Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Ten years after the Belfast Agreement the draft proposals for a Northern Ireland specific Bill of Rights are set to emerge today . Mark Devenport has got hold of a provisional copy of the report and has produced it in full on his BBC blog . I have been consistent in arguing that human rights are universal and that there are no human rights which need to be enshrined in legislation specific to Northern Ireland. Any bill will simply overlap existing provision for human rights and encroach on other areas of law for which the human rights remit is not appropriate. Unionists also fear that the bill will advance an agenda of diminution of Northern Ireland’s constitutional status under the guise of the rights agenda. This fear is not simply unionist paranoia. Both unionist parties as well as the Alliance Party have expressed concern regarding the composition of the Bill of Rights Forum and are likely to record opposition to proposals in the draft report. Given Sinn Fein’s proclivity f...

I am no fan of the Northern Irish actor Dan Gordon. He is best known for his role in the execrable comedy series Give My Head Peace and the other part which brought him to prominence was the lead in Marie Jones’ One Night in November – a ‘play’ which makes it its business to demonise fans of the Northern Ireland football team. This week however, BBC NI have been showing a fascinating programme in which Gordon directs a group of prisoners from Belfast’s Hydebank Wood Young Offenders’ Centre in a performance of Frank McGuiness’ play ‘Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Toward the Somme’. The programme followed the process of Gordon selecting his cast and rehearsing the play with them over a number of months. Last night the four part series culminated with a performance of the play given to a selection of fellow inmates, staff of the prison and a rather arbitrary group of local luvies. However it was the process of cajoling the prisoners to produce the performance through a mixture of...

In Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace the character Pierre Bezukhov joins the Russian Freemasons. Bezukhov is seeking in masonry a mystical connection that can reconcile two prevailing Russian currents of thought, that of the Westernisers and that of the Slavophiles. The character naively expects the secrets of the craft to deliver some manner of revelatory self-knowledge. This expectation inevitably leads to disillusion as Pierre finds something which simply reflects the structures of Russian society in which he is already an unwilling participant. “Under the Masonic aprons and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they aimed in ordinary life.” Pierre’s disappointment is brought to mind by the Moscow Times’ article exploring freemasonry in Russia. During Soviet times freemasonry ceased to exist. It was one of the many independent organisations opposed by the Communist authorities. More recently Democratic Party presidential candidate Andrei Bogdanov provided a whiff ...

Northern Ireland eased to a comfortable 4-1 victory against Georgia last night after an anaemic encounter at Windsor Park. The first half saw the bulk of the action with strikers Lafferty and Healy showing real quality, sharing three goals between them. Lafferty’s contribution was especially impressive. He delivered a hard-working, energetic display capped off by two goals, one a neat slotted finish and the second a fine headed goal. The young forward has pace and skill as well as the height to impose himself in the air. Healy’s goalscoring haul in the European Championship campaign was marked by a presentation by UEFA president Michel Platini prior to the match. Northern Ireland’s talisman had a mixed night though. A long range effort in the first half gave Healy his 34th goal in a Northern Ireland shirt, but in the second half his attempt to clear Georgia’s penalty kick saw the Fulham player score the first own goal of his international career. Other notable contributors were ...

Another week, another tirade of abuse aimed at unionists masquerading as political commentary, from Brian Feeney. I am boring myself picking apart Feeney’s nonsense on a regular basis, never mind the readers of this blog. I do not propose to analyse his latest offering, an incoherent and constitutionally confused rant which includes a reference to unionists as “horses’ asses” (yes Brian is that pathetic!). Other than pointing out that not accepting nationalists’ aspirations for a united Ireland does not equate to bigotry (and nor does not following the machinations of the Dail), I want only to linger on one glaring inaccuracy. Feeney decides in the course of his abuse to deliver a sideswipe toward Northern Ireland football supporters. “It may be ‘our wee country’ to unionists (that’s what they call the IFA fans’ website, to attract nationalists) but it’s not.” Leaving aside the sweeping and inaccurate political point, the fans’ website entitled Our Wee Country has no connection t...

Dmitry Medvedev has given a lengthy interview to the Financial Times . It is the President-elect’s first major interview with a western news source. Choosing the FT is significant in itself. The UK and the City of London in particular play an important role as trade-partners and financiers of Russia’s economy. Medvedev’s stated priority is retaining stability economically and growing and liberalising the economy. Delivering an interview to the FT is a strong signal that Russia is open for business and in particular open to foreign investment. Equally the interview will raise hopes of a thaw in political relations between the UK and Russia. I have read the interview quickly and there are a number of noteworthy points to raise even after a relatively cursory perusal. Medvedev continues to emphasise his commitment to improving the standard of living for Russians. This is his stated priority and he believes that this can best be achieved through broad adherence to the policies of V...

I’ve been away from a computer over the Easter break and so have rather missed the boat commenting on Gordon Brown’s extraordinary article purportedly defending the Union in the Daily Telegraph. O’Neill has provided a blow by blow account on Unionist Lite . His contention is that Brown’s Labour government dealt the gravest blows to the integrity of the Union in the first place through their devolution project and he is unsurprised to find their leader doing such a shoddy job of defending it now. The startling thing about Brown’s article is that his entire argument explicitly focuses on England, Scotland and Wales’ place in the Union and pointedly avoids mentioning Northern Ireland. As O’Neill correctly notes, the entire basis of Brown’s multi-national, dual identity argument for the Union is rather undermined by this omission. If a strong sense of national identity does not militate against fully participating in the Union and feeling an overarching British identity, why would Nor...