Article Category: Northwind

DUP EVANGELICALS RULE, OK?

May 6, 2021

REGARDLESS OF whether it’s Edwin Poots or Jeffrey Donaldson who becomes DUP leader the result signifies a lurch backwards: the only difference between... Read more »

DUP BOYCOTTS GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT

April 22, 2021

THE DUP is boycotting Strand Two of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) – north south institutions – and may extend the boycott to... Read more »

EXECUTIVE HANGS BY A THREAD

April 8, 2021

ON MARCH 29 Simon Coveney told the Seanad that the north’s institutions were “just about hanging on after a bruising number of years”.... Read more »

NORTHERN ABORTION CHAOS

March 25, 2021

ALL THE parties in the north tied themselves in knots in the past fortnight about abortion legislation, none more so than Sinn Féin.... Read more »

LOYALIST PARAMILITARIES’ HUSH MONEY

March 11, 2021

RECENT WEEKS have provided a perfect demonstration of the ambivalence of the Northern Ireland Office and unionist politicians towards the north’s still armed... Read more »

IT CUTS BOTH WAYS

February 25, 2021

LAST SATURDAY Micheál Martin gave an interview to Raidió na Gaeltachta – a station which unionists obviously listen to avidly – and urged... Read more »

DUP PANICS

February 11, 2021

CRISES IN the north never come one at a time. Just as it seemed that the crisis at the ports of Larne and... Read more »

BORDER POLL SPECTRE

January 28, 2021

SINCE THE Brexit Irish Sea border came into effect on 1 January, unionism has been in turmoil. There had been nervousness, resentment and... Read more »

BORIS: ‘A BLACK WIDOW SPIDER’

December 16, 2020

Bitter recriminations erupted between unionists last week after the UK folded and accepted the EU position on the Irish Protocol in the Withdrawal... Read more »

‘SHARED’ DISEASE

December 3, 2020

While Leo the Lip has been causing dissension in the disjointed coalition with his solo runs and ad-libs, it seems he has managed... Read more »

CENTENARY HALF CELEBRATION

November 5, 2020

The budget for celebrating the north’s centenary is due to be revealed at the end of the month. Northern Ireland Office (NIO) sources... Read more »

DUP SPLIT ON COVID

October 22, 2020

By the middle of this month a Financial Times graph showed the North had the highest Covid-19 infection rate in the world (sic)... Read more »

WHAT BREXIT WILL MEAN

October 8, 2020

Naturally, all attention is focussed on Britain’s last-minute high-wire act in talks about a trade deal with the EU. However, the fact remains... Read more »

PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES

September 10, 2020

What is the Irish government doing about the so-called ‘Troubles pension’ in the north? On the evidence available, the answer is ‘absolutely nothing’.... Read more »

FOSTER FACES DUP MUTINY

August 13, 2020

The uneasy Covid truce in the north’s executive has survived into the summer recess, but only just. Some in the DUP are unhappy.... Read more »

WATER UNDER TROUBLED BRIDGE

July 30, 2020

Boris Johnson loves to be loved. That’s why he started talking again last week about a bridge from Scotland to the north. It’s... Read more »

MARTIN’S LONG GOOD FRIDAY

July 16, 2020

Micheál Martin hasn’t got off to a great start, with some of his TDs publicly voicing anger about Cabinet disappointments and controversy about... Read more »

ALLIANCE ON BIKES

July 2, 2020

It has surprised a lot of people that the first all-Ireland party to be in government in Dublin is the Green Party rather... Read more »

NEW APPROACH, SAME RESULT

June 18, 2020

In the New Decade New Approach (NDNA) document of January, which got the parties in the north back into an executive, the British... Read more »

PARTITIONING COVID-19

June 4, 2020

It’s obvious from the nastiness of some of Varadkar’s attacks on Mary Lou McDonald in the Dáil how wounded he remains from the... Read more »

THE MONEY BEHIND THE WIRE

May 21, 2020

Last week’s unanimous decision by the UK Supreme Court quashing Gerry Adams’s convictions for twice trying to escape from internment in Long Kesh... Read more »

BORIS’S REAL PLAN?

May 7, 2020

BREXIT HAS reared its ugly head again, this time in the row about an EU office in Belfast to monitor imports from Britain... Read more »

IT WILL BE BANANAS

April 23, 2020

A STRING of experts on epidemiology, north and south, have given interviews and written op-eds advocating an all-Ireland approach to the Covid-19 pandemic.... Read more »

JACQUI DURKIN’S CONCERNS

April 9, 2020

THE NORTH’S chief criminal justice inspector, Jacqui Durkin, doesn’t mince her words. Overseeing the whole criminal justice system, including the jails, police custody... Read more »

BRANDON LEWIS’S BOMBSHELL

March 26, 2020

WHEN THE highly regarded Julian Smith was unceremoniously sacked as secretary of state on February 12, one source at the Northern Ireland Office... Read more »

MAKING A HASH OF CASH FOR ASH

March 12, 2020

Three weeks ago, a Stormont committee gave the officials in charge of communications and executive support a grilling. Chris Stewart, director of executive... Read more »

WHO REALLY RUNS THE NORTH?

February 27, 2020

When is devolved government not devolved government? Answer: when the central government exercises powers that were supposed to be devolved, ignoring the objections... Read more »

THE VIEW FROM ‘UP THERE’

February 13, 2020

That now famous exit poll on the night of 8 February, which horrified Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, contained a lot more information... Read more »

THE HOLY GROUND

January 30, 2020

The north leaves the EU on 31 January but, as with everything else about the north, it’s more complicated than that. First, the... Read more »

NEW DEAL — BIG DEAL?

January 16, 2020

THE TAOISEACH joined Boris Johnson at Stormont on Monday for a lap of honour, meeting and greeting the new executive set up on... Read more »

ULSTER BETRAYED BY BORIS

November 28, 2019

In the north, all eyes are on a few crucial constituencies in the forthcoming British general election; a toe-to-toe fight between Sinn Féin... Read more »

AUGUSTINE POLICY

October 31, 2019

The taoiseach told Today FM in a recent phone-in that he’d like to see a united Ireland in his lifetime, “but it must... Read more »