Michael McDonald - Not Before 12, a journey

 Stakeholders - deciding the future of NI The dictionary definition of stakeholders is: people, groups, organizations or businesses that have interest or concern in the community. The community in question in this instance is the state of Northern Ireland and its diverse people. The stakeholders as we know are the Loyalist Community Council, the Orange Order and Unionism in general. For too long the former two have had undue influence into the inner workings of the state. Nothing it appears can proceed without a nod and a wink from these unelected groupings, who seem to have a menacing hold over the DUP and the democratic process, 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement. I blame Jonathan Powell, but that's for another post. At the time of writing Northern Ireland has been without a devolved government for over 18 months. February 2022 to be exact. This cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely. While the DUP squirrel back and forth between the UK Government, the LCC and the Orang...

This week has been enlightening. Following some research I've literally stumbled across the excellent book by John Brewer available on Amazon. The CAIN web service have secured rights to reproduce some of the content and in that context I am republishing it here. The usual disclaimer:  This publication is copyright John D. Brewer 1998 and is included on the CAIN site by permission of Macmillan Press Ltd and the author. You may not edit, adapt, or redistribute changed versions of this for other than your personal use without express written permission. Redistribution for commercial purposes is not permitted. Northern Ireland was not the invention of a cartographer who quickly scrambled together an incoherent border in a situation of rapid and violent decolonisation. Protestants did not have to artificially construct a sense of nationhood, for they had long defined their identity around two antinomies or opposites; the one religious, the other national. Northern Ireland defined ...

  I was recently asked by the new Impartial Reporter Editor Rodney Edwards to write a few words on the news of Arelene Foster being announced as a new contributor. And rightly so. I have been very critical of Arelene Foster on social media, while she was in office at Stormont, and out of office. Foster’s brand of unionism to me represents everything wrong with politics in Northern Ireland. Her instant dismissal of any other viewpoint is neither welcome nor welcoming, particularly for the middle ground. This was brought home to me in 2014, when as the then Minister for Trade and Inward Investment she was at the forefront of an attack on Alliance MLA Anna Lo , for remarks she made stating that partition of Ireland was artificial. At this time, I was the Alliance Party representative for Cookstown and Mid Ulster. As a Nationalist, I saw no contradiction in my aspirations for Irish Unity and my membership of the Alliance Party. It is as much an aspiration to support reunification a...