The Peace of ’98 and Changing Attitudes

What does Peace mean to you? How often do we actually stop and consider for a moment the relative peace which we today enjoy?  Is it something that we put front and centre of our minds; as something that must be protected, and built upon, or is it something that exists in the backgrounds of …

Change as a Constant in Irish History

Life is all about change.  With every passing day there is nothing in our world that remains static.  Everything is changing and every one changes with it, whether we wish to or not.  Every day offers us a fresh perspective.  Just yesterday, I noticed a tweet from Colum Eastwood MP regarding his home city of …

2022: Coming Full Circle with 1968’s Divided States of America

Robert F Kennedy and the appeal for Peace “What I think is—what I think is quite clear is that we can work together in the last analysis and that what has been going on in the United States over the period of the last three years, the division, the violence, the disenchantment with our society, …

John Hume – Aite na hÉireann

The ancient Irish process of education was one of the, if not the finest in history.  To those men and women of the past the word for teacher was aite, meaning ‘fosterer’.  The student was dalta, which means ‘foster child’.  This dynamic was aiteachas did not simply involve the imparting of knowledge, or degrees, or …

Looking Back and Moving Forward in the Jurassic Era

When was the first time you saw a dinosaur?  The memory is ingrained in my mind like the fossil of some pre-historic creature perfectly preserved for all time.  Now the time has come to commit said memory to page so that others (perhaps future generations) can look back as one would a museum display. I …

Democracy Denied is Humanity Denied

"For it is through the democratic process that our collective human and societal spirit is given the space to soar, to explore and to discover.  The denial of democracy is the denial of that which makes us human.  When the democratic process is denied or hampered then this crushes that human and societal spirit.  The result of such an assault on our humanity will result in a society without hope, without aspiration and without compassion."

Northern Ireland – Walking the Way of Order and Chaos

The ancient taoist symbol of Yin and Yang is a universally known symbol.  Such is its impact through history.  The symbol represents the totality of Being, with the black section representing Order (typically illustrated as male) and the white section as Chaos (typically illustrated as female).  The white dot within Order illustrates the capacity of …

Northern Ireland: The Subtle Art of Listening

"Some eight years ago I was taking part in a course which asked the question of what did it mean to live in a diverse and divided society.  It was a fabulous experience bringing together people from all backgrounds and giving each of us the opportunity to learn from one another.  Every day we had a key speaker who we could ask questions from.  On one of our final days our speaker was none other than a very young Loyalist who was at the time at the forefront of the Twaddell Avenue flag protests, Jamie Bryson. So we began."

What’s it like to be spiked? Don’t know? Let me tell you.

Image from Pixabay It feels like here in the north we are constantly playing catch up on the issues of the day.  Very often to respond to pressing social issues it can feel as though we are being dragged into the conversation, heels digging in all the way.  This often results in the social issue …

How the West Fell – Twenty Years of UK Counter Terrorism

Will the UK and US take responsibility for the situation they have helped created in Afghanistan? I'm an optimist but on this occasion I doubt it. An overview of where we are and why we should be concerned.