Spooks and Shinners

Rumours and allegations continue to abound about the Provisional movement and spies. It must be tiresome for republicans to find out that so many of their number are in the service of the Crown. I don’t pretend to be operating at the sharp end of journalism but even in my little language trench, things can, on occasion, become intriguing.

I was at a football match in Casement Park in Belfast many years ago when I was given a very dirty look by an ex-IRA prisoner (and Irish speaker) who obviously did not appreciate my views and opinions on life and its meaning. Subsequently, stories began to circulate that he of the dirty look was a British agent. Well, why not? It is not as if an ability to speak Irish makes you moral and incorruptible.

Still, let us not dwell on the past; rather let us use take advantage of the present to mock the afflicted:

How many Shinners does it take to change a light-bulb? 32. One to change the bulb and 31 to tell MI5 who did it and why.

What do you call 10 Spooks in a room? A Sinn Féin cumann.

What do you call a Sinn Féin press conference? A debriefing.

Feel free to add your own…

Chinese Brutality: The West's Shame

Countries in the West often claim to support the ideals of democracy and freedom. After all, don't the Americans, in their Declaration of Independence, place 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' at the centre of their beliefs? Yet, despite said countries wishing to spread their values to other parts of the world such as Iraq, they appear somewhat reticent to do the same in other areas where respect for human life and freedom is similarly curtailed. Funnily enough, the nations who happen to avoid invasion are those upon whom the economic or security wellbeing of the West lies.

Indeed, when it comes to the 'People's' Republic of China (a title which exists notwithstanding the fact that the people there get very little say in how the country is run), the West is positively chomping at the bit to work hand-in-hand with its ruling dictatorship.

Yet all this goes on while the people of Tibet are being held captive in their own land, unable to live as they choose, beaten to a pulp, and kept apart from their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.

Where are the West's morals?

The issue of Chinese brutality not only in Tibet, but also their immoral dealings in Africa and their internal lack of respect for human life (China executes more people than any other country), have come under greater scrutiny this year as Beijing is hosting the Olympics.

I find it somewhat bizarre, to put it mildly, that the Olympics were awarded to China in the first place. Now I wouldn't expect those who make the decision to impose their own political views on the process, but it seems ludicrous that such an organisation would afford credibility to a regime whose track record on human rights is so dismal. Have they taken leave of their senses?

Take for example the Olympic Charter. It states:

1. Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

2. The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity. [emphasis added.]

I need not go any further. It is quite clear that all those involved in this joke are laughing in the face of the values upon which the Olympic project is reputedly built. It debases the whole raison d'être of the Olympics.

As part of the ongoing disgusting charade, today we were treated to a spectacle which no decent society should entertain. A number of peaceful protestors sought to demonstrate at the sickeningly sacharine lighting of the Olympic torch, an event which continued the West's debauched love-in with the brutal Chinese regime. But rather than lock up any Chinese government officials who were there to represent an evil regime, it was the protestors who were manhandled by the Greek state thugs guarding the pointless event, as seen in this video clip (especially from 1 minutes 50 seconds in), and presumably thrown behind bars.

This shows where the true loyalty of so-called democratic states lies. Money talks, morality walks.

I'm sure the Chinese government representatives in Greece are being treated to great food and fine wine tonight. Meanwhile, people in Tibet are mourning the brutal killing of their loved ones at the hands of the same regime.

It's about time that governments on this side of the world started to live by the doctrines upon which they claim to exist. It means nothing to be a democrat or to support human rights if you turn a blind eye to nations who fly in the face of those values. It's even worse if you purposely court them.

With a bit of luck, the protests against this evil regime and the rejection of the boke-inducing back-slapping by the West will snowball to the extent that the Chinese dictatorship will be shown up and embarrassed for the true filth factory that it is.

By the way, I know Chinese government propogandists monitor websites and blogs and attempt to fill their comments sections with pro-dictatorship rubbish. Feel free to work away if you happen to be reading this from a civil service building in Beijing. I've said my bit.

Vercingetorix in Baile Átha Cliath

When Caesar defeated the leader of the rising in Gaul, Vercingetorix, he paraded him through the streets of Rome as part of his tribute before finally executing him. Thankfully (and hopefully for ever), execution is a thing of the past in Irish politics – though parading is something that is still done. Witness then Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, attending for the first time the Republic's Easter Rising commemoration in Dublin yesterday. McGuinness was not paraded through the streets but the message was much the same – an Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, the all-conquering Caesar of Drumcondra, had brought a former leader of the Provisional IRA to pay tribute to the real Óglaigh na hÉireann, aka, the Defence Forces, not in chains but in front of cameras. (I wonder what thoughts went through McGuinness’s head as he watched the real Army march along O’Connell Street?)

Whatever the future may hold for Ahern, on this issue he was certainly right. He reclaimed the Spirit of 1916 for mainstream opinion and, not for the first time, Fianna Fáil has succeeded in promoting its narrative of Irish history above all others. For better or worse, the people of the Republic mark the beginning of the Irish state in the fighting in the GPO. One can argue the why, what and who caused the Rising – and we will no doubt for many a long year – but most people in the Republic are satisfied to accept the bona fides of the leaders of the Rising, mark the day and then get on with their lives and the worries of paying bills.

Whither then Irish nationalism? (You might as well ask whither the wind.) Gerry Adams claimed over the weekend that Irish unification was a work in progress – a work he has stated before he hopes to be completed by 2016. Not a chance, is the honest assessment of that. Adams still delights in the metaphysics of nationhood, looking into his de Valerian heart and pronouncing on its moods. It is easy nonsense to spout and we have had more than enough of it over the last 40 years.

Given the huge problems that beset West Belfast – and which have been rehearsed endlessly over the last week – Adams would be far better taking on and refusing to deviate from, ahem, the social democratic programme and improving the lives of his constituents with sustainable employment and proper houses. If Adams wants to offer voters hope, let him offer the hope of a good job, a warm home and safe streets. West Belfast is virtually a one-party state and it says much about him and his party that all of those three options are beyond them.

“You can’t eat a flag,” a wise man once said. And you can’t. A flag may keep you warm when times are bad. It may provide you with a comfort blanket but, ultimately, you can’t eat it. The tricolour flew over O’Connell Street and people in Derry, West Belfast and, yes, even Dublin, face an uncertain economic future. The same flag flies over many northern nationalist working-class areas and those people still face an uncertain economic future. Today will mark a Marching Season commemorating a battle in 1690. The flag flown during that season – season mark you – will be red, white and blue. And people in Derry, East Belfast and yes, even Ballymena, will face an uncertain economic future.

Pride is no bad thing – as long as it is moderated by common sense. Nationalists are proud of the tricolour; unionists of the Union flag. Fine. And people in the North, the North of Ireland, the Six Counties, Northern Ireland and Ulster still face an uncertain economic future. I don’t want to burn flags, disrespect flags, hang them from lamp-posts, run them up flag poles and salute them and I certainly don’t want to eat them. Let us have no more metaphysics from politicians Here; no more abstract musings on the nation. Give us a job. Give my children a job. And homes. And safe streets. And opportunity…

Civil Rights

The Civil Rights Movement and its role in the North is certainly an issue that has provided the letter columns and the local commentariat with much material and will, no doubt, continue to do so as events take place in various parts. Anyway, the commemoration programme to mark the 40th anniversary of civil rights will be launched officially on Thursday 27th March (today week) at 6pm in the Linenhall Library, Belfast. The organisers (of whom I am not one) say that all are welcome and that there is a fáilte roimh gach aon duine.
Information: Tim Attwood 078-02279939 or civilrights1968[ - AT - ]yahoo.co.uk

Hunger Strike Issue Apparently Worth A Joke Between Gerry Adams And The British Prime Minister Tony Blair

According to the reports about the memoirs of Tony's Blair former Number 10 aide Jonathan Powell, in 2006 Provisional Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams rang the then British Prime Minister to "express solidarity" over the latter's cash-for-questions problems. According to Powell, Adams rang Blair and amongst other things had the craic about the PIRA's campaign. The bearded one then, it is claimed, suggested to Powell that he and Blair should "seek political status" if they were arrested, and refuse to recognise the court.

Oh dear. The reputed leader of the republican movement joking with the British Prime Minister, a man who has been known to hold his predecessor Margaret Thatcher in high esteem, about the key issue that inspired ten PIRA and INLA men to starve themselves to death is quite startling. It's quite clear that the provisional movement has abandoned the vast majority of its core principles over the past number of years- opposition to a Stormont assembly, abstention from the Dáil, use of violence, etc., etc.- but surely this is a step too far.

This revelation ought to send shockwaves through those who believe in what the provisional movement reputedly stands for. However, the Adams/ McGuinness leadership has so deftly created a situation in which chuckling with arch-bigot Ian Paisley is seen as perfectly normal that hardly an eyelid will be batted in anger.

What next? An SAS colour party greeting delegates at next year's Ard Fheis?

Powell has also admitted in his new book, 'Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland', that the British government lavished attention of Sinn Féin on account of its ability to influence those in control of the guns. He writes: "Seamus Mallon's complaint is that we talked to Sinn Féin because they had the guns. My answer to that is: yes and your point is?" Now the SDLP is to a large extent its own enemy, but confirmation that Sinn Féin was ably assisted by the British government for the past decade certainly explains quite a few things. One would almost wonder why the spooks ran provo informers when the upper echelons of the British establishment already had such close links with Sinn Féin. Wonders never cease.

Sales Above Justice?

I just saw the digital images of tomorrow's (well, technically today's) UK national newspaper front pages on BBC News 24. Naturally, the story that dominates is the thankful rescue of young Shannon Matthews.

However, in their quest for sales, some of the papers have abandoned all recognition of the laws of contempt and in my opinion could jeopardise any case that may be brought. We're not talking innuendo here, but extremely accusative headlines (which have now been seen on TV). If this general cavalier behaviour continues, we are going to see a very serious case collapse somewhere in the UK at some time in the future, and it will be the media who are to blame for letting someone walk away scot-free.

What's more important- putting a killer or a gangster on trial, or making money from sensational headlines?

The Contempt of Court Act needs to be enforced a lot more strongly. Newspapers need to be hit hard where it hurts- in their pockets.

Language as heritage

We can cherish or abuse the manifestations of our heritage. One either regards the dolmens, standing stones, raths and castles that dot our landscape to be of value or one does not. For the most part, people like the physical aspects of our heritage – but it is a lazy kind of liking, the kind that demands no effort. They stand, therefore, they are. Occasionally, as in the case of Tara, we are forced to take sides, consider issues, decide what is truly valuable and what is nice but not necessary.

The Irish language probably falls into the latter category for many people – nice but not necessary. The language’s opponents are quick to point to it as being obsolete, useless. “We all speak English now,” is a common, ignorant refrain. Let us, therefore, be sensible. Let us not waste money that could be better spent. The old girl is on her last legs; let us help her on her way with a little (involuntary) linguistic euthanasia. Sure, it’s the decent thing to do. The arguments are as predictable and as reactionary as the idiots who make them.

Yet what they forget is that, unlike dolmens, Irish is a language, a medium of the living and breathing, a voice of long-established communities, of drunks and drop-outs, of professors and pimps, of somebodies and nobodies. Language is all about people and a language is only as good as the opportunities that people have to use it. That’s why making Irish an official and working language in the European Union was so important. You have got to work that language.

Language is not heritage like a tin whistle or bodhrán; it is not a traditional art or a craft. It is more than a tool; it is more than basket-weaving. Speaking Irish of itself is not an art. There are people with ‘good’ Irish – melodious, rich, grammatical – and people with ‘bad’ Irish. However, the people with the best Irish are the ones with something to say and that is the biggest difference between language as heritage and stones as heritage – the stones are going nowhere (unless we actually choose to crush them) but language is always going somewhere.

It seeps through people’s thoughts and those thoughts seep out into television or radio or in print. Sometimes they are banal but sometimes there is a spark of creativity and originality, something that is very particular and definite about us and how we think and see this planet. The great undertow of Irish tugs and pulls and shoves our perceptions; it is our North Star whether we look up or not.

Language is not like a session in the pub or an afternoon in Croke Park – though it can be as much fun when, suddenly, it all clicks and aspiration and eclipse and tenses knot together and move like Christy Ring. More often than not, however, it is akin to a life-time commitment to a diet, an intellectual diet.

In our hearts and in our heads, we know that cabbage and bacon is good food but we would much rather have a feed of cavier, say our monoglot English speakers. We are sophisticated, rich and successful. Peasant food is, after all, for peasants. We have made our peace with the fada-free English, they say. We are complete and would be happy – were it not for the few thousand, no, few hundred, no, few score, Irish-speaking bastards who continue to whine and gurn about the language.

These swine with their talk about maintaining Gaeltacht regions, building gaelscoileanna, giving children an education about their country’s history. Their vision of an other Ireland and our hidden history in song, manuscripts, folklore and literature is so annoying. (Admittedly, we are sometimes grateful, depending on the author. “Och, aye, him, I like him” – though there is always a “Och, her. Oh, I don’t like her at all.”)

Let us reduce Ireland then in this new, expansive, age. Let us reduce it to its barest shell. Imagine an Ireland without ‘compulsory’ Irish, without a Gaeltacht, without Brú na Bóinne and then knock down the Norman castles and flatten every Celtic cross, hole every currach and use the canvasses of Jack B. Yeats as toilet paper. Then burn the fiddles, puncture the bodhráns, smelt the tin whistles, ban sean-nós singing, céilí dancing and sets. Play the Munster hurling championship in Belfast – and let Antrim win.

And then lift them – Irish speakers – out of this country one by one. Remove them and everything, absolutely everything, they have ever said or made from our memories and enjoy the silence. That’s Ireland without Irish, an apocalyptic landscape, the Great Blasket writ large.

This is article was published previously and is slightly edited.

Easier to shout than to listen

Culture minister Edwin Poots attended his first Irish-language event at the weekend. He said two thing which were true: Irish should threaten no one and that Sinn Féin were politicising the language. The first statement is one which the Minister should pin on his notice board to remind him of his responsibilities.

The second statement was a gift from Sinn Féin, after they announced that they were forming a new Irish-language society named after a dead IRA member, Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh. That Sinn Féin should choose to name an Irish-language group after a dead IRA man is no surprise – even less surprising than Poots becoming annoyed at them for it. Political parties, after all, politicise issues.

Needless to say, many Irish speakers and groups who are so quick to comment on Poots, his politics and view of the language are not so quick to pass comment on Sinn Féin and their language politics and its implications for the promotion of Irish amongst every class and creed.

The fact is – muted though they may often be for various reasons – that there are numerous Irish speakers who are independently minded and who continue to plough their own furrows with diligence and respect. Their views are not always reflected in the rough propaganda battle which accompanies the language slanging match.

One group which did pass comment on the issue of politicisation was the ULTACH Trust, an organisation that promotes Irish on a cross-community level and some of whose members could write a book about being on the sharp end of the cultural struggle. One Trust employee, Gordon McCoy, told the Irish News: “Nowadays we have more a cultural conflict, rather than a military one. But we are seeing more of an interest in Irish amongst Protestants. There is now more of a move into cross-community image of language, trying to take it away from politics. But the constant rows in the halls of Stormont don’t help, it’s keeping the politics in the language and to what extent that trickles down to the community could be detrimental.”

That is a very honest comment on what is happening and raises another matter. The writer and translator, Breandán Ó Doibhlin, has argued that the promotion of Irish is a “moral” undertaking. What happens, however, when people for and agin Irish are not moral in their approach and think little of misrepresenting and distorting language issues for political purposes?

Of course, one of the biggest ironies is that the republican movement and its Gaelic choir are so self-righteous on the issue of Irish: they were wrong about the IRA’s campaign; they were wrong about the Good Friday Agreement; they were wrong about policing; they were wrong about partition; they were wrong about SF’s electoral prospects in the Republic but they think they are right about Irish.

Perhaps that is why they have become so shrill on the issue: it is easier to shout than to listen – or learn.

Hewitt Spring School

Just got this from the committee of the John Hewitt International Summer School, of which I am a former member. The summer school is held in Armagh but there is an annual spring school in Carnlough; this year's is entitled: "let there be no wall". And it will be held on Saturday 5th April, 2008, at Londonderry Arms, Carnlough, Co Antrim. Here is the programme with contact details and also some advance notice of the summer school, amongt whose number is one Seamus Heaney:

sixth john hewitt spring festival
sat 5th apr ‘08 at londonderry arms hotel, carnlough, co antrim.

…let there be no wall
to shut the warm winds out that bring us word
how over Europe liberty has fared
John Hewitt from Freehold

11.00 am: coffee
11.15 am: the great northern novel

As the Book Group phenomenon spreads wildfire-like—and the annual Readers’ Group is now a key feature of the Hewitt Summer School in Armagh—“the Hewitt in the Glens” continues the search for our Great Northern Novel, drawing on the expertise, this year, of
- Richard Irvine, literary critic & editor of Incertus, of
- Mary O’Donnell, (see our evening event) and of
- Guardian journalist/BBC Writer-in-Residence at Queen’s, Ian Sansom,
to debate the merits of their chosen “northern” novels
- Borderlands by Brian McGilloway,
- Resurrection Man by Eoin McNamee and
- Flann O’Brien’s At Swim Two Birds:
for those attendees who like to read the novels in advance, please note that library copies will be in increased demand in the pre-Spring-Festival weeks!

1.00 pm: lunch
2.30 pm: “a local poet”

Publication of The Day of the Corncrake nearly 40 years ago by the Glens of Antrim Historical Society marked recognition of Belfast-man John Hewitt as “a local poet”, a role on which he would often reflect in his writing, counting both Ulster-Scots weaver poets and later local ballad-makers such as Cushendall-born James Stoddart Moore (who wrote as “Dusty Rhodes”) among his own literary precursors.
- Frank Ormsby, co-editor (with Michael Longley) of Blackstaff’s recent Hewitt Selected, reads and discusses Hewitt’s “Glens” poetry;
- and C.L. Dallat talks about Hewitt’s interest in Stoddart Moore and “The Smith of Tiveragh”
- in an event celebrating Glens/Hewitt links and the Glens Society members who became the Hewitt Society’s first three directors, Jack McCann (d. 1993) followed by Pat Clerkin and Cahal Dallat both of whom died in 2007.

4.00 pm: coffee
4.30 pm: “new voices” poetry reading

- Iggy McGovern (b. Coleraine) is associate professor of Physics at Trinity College Dublin—The King of Suburbia, his first collection, won the 2006 Glen Dimplex Award;
- Paul Maddern (b. Bermuda) is building a digital audio library of Irish poets at QUB;
2007 Eric-Gregory-Award winner Miriam Gamble is a part-time tutor at Queens—her first pamphlet is This Man’s Town (tall lighthouse, 2007);
- Maureen Boyle won the 2006 Strokestown International Poetry Prize & was shortlisted for the Kavanagh Award in 2004;
- Kevin Higgins (b. Galway) grew up in the West of Ireland and now co-hosts Galway’s Over The Edge readings—1st collection The Boy With No Face (Salmon, 2005);
- and Peter Wyton is a Gloucester-based poet with Cushendall connections, latest book, The Ship in the City (Poetry Monthly Press, 2006).

6.30 pm: drinks reception & literary quiz
Reception & quiz sponsored by Blackstaff Press, publishers of John Hewitt: Selected Poems ed. Michael Longley and Frank Ormsby (2007).

7.00 pm: dinner
8.30 pm: david park & mary o’donnell

Since the publication of his first short-story collection, Oranges from Spain, David Park’s fiction has cast a clear eye on divided perceptions, separate traditions, unshared memory in the North: his latest controversial novel, The Truth Commissioner explores the ongoing difficulty of burying divided pasts.

Mary O’Donnell’s first novel was The Light Makers (1992) was named the Sunday Tribune's Best New Irish Novel; her 5th poetry collection is The Place of Miracles: New & Selected Poems (New Island, 2006) and a second short-story collection, Storm over Belfast is published in May this year.

10:00 pm: music

Full day incl. lunch&dinner £45(£38 concs) half day with dinner £30; half day with lunch £25; individual events £8 each at door to book. Send cheque (payable to John Hewitt Society) & contact details (name, address, phone, e-mail) to Tony Kennedy, Director, John Hewitt Society, c/o Unit 5, Weavers' Court Business Park, Linfield Road, BELFAST BT12 5GH. tel: 02890-321 462

And Mon 28th July to Fri 1st August 2008, Twenty-First John Hewitt International Summer School at The Marketplace Theatre, Armagh with Seamus Heaney, Billy Collins, Imtiaz Dharkar, Lisa Appignanesi, W.J. McCormack, Rita Duffy, Conor O’Clery, Maurice Riordan, Ruth Carr, Maurice Hayes, Joan Newmann, Jane Duran, Maureen Boyle… and many more in a week of lectures, readings, discussions, writing, talks, drama, music & entertainment.

website: www.johnhewittsociety.org

Ruth, Gerry and Ian

Picked up both these articles on Ian Paisley on nuzhound. Very much a case of compare and contrast. The first is by Ruth Dudley Edwards, a one-time Trimble supporter and no friend of Sinn Féin in the Daily Mail; the second is by Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, in The Guardian.

Dudley Edwards – rightly – pulls no punches in her assessment of Paisley. She writes: “Even by the standards of politicians, there has been an unusually widespread outbreak of hypocrisy following the announcement that Ian Paisley intends to resign after a year as First Minister of Northern Ireland. As political leaders in Britain and Ireland fell over each other in their anxiety to praise this great peacemaker, they sounded like abused wives piteously thanking their brutal husbands for having finally put away the stick.”

She comments: “It was Paisley who became the biggest hurdle to a peaceful accommodation between Catholics and Protestants, nationalists and unionists. He denounced as traitors those unionist politicians who wanted to react constructively to the predominantly Catholic civil rights movement of the late 1960s. It was out of this movement that the Provisional IRA was born, and who knows what bloodshed could have been avoided if only Paisley had not prevented unionists from responding sensibly?”

And: “And is it not commendable that Paisley is leaving office voluntarily rather than clinging on? I hate to rain on an old man's parade, but Ian Paisley deserves a torrential downpour. What made him change his tune was a longing for power, fame and adulation, but then his whole career has been driven by his colossal ego and craving for the spotlight. When the DUP and Sinn Fein emerged as the two biggest parties after elections in 2003, Paisley was still saying “No” to any power-sharing deal, but he knew he had a simple choice.”

And: “The truth is that Paisley's modernising colleagues wanted him out and he knew his time was up. With Peter Robinson in charge, Sinn Fein will be kept at arm’s length, and the mainstream DUP will try to reach an accommodation with the moderate Ulster Unionists. Shed no tears for Ian Paisley. He did what he did for Paisley. Not for peace.”

Dudley Edwards also writes that the occasion “more piquant was that among the laudatory chorus were Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness”. Right on cue, Adams has a piece entitled “A fascinating gracious man”. Adams gives a potted personal history of Paisley and politics while conveniently reducing the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement to being like more than an adjunct to the Saint Andrews’ Agreement – the real deal it would seem for Adams.

Adams writes: “Of course I could not be certain that he [Paisley] would come on board, but in fairness, when he did it was with grace and good humour. That humour and his civilised accord with Martin McGuinness went against the grain of those who had been reared in the image of the old Paisley…

“I think that's only part of the story. His wife, Eileen, and his family undoubtedly played a big role in his decision, and I think his willingness to reach out and to work positively with Sinn Féin was a genuine endeavour to make things better for the people who live here…

“Will I miss him? Well, maybe I can get to know him better now that he is retiring to the backbenches. I would like that. He is a fascinating figure, with many facets to his character. In my dealings with him I have always found him cordial, good-humoured and respectful.”

Have to say that I think Dudley Edwards’ assessment is more forceful and telling than that of Adams’ – though I would dispute her statement regarding Civil Rights and the IRA. Her words reflect more accurately the feelings of many ordinary nationalists and unionists who lived while Paisley was afoot in the dark days.

Both articles are on www.nuzhound.com

SDLP slogan

I noticed on another site that the Sinn Féin supporters have rebaptised the SDLP as the South Down and Londonderry Party. I belong to the generation who knew them as the Stoop Down Low Party – though given that Sinn Féin have ditched every ‘principle’ they ever had and there were more British spies than you could shake a stick at in ‘the movement’ (or should that be ‘the molement’), one wonders who exactly was doing the stooping. Still, people in glass houses and all that. It is not hard to rename Sinn Féin: Sin Féin; Spin Féin and, my favourite, Spy Feign.

I wonder though at the lack of imagination from the SDLP in not turning their very distinctive letters to their advantage. If the opposition take your name in vain, should you not at least going to the bother of replacing the slur with a better slogan? Here are some humorous, corny and provocative suggestions of my own for the SDLP. Blame a long, restless train journey for this one:

Still Delivering Lucid Politics;
Standing Despite Lying Provos;
Still Demanding Lasting Peace;
Strong Determined Leading Progressive.

Any other suggestions to El Mat.

Goodbye Ian Paisley, And Good Riddance

Rumours have been circulating for some time that the end of Ian Paisley's political career was nigh, and today we got confirmation from the horse's mouth that indeed the DUP leader is to resign from the office of First Minister and from the position of head of his party.

It's not really any surprise that the comments from some quarters have practically ignored the decades of frustration that Paisley caused for democrats in the north of this country. Indeed, Martin McGuinness led tributes to the North Antrim MP, offering such glowing references that one would almost think that Sinn Féin are to write to the Pope asking that Paisley be considered for beatification. Perhaps it suits all concerned to airbrush out the full horrors of the past.

There are also those who are congratulating Paisley for delivering powersharing- the fact is that powersharing could have been delivered many times over. It was Paisley himself and his accolytes who delayed progress in the first place and prevented powersharing from happening for so long, so it doesn't really make any sense to thank him for catching himself on and letting democracy finally embed (conveniently when he had reached the top of the greasy pole). We shouldn't give praise and thank Paisley for finally deciding that nationalists had a right to play a role in the governance of the north- he was just catching up with the rest of society, and seriously late at that.

Of course though it would be churlish to ignore Paisley's recent metanoia, but I think the Alliance Party leader David Ford summed up Paisley's career well when he said today: "History will judge whether Ian Paisley will be remembered for 40 years of saying no or one year of saying probably. Many will say his road to Damascus conversion came 35 years too late. The achievements of the executive since last May have been modest in the extreme."

If Paisley had departed politics three decades ago, would we in any worse of a state than we are now? I think not.

If the Chuckle Brother routine is indeed genuine, isn't it a damn pity that Paisley wasn't so magnanimous in the past when others attempted to build powersharing? How many innocent people have died thanks to decades of hate-filled words spurring idiots on to engage in terrorism, be they loyalist or republican?

Some ordinary folk may be shedding a tear tonight- not for the bilious oaf who did everything in his power to prevent powersharing for decades, but for the people who died in the needlessly prolonged conflict here.

The end of Paisley's political career is near. I don't do whitewashing or rewriting of history, and as such I can firmly say that for me it isn't a minute too soon.

Adios.

Ian Paisley To Resign As DUP Leader And First Minister In May

DUP leader Ian Paisley has announced that he is to resign his position at the head of his party and as First Minister in May.

He is to remain on as an MLA and MP for North Antrim.

More to follow...

Dead Body Found In Fianna Fáil Minister Mary Coughlan's Office

According to today's Sun newspaper, a corpse has been found in the office of Fianna Fáil Minister Mary Coughlan. Going by a review of the newspaper on the TV3 Nightly News with Vincent Browne, the body had been lying there for four days.

Coughlan is a Donegal South-West TD and Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Food.

Irish abroad

It should not surprise me but it does – the fact that anyone outside Ireland learns, speaks or has an interest in the Irish language. TG4 began a new series tonight – Thar Sáile (Over Seas) – in which presenter Brigid Breathnach visited Prague in the Czech Republic. There she met with, amongst others, Síle Ní Bhroin, a young woman from Dublin who is teaching Irish at Charles University in the city. Ní Bhroin’s pupils who were interviewed had varying command of the language and seemed genuinely interested in Irish-language literature and traditional music.

Of course, I should not be surprised by this. Twenty plus years ago when I was at uni, there was always the odd continental type who studied the language. But they tended to be academics with an interest in Old Irish and who had just learned Modern Irish for fun. (As one does!) The students learning Irish from Ní Bhroin were not all academics although she did mention that there were linguists studying the language and they tended to ask the hardest questions.

It was nice too to hear a couple of the Irish people interviewed saying that Czech was a harder language to learn than Irish. That is a point that is well worth repeating. The grammar of Irish can be infuriating but the language is not as difficult as is often suggested. Irish has only a handful of irregular verbs, two conjugations and, it transpires, fewer declensions than Czech. Put that in your píopa and smoke it!

As a journalist, I have met people from Australia, Holland, Germany, the US and Canada who have learned Irish to varying degrees of fluency. Few of them were academics and they came from a very wide range of professions. Indeed, I recently received an email from a Polish teacher, written in good Irish, who is learning the language in Poland. In fact, she and her class mates are using a book for adult learners that I wrote. (I am big in Poland!)

It is certainly encouraging to know that there are people outside of Ireland with an interest in the language. Whether that interest will actually spur more Irish people to learn the language is, of course, another matter. I remember one (nationalist) adult learner in a class in west Belfast who gave up learning the language after a few months: “It is nice to have but you don’t need it.” The challenge for Irish-language organisations is to convince people that they do need Irish – and it is no easy task.

Thar Sáile will be back on TG4 next Sunday at 8pm. The programme is subtitled and well worth a look. As this is March, the month associated with Seachtain na Gaeilge, I will try and blog a few more random thoughts on the subject of Irish in the coming days and, if you are really unlucky, weeks.

Harry In Afghanistan

So Henry/ Harry Mountbatten-Windsor, third in line to the British throne, has been out and about in Afghanistan.

Some commentators have said that he shouldn't have been sent there as it endangered his battalion, whereas others were more worried in case he went and got himself killed on account of his high profile. I disagree with both views. He joined the British military, the British military operates in Afghanistan, so like any other soldier it is perfectly reasonable for him to have been deployed there.

And therein lies the problem with monarchy- the very idea that someone should be treated differently by the system from others due to the family into which they happened to be born. If the Royal Family want to get involved in military activity, then those of their number who sign up should be treated like everyone else who enlists, otherwise the whole exercise becomes nothing more than a PR stunt. As Jude Collins said on Radio Ulster yesterday, if Harry had been killed, he would have been seen by the British public as a brave military hero; if he survived, he still would have been seen as a brave military hero- it was win-win for Buckingham Palace. And if they are going to capitalise from such activity, then they must also accept everything that comes with it, including risk.

And of course now we see an onslaught of television coverage of Harry being 'one of the lads' in the battlefield, conveniently at a time when the British military is having problems recruiting young cannon-fodder. No doubt we'll see a sharp rise in the enlistment numbers of misguided individuals who are easily impressed by this PR tour de force. Meanwhile Harry will be relaxing in the back garden of Buckingham Palace, feasting on cucumber sandwiches and sipping iced lemonade.

Another issue raised by this whole incident has been the media blackout on the prince's deployment to Afghanistan. If they are so willing to self-censor in their coverage of military activity on this occasion, then what else are they covering up 'for national security'? The argument has been made that this move was to protect Harry's life. However, this again goes back to the point that he shouldn't be treated differently from his colleagues. If Harry's prize-target status was likely to result in him being treated better by the military compared to the rank-and-file, then he shouldn't have been allowed to join the army. And, as we have seen, he has now been whisked back to base to resume his enjoyment of the butler service and four-poster beds to which he has become accustomed. Meanwhile his pals on the ground in Afghanistan continue to dodge bullets and eat sand.

This charade has just served to highlight the iniquity of the British regal system. The essence of democracy is that everyone has equal rights. Yet here we see a young chap getting preferential treatment by the military simply because his name is prefixed by the word 'Prince'. The British public should not view this as the brave military expedition that it's being portrayed as- they should see it for what it is, a sham.