. Pat Leahy sets the context for the story in the party’s ow … | Continue reading
Among the imagery associated with the Troubles, occasionally you see one of a van or car overladen with house furniture and hastily assembled parcels of clothing and personal possessions. These people were given enough time to bring some things with them as they were either force … | Continue reading
Unionism is facing a huge electoral challenge. Unionist political ineptitude since 2016 has been honed to a fine art: RHI, crocodiles, rejection of Teresa May’s backstop, and cosying up to Boris have all got them nowhere fast. The result has been to convert many pro-union voters … | Continue reading
Ireland have a patchy record in the 6 Nations rugby championship with only four wins since Italy joined in 2000. This compares to seven for England, and six for France and Wales, and none for Scotland or Italy. The figures for Grand Slams are even worse, with four for France and … | Continue reading
The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Brian O'Neill I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics … | Continue reading
In addition to our normal open Sunday, we have a politics-free post to give you all a break. So discuss what you like here, but no politics. Brian O'Neill I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketi … | Continue reading
Arnold Carton is a former teacher, is a moderate unionist who has had a lifelong interest in politics. Too often political discussion within NI politics becomes a repetitive battle over competing identities and about who is to blame for the conflict. Our people are bored with the … | Continue reading
Alex Kane and Newton Emerson are two of the foremost unionist commentators on Northern Ireland and are widely read throughout Ireland through their regular columns in the Irish Times and other newspapers. So it matters when Alex Kane concludes, in yesterday’s column, that many in … | Continue reading
Considered by many to be the greatest footballing player of all time, Pele is credited with scoring a world record 1,281 goals in 1,363 career appearances. He is the only man to have won the World Cup three times – in 1958, 1962 and 1970. Obviously, many of us would be biased tow … | Continue reading
Nothing is true; everything is allowed. -Naked Lunch, William Burroughs This is a US story with useful universal lessons attached. Congressman Elect George Santos fate may be sealed by the fact his defence of his lies has taken a Woody Allen-ish comedic turn. He now claims that r … | Continue reading
From Gary McDonald in the Irish News: Just 24 hours after Ulster Bank’s PMI report confirmed that the region’s private sector output declined for a seventh consecutive month in November, Danske Bank’s quarterly sectoral forecast paints an equally grim picture of the state of the … | Continue reading
I’ve been thinking about the differences between the province’s experiences in Europe last weekend. Leinster destroyed Racing92 10-42 away. Ulster had a chastening experience in losing to Sale 39-0. Munster secured an honourable losing bonus point against outstanding French side … | Continue reading