Category Archives: General

Would Bobby Sands have agreed with cross-border teacher training?

Posted on Friday, 25 October, 2013 by andypollak

 A republican acquaintance of mine once said that Bobby Sands didn’t die for cross-border teacher training. I’m very sorry that Bobby Sands had to die at all. I don’t believe his cause, the IRA’s armed struggle (or terrorist campaign, depending … Continue reading →

Posted in Cross-border cooperation, General | 4 Comments

Seamus Heaney and the Unionists

Posted on Wednesday, 25 September, 2013 by andypollak

What more can be said about the wonderful human being and literary genius that was Seamus Heaney, the greatest Irish poet since W.B.Yeats and one of the finest people ever to come out of Northern Ireland? One thing I have … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Northern Ireland | 2 Comments

A Merriman view of a new Ireland

Posted on Saturday, 24 August, 2013 by andypollak

The annual Merriman Summer School is a wonderful institution: for 46 years people interested in the language, history, literature and music of Ireland have gathered in a town in County Clare every August for lectures, discussion, poetry, dancing and other … Continue reading →

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Confessions of a Cross-border Collaborator

Posted on Friday, 9 August, 2013 by andypollak

The mischievous streak in me likes the word ‘collaboration’: it is a subversive word. I believe in the obvious: that the road to peace out of any conflict, short of outright military victory by one side or the other, lies … Continue reading →

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A Cross-border Gun for Hire

Posted on Thursday, 27 June, 2013 by andypollak

After nearly 14 years it is time to say farewell to the Centre for Cross Border Studies and to ‘A Note from the Next Door Neighbours’, which ran for seven years on the CCBS website (as well as on Slugger … Continue reading →

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