Northwind Archives

SINN FÉIN COURTIERS RULE OK?

September 22, 2022

MARY LOU McDonald was surely correct when she told Virgin Media’s The Tonight Show that she was “absolutely not” worried about risking the... Read more »

TRUSS GRAPPLES WITH DUP

September 8, 2022

ALL IS not going to plan between the DUP and the British government. To the surprise of no one in the North, the... Read more »

PLUS ÇA CHANGE…

August 25, 2022

IT’S AS regular as well-oiled clockwork. Every July nationalist outrage at effigies of politicians and Irish and papal flags being burned on loyalist... Read more »

LIZ TRUSS: THE DUP’S NEW FRIEND

August 11, 2022

LIZ TRUSS looks certain to be the next British prime minister on September 6. Rishi Sunak has reduced her lead a bit after... Read more »

AFTER BORIS …

July 28, 2022

Politicians are still going on about the “opportunity” to reset British politics now that Boris Johnson has gone. Simon Coveney was at it... Read more »

POST BORIS: NO CHANGE

July 14, 2022

There’s a tendency in the Government, particularly in Fianna Fáil circles, to believe that when the current Tory turmoil subsides normal service will... Read more »

DUP HOKEY COKEY

June 30, 2022

The Brexit ultras in the Conservative party’s European Research Group (ERG), about seventy strong, now hold Boris Johnson hostage. The confidence vote the... Read more »

BORIS ‘SAVES’ PEACE PROCESS

June 16, 2022

MICHELLE O’NEILL wrote in the Irish Times on June 1: “The Belfast Agreement must be applied in all its parts – an Assembly,... Read more »

BORIS JOHNSON AND BEING ‘IMPARTIAL’

June 2, 2022

IN ITS opening section, ‘Constitutional Issues’, the Good Friday Agreement says, “the power of the sovereign government with jurisdiction shall... Read more »

ALLIANCE SURGE

May 19, 2022

“SO YOU see now this growing middle ground of people who don’t want to be defined by religion or by ethnic or national... Read more »

BORIS TO SHAFT EXECUTIVE

May 5, 2022

TUV LEADER Jim Allister told an anti-protocol rally in Ballymena on May 1, “We must bring the mendacious prime minister … to the... Read more »

CLIFF EDGE FOR JEFFREY AND JIM

April 20, 2022

UNIONISM IS deeply divided, not only between parties but within parties. On the face of it, the divide seems to be about the... Read more »

BEATTIE PLAYS LONG GAME

April 7, 2022

DOUG BEATTIE, leader of the UUP since May last year, is engaged in an existential struggle with the Alliance party for third place... Read more »

‘FENIAN’ JUDGES RULE, OK!

March 24, 2022

ON MARCH 14 the north’s Court of Appeal found the Irish Protocol and Withdrawal Act lawful and dismissed the challenge by leading unionists... Read more »

PUTIN PLUGS PROTOCOL

March 10, 2022

WE MAY be in the midst of the biggest geopolitical shift since the Berlin wall came down in 1989. Thousands are dying in... Read more »

EXECUTIVE WILL NOT RETURN

February 24, 2022

THERE IS a difference of opinion about the future of the north’s power-sharing executive. One view is that there will be interminable talks... Read more »

DUP AND LOYALISTS COMBINE

February 10, 2022

A FEW weeks ago Joe Joyce and Michael McDowell were getting hot under the collar in the Irish Times about outside, unelected people... Read more »

DONALDSON DROWNING

January 27, 2022

T.S. ELIOT said April is the cruellest month. The DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, may beg to differ. January has been disastrous for... Read more »

DONALDSON’S DEADLINES

January 13, 2022

DEADLINES, DEADLINES. Foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney says the end of February must be the deadline for a deal on the Irish protocol,... Read more »

UNITED HEALTH SERVICE, ANYONE?

December 16, 2021

THE NORTH’S finance minister, Sinn Féin’s Conor Murphy, has produced a draft budget which increases the healthcare allocation by 10% for three years... Read more »

JEFFREY VS THE FUNDAMENTALISTS

December 2, 2021

THE STORMONT executive is grinding to a dead stop. Nothing illustrates the Alice in Wonderland stasis better than the Flags, Identity, Culture and... Read more »

OWEN PATERSON’S IRISH LEGACY

November 18, 2021

OWEN PATERSON, the former northern secretary, whose defiance when accused by Britain’s parliamentary commissioner of an ‘egregious case of paid advocacy’ on behalf... Read more »

NORTHERN SINN FÉIN MUST WAIT

November 4, 2021

IT WAS no coincidence that the Monday after the Sinn Féin ard fheis the party’s minister for communities in the north, Deirdre Hargey,... Read more »

NORTH ELECTION NEXT MONTH?

October 21, 2021

STORMONT IS in a state of limbo. The executive and the assembly go through the motions, but the critical political action takes place... Read more »

‘THE WRATH OF GOD’

October 7, 2021

WHY IS the north doing so badly with Covid? It’s not just in comparison with the republic, ranked No 1 in the world... Read more »

STORMONT COLLAPSE LOOMS

September 23, 2021

SIR JEFFREY DONALDSON’S threat to pull down Stormont is not as straightforward as people portray it. Yes, it throws a piece of raw... Read more »

O’NEILL EYES PRIZE AS UNIONISM SPLINTERS

September 9, 2021

UNIONISM IS in turmoil for more reasons than the Brexit-induced Irish Sea border. Protests about the protocol attract all the publicity, but many... Read more »

BREXIT UNITING IRELAND

August 26, 2021

It turns out there is an upside to Brexit – for some people at least. On 18 August, celebrity economist-cum-pundit David McWilliams tweeted:... Read more »

NO END TO ASSEMBLY SPLITS ON ABORTION

August 12, 2021

STAND-OFFS ARE stacking up ahead of Stormont’s return in September. There’s the Irish protocol, with ‘grace periods’ on handling imports of various products... Read more »

JEFFREY AND MARY LOU’S POLITICAL DANCE

July 29, 2021

THERE’S BEEN a bit of a shift in the balance of power in the northern executive since the DUP’s near death experience throughout... Read more »

BONFIRE OF THE UNIONISTS

July 15, 2021

JIM ALLISTER, leader of the hard-line Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), announced on July 12 (when else?) that he intends to field candidates in... Read more »

ORANGE CARD 2021

July 1, 2021

IT IS an accepted fact that from the earliest days of the Troubles and throughout their duration British security forces, including the RUC,... Read more »

LOST IN TRANSLATION

June 17, 2021

THE DISPUTE about Acht na Gaeilge goes back 15 years. Sinn Féin believed it had been agreed in the St Andrews Agreement of... Read more »

IS PAISLEYISM DEAD?

June 3, 2021

LENIN SAID “There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen.” The sudden transformative upheaval in the famously uncommunicative... Read more »

MARTIN’S ‘FROSTY’ CHEQUERS LUNCH

May 20, 2021

LAST WEEK the taoiseach met Boris Johnson at Chequers. The verdict of the Ballymurphy inquest and the British intention to ditch the Stormont... Read more »

MARTIN’S ‘FROSTY’ CHEQUERS LUNCH

May 20, 2021

LAST WEEK the taoiseach met Boris Johnson at Chequers. The verdict of the Ballymurphy inquest and the British intention to ditch the Stormont... Read more »