Donald Trump won the recent US presidential election with remarkable ease in the end. A few months back it seemed that Kamala Harris was riding the crest of a wave, but perhaps that was just in the eyes of the media liberal bubble.
Recently, I was involved in an activity with a group of people who do care very strongly about the situation in Palestine and Lebanon. These were members of a Palestine Action Group pushing for an end to war, and a resolution of the conflict in a socially just manner. On a very windy Sunday a couple of weeks ago, we gathered at a particularly significant location to show solidarity by ‘Flying Kites For Palestine’.
Across the island of Ireland, we tend to be very territorial about our spaces, with the older generation especially often thinking in terms of ‘Protestant places’ and ‘Catholic places’. Maybe amongst the younger generation, those binary ideas about life are dying out, but we still see traces of it in the way we imagine our towns.
Sometimes in this column I have talked about how Northern Ireland’s Unionist politicians appear to be trapped in a mindset that’s out of touch with the everyday reality of life around them. They’re trapped in a Colonial past that’s doing nobody any favours. But maybe they’re not alone in this.
Three months before Christmas, Israel has marked the calendar with the advent of another assault of Biblical proportions upon a neighbour.
Paul Breen takes a walk down memory lane following a visit to a friend's 'old house'
The bigger picture is that we all share a common language of humanity if we try hard enough – whether we are Chinese, Taiwanese, Irish, British, Russian or American. Two dogs of a similar look, on opposite sides of the world, inspired me to learn a language.
My wife is a Maguire, but an English one. The fact of being English is only relevant here because it’s a background factor in how her family had lost touch with their Irish origins over time. Her father, Terry Maguire, knew that his ancestors came from the Emerald Isle, and had some connection with religion and pubs. However, Terry had no idea of his family’s exact historical origins.
Ireland’s Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) is at a crossroads. To paraphrase that great poet of the borderlands, Patrick Kavanagh, the GAA must choose between the parish of the past and the present universe. Right now, this organisation is entrenched in controversy. Historically, it has seen itself as custodian of Ireland’s national games. But the state of the nation’s changing to something more secular and progressive. Unfortunately, in Ireland’s hinterlands, there are still places that haven’t moved out of the past.
Ever since the Adrian Dunbar interview in this paper a few weeks ago, people have been asking me why Unionists don’t engage more proactively in debates and discussions about Irish unity? They don’t even ‘sell’ Northern Ireland well. There seems to be a head-in-the-sand mentality, a circling of the traditional wagons rather than an engagement in conversations.
