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Conversation, politics and stray insights
Site URL: sluggerotoole.com
Feed URL: sluggerotoole.com/feed
Posts: 19
Followers: 18
Western nations must stand united against Trump’s latest onslaught…
Published: March 10, 2025 09:55
The prospect of a £1.6bn contract for the Thales missile factory in east Belfast to deliver 5,000 lightweight missiles to Ukraine shows that Northern Ireland has a role to play in world affairs. (Gail Walker, Comment March 8) Regardless of whether this…
Previewing Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas & Politics – running from 24-30 March #imaginebelfast
Published: March 9, 2025 10:01
Imagine! Festival of Ideas & Politics is back with a week-long programme to help you make sense of a crazy world. More than 90 events across seven days, with the festival organisers collaborating with lots of grassroots organisations and activists to bring…
Open Sunday – discuss what you like…
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/09/open-sunday-discuss-what-you-like-154/
Published: March 9, 2025 07:08
The idea for Open Sunday is to let you discuss what you like. Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.
Open sunday – politics free zone…
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/09/open-sunday-politics-free-zone-124/
Published: March 9, 2025 07:08
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. Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.
Weekly Bulletin. What you need to know this week
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/08/weekly-bulletin-what-you-need-to-know-this-week-12/
Published: March 8, 2025 14:00
Executive publishes Programme for Government On Monday (3 March), the NI Executive’s Programme for Government (PfG) was approved by Assembly members following a day of debate. First Minister Michelle O’Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly…
The lack of public transport continues to harm our night time economy…
Published: March 8, 2025 09:27
Philip O’Neill is a retired civil servant and music lover from Belfast I don’t live in Belfast, but I am looking forward to going to a gig in Belfast this evening. I enjoy live music and live shows, but know that in Belfast we can be fairly limited in what…
International Women’s Day (IWD) 2025…
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/08/international-womens-day-iwd-2025/
Published: March 8, 2025 09:09
Earlier this week I attended the Women’s Aid Federation launch of , ‘Responsible Reporting Matters’: media guidelines for the sensitive and effective reporting of domestic abuse and violence against women and girls. As you can imagine it was well attended…
Safeguarding the public, image versus reality…
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/08/safeguarding-the-public-image-versus-reality/
Published: March 8, 2025 08:49
Imagine that a close relative of yours has been assaulted by someone employed as a carer, they were vulnerable and unable to defend themselves. Now imagine what you think should happen next. Firstly, the decision needs to be made about whether this…
Speaking right: What an Taoiseach should say in Washington
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/08/speaking-right-what-an-taoiseach-should-say-in-washington/
Published: March 8, 2025 08:33
In a former life I was, for my sins, a speech writer and video producer for three successive Managing Directors of Guinness, later to become Diageo. The job was to promote the brand, to burnish the image of the gentlemen in question, to thank a lot of…
History in the making?
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/07/history-in-the-making/
Published: March 7, 2025 10:52
Ireland versus France: 14.15 Saturday 8th. March Twenty five years ago, in 2000, Brian O’Driscoll burst onto the scene to score a hat trick against France in Paris and give Ireland their first win there in 28 years. Seven years ago, in Paris in 2018, after…
Theresa May can’t understand why Unionism backed Brexit
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/07/theresa-may-cant-understand-why-unionism-backed-brexit/
Published: March 7, 2025 08:00
Former British Prime Minister Theresa May was in Belfast earlier this week where she addressed the Literific society at Queen’s University and answered questions. Unsurprisingly, people in the audience were interested to hear her thoughts on Brexit, given…
Ambushing an Taoiseach
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/06/ambushing-an-taoiseach/
Published: March 6, 2025 11:38
Writing in the Irish Times, former Tánaiste Michael McDowell makes no bones about it. “To call Volodymyr Zelenskiy‘s meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office a “shouting match”, as many commentators managed to whitewash it, is a lie. It was a…
Ahead of the first annual British Irish Summit Shared Island remains the only viable game in town…
Published: March 6, 2025 07:27
“…planning must precede a crisis rather than follow it, ensuring that shocks lead to constructive reform, rather than losses in resilience.” –Confronting the long crisis, Alex Evans • Bruce Jones • David Steven Today sees the first annual summit in London…
Monitoring peace progress in Northern Ireland: a wellbeing framework
Published: March 5, 2025 14:12
While much of the media coverage of the launch of the Northern Ireland Executive’s latest Programme for Government (PfG) rightly focused on the specific, quantifiable targets (or lack thereof), a complementary “wellbeing framework”, with dozens of…
WATCH BACK: Former North Belfast politicians reflect … at the North Belfast Festival #LookNorth25
Published: March 5, 2025 14:01
You can now watch back Friday evening’s panel discussion at Look North: The North Belfast Festival. Slugger’s David McCann was in conversation with two retired politicians. Noreen McClelland was an SDLP councillor for the Glengormley urban DEA on Antrim &…
Manipulating Irishness
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/05/manipulating-irishness/
Published: March 5, 2025 11:38
Andy Pollak’s latest excellent and thought provoking offering, Beyond Borders: Building an All-Ireland Forum on Shared Values…, generated the usual animated debate with many of the 565 comments (including mine) taking issue with aspects of his argument.…
“You can’t put things to bed if you’re a hypocrite, you can’t put things to bed if you’re a liar…”
Published: March 4, 2025 15:35
“…while examining its outer surface I have caught only a glimpse of the smooth and finely glazed inside of the bowl.” — David Abram If you can I recommend watching the two part series charting the life of former East Tyrone IRA man Brendan Hughes on…
Irish government begins costing reunification
https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/03/04/irish-government-begins-costing-reunification/
Published: March 4, 2025 08:00
The recent discussions regarding reunification, which have increased in the aftermath of recent polling showing a narrowing gap between those in favour of reunification and those in favour of the union has prompted DUP leader Gavin Robinson to remind us…
Three cheers for NI’s first government programme since 2011, but next time can we ditch the bloody consultation?
Published: March 3, 2025 15:57
So finally, after at least one false start last Monday when the Alliance Agriculture minister noted that none of the Executive ministers with portfolios had seen any of the thousands of consultation contributions the Executive has published a PfG. I’ve not…