Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
At the start of a new year, it is worthwhile asking what are the prospects for positive progress in the northern six counties? It will hardly surprise our readers if we say that the omens are not offering much ground for optimism. Depressingly, the statistics, recording social deprivation amid a […]
After almost two years without a devolved administration, the northern state appears politically deadlocked. The latest round of talks in Hillsborough castle between the British government’s Chris Heaton-Harris and the five largest parties in Stormont have concluded without a definite restoration of the institutions. This in spite of the fact […]
Jeffrey Donaldson’s speech to the DUP annual conference last month generated more interest than is normally the case for this event. The mainstream media concentrated not only on his support for a devolved administration but also his tacit acceptance of a Sinn Féin First Minister. Nevertheless, when viewed in its […]
There’s nothing like the craic on the street during election campaigning. Memorable quotes are born like: “we want real change not loose change”. But mostly there is a carnivalesque atmosphere around canvassing and people can appear to become interested in what the candidates are saying. You are told wonderful stories […]
Last month’s local government election results were even more significant than simply the storming performance by Sinn Féin. The outcome has underlined an inexorable direction of travel that points to the decline not just of unionist political hegemony, but of the very union itself. Not only is unionism losing out […]
In a personal interview printed in the Irish Times on 25 September the present leader of the DUP proclaimed that he was a “Mourne man” and went on to say that he has neighbours who carry an Irish passport while he carries a British passport, that they live on the same road […]
The Irish government, aided and abetted by its British counterpart, has been trying to assist and solve the “crisis in unionism” since the DUP began to self-destruct last month. This is missing the reality of what is happening and ignoring the elephant in the room. The crisis is not in […]
Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland 18 June 2021 The resignation of Edwin Poots as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, and the implosion of the DUP, should not come as a surprise to anyone with a modicum of understanding of the entrenched anti-democratic nature of unionism and the […]
In this centenary year of the foundation of the northern six-county state, the crisis within unionism appears to increase almost weekly. Standing out above the rest was the messy defenestration of the DUP leader Arlene Foster, because, difficult as it may be to believe, she was considered too liberal. The […]
“Oxford Union votes down motion on reunification of Ireland” read a recent headline in the Belfast Telegraph. It was the type of news story guaranteed to warm the hearts of delegates gathering in Belfast a few days later for the DUP’s annual conference. Coupled with the attendance at the event […]
It was said of the Bourbons after the Restoration in 1814 that they had forgotten nothing and learnt nothing. Something similar may well be said about the DUP in particular and unionism in general. Having seen its regional parliament collapse yet again in early 2017, and largely as a result […]