Economist Graham Gudgin has addressed two key issues for Unionists in recent weeks. First a robust call for the UK Government to take the task of preserving the Union more seriously, particularly in respect of…
Tagged By Unionism
Our Island Histories?
Consider the following quotations: “I happen to belong to a minority who hold that the breakup of the United Kingdom may be imminent”. “It [Northern Ireland] pays a heavy…
On Human Rights
Over the holidays the Irish Times carried a review of Omar Grech’s book on Human Rights and the Northern Ireland Conflict by Brice Dickson, first Chief Commissioner of the Northern…
Not spooked
Alex Kane increasingly sounds like the elderly Auntie who is forever telling everyone in the family how what they are doing is not the right way of doing it; and…
What goes up…?
On this site we have argued on a number of occasions that the last refuge of a weak political argument is the argument according to inevitability. In the case of…
Dreary Option of Joint Authority Emerges Once Again
In April 1994 the Cadogan Group published a pamphlet JOINT AUTHORITY AND THE NORTHERN IRELAND PROBLEM. It was written to challenge an idea which was being touted as the logical…
Of paradoxes
Newton Emerson is a journalist whose articles are always worth reading. His unique contribution is to engage honestly and intelligently with Irish politics without indulging those liberal pieties, that all…
Has nationalism over-reached?
There have been two interesting articles in newspapers this week. Both address the current ‘Condition of Scotland’ question. For Northern Ireland unionism, which always likes to consider its situation unique and…
Opportunity knocks
We don’t yet know how Brexit will affect Northern Ireland exactly, but the referendum result certainly revived the nationalist trope that Irish unity is ‘inevitable’. The Republic’s national parliament recently published…
Attrition
The news that the talks at Stormont, aimed at kick-starting the Northern Ireland Executive, are to be put on hold until after the summer break does not really come as…