Crisis. Leadership issues. Spending issues. Confidence issues. Talk of last chance and of rearranging the furniture.
I was watching the teatime football on television on Saturday – that first-half debacle as Newcastle United took the lead, added to it and pushed Mourinho and Manchester United ever closer to some decision on those issues outlined above; watching the football and thinking of our politics within which those same issues apply. Read more
Posted in Current Affairs
Garda could have protected farmer killed by the IRABYLINE: John Mooney
An internal garda review into the murder of Tom Oliver, a farmer from the Cooley Peninsula in Louth who was abducted, tortured and shot by the Provisional IRA in July 1991, has uncovered failings in the original police investigation.
Oliver’s death, one of the most horrific murders of the Troubles, was examined by the force’s cold case unit, a branch of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Read more
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This was a painting I done sometime around 2013/2014 in Maghaberry.
The inspiration for this was an image I seen in an art book highlighting some of the graffiti artists displaying their ‘work’ in and around London.
It took me quite a while to finish this as I was adapting and changing another person’s work and it isn’t easy to get images to appear to be inter-connected.
BR
Posted in Current Affairs
Tommy faces his most imposing enemy ever in the first look at Peaky Blinders‘ fifth series: the British government!
The newly-installed MP strangely goes horseback in a photo from the new episodes, but we can assure fans there’s absolutely no Outlander-style time warp happening. Instead, the story picks up in the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash. Read more
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An amnesty for killings during the Troubles would be an insult to police officers who were killed and injured, the association representing them said.
More than 300 RUC officers were killed and thousands injured.
The Police Federation said it opposes any legislation which proposes an amnesty for any crime, no matter who was responsible.
They said it would be a “shameful act of betrayal” to link former officers with terrorists in legacy debates. Read more
Posted in Current Affairs
The claim is contained in the party’s formal response to a public consultation on proposed mechanisms designed to address the toxic legacy of the conflict.
Senior party figures were pressed on the contention at the launch event at Stormont on Wednesday and whether it was consistent with casualty figures over the 30 years of violence.
Of the 3,600 people killed during the Troubles, the IRA was responsible for more than 1,700 of the deaths. Read more
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Bizarre tragicomic episode yesterday on the legacy issue which reveals the politics-on-stilts nature of the discourse around legacy, demonstrates SF intolerance of questions that undermine their own contention that the 1700 plus killings by the Provisionals “don’t count”. Read more
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Eyebrows were raised on the 2nd October when Arlene Foster commented that the Good Friday Agreement wasn’t sacrosanct, hinting that she would like to amend it to accommodate Brexit. Her words been praised but also widely condemned. Leo Varadkar responded by saying that “the Good Friday Agreement is not up for renegotiation” in the Dail.
Anyone paying close attention will notice that Foster’s comments are very similar to statements made by her party colleagues, Jim Allister and Jamie Bryson over the years. Brexiteers like Kate Hoey have also talked about amending the Agreement. Read more
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In anticipation of the end of the consultation period on Friday for the proposals on dealing with the Troubles’ legacy, the secretary of state Karen Bradley writes in Eamonn Mallie’s website..
As the consultation is still live, I will not, at this stage, comment on specific suggestions. Read more
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Soon decisions will have to be made on the Legacy consultations.
We shouldn’t burden families who lost loved ones with the responsibility of having to design or determine a legacy process.
Nothing that can be done or will be done will ever fully meet their expectations, whether in terms of justice, truth or information. Read more
Posted in Current Affairs