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Recent Posts
- Are Northern nationalists in danger of becoming the Most Ungenerous People Ever (MUPE)?
- The courage and generosity of Seamus Mallon: a book introduction
- On local election day give the DUP and Sinn Fein a bloody nose: vote for someone else
- A kind of tribute to Lyra McKee: the need for a new conversation
- Letter from Virginia: a time is coming when Ulster Protestants will have to be brave and smart
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Category Archives: Protestantism, unionism and loyalism
The most interesting conversation I have had about Irish unity for a very long time
Last week I had the most interesting conversation about Irish unity that I have had for many long years. It was with Alex Kane, the North’s most widely-read unionist-minded columnist: he has opinion columns in both the Belfast Newsletter and the Irish … Continue reading
The DUP’s bigotry and incompetence bring the house down
In last month’s blog I wrote that Northern Ireland was now “a modern region with a power-sharing government in which nationalists enjoy a new equality and confidence.” I was wrong. A fortnight later the Stormont Executive collapsed when Martin McGuinness … Continue reading
My politician of the year is a lesbian loyalist from Belfast
The most impressive politician I met in 2015 was Julie-Anne Corr Johnston, a 28 year old member of Belfast City Council, representing the small left-of-centre Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), many of whose members are former UVF prisoners. Julie-Anne is a … Continue reading
Why Northern loyalists are running scared of a shared future
Returning to the fearfulness and narrowness of loyalist Belfast after a trip through the magnificent landscapes and massive social contradictions of South America is to come back to earth with a bump. But I had promised myself back in January … Continue reading
What happened to the North’s Progressive Presbyterians?
My summer reading in recent weeks has been a fascinating book called Dissenting Voices: Recovering the Irish Progressive Presbyterian Tradition1, by the former head of the Simon Community in Northern Ireland, Roger Courtney. It features short biographies of 300 ‘progressive … Continue reading
British-Irish friendship and the marginalisation of Unionism
The big international news story about Northern Ireland this week – the first for many years – is Gerry Adams’ arrest and questioning in connection with the Jean McConville murder case. I have just returned from nine days abroad so … Continue reading
