The poppy question

Conor McGregor, as other resolute Irish republicans have done, wears a poppy in 2013

Historian Niall Ferguson reminded us that Remembrance Day and the poppy, while a British tradition, is not just done by Britain. This brings a difficulty to the table of unbending republicans. Ferguson wrote:

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Tina Calder

Tina Calder is 37 and is Belfast. She is a journalist.

The execution of the rebel leaders of 1916

Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1916 Augustine Birrell, by Mary Olive Edis

Garrett Fitzgerald wrote:

"My father… Always believed that it was the threat of conscription rather than the 1916 executions that finally swung opinion decisively towards Sinn Fein."

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Al Millar

Al Millar hales from east Donegal. He was educated in Raphoe and went afterwards to Trinity College Dublin. He currently living and working in north Antrim.

V.S. Pritchett on living and writing in Ireland

V.S. Pritchett by André Carrilho

At twenty Pritchett went to Paris (1920/1921), where he "lived an abysmal bohemian life and wrote a terribly pretentious and mannered prose." Later he was a correspondent on the Irish rebellion for The Christian Science Monitor. Later again, a journalist in Spain.  When he joined the Christian Science Monitor the editor sent him to Ireland to write a series of articles. It was during the troubles of 1921–1924 he was asked to travel all over the country and write, not about the war, but about how ordinary Irish people lived and coped with the situation.

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Dawn Purvis

Dawn was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly from March 2007-May 2011, representing the East Belfast constituency, first PUP then as an independent.  Dawn is 49 and was born in Belfast. She joined the PUP in 1994 and first stood for the party in the elections to the Northern Ireland Forum in 1996.  Dawn was involved with various rounds of peace process negotiations before, during and after the Good Friday Agreement.

Sinn Fein revisionism, Ctd

Eamonn McCann said in an interview with Eamonn Mallie on Irish TV:

"The reforms which emerged allegedly from the armed struggle were in place in the early 1970s."

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - David McDowell

David was born in Belfast in 1970 and lived there and in the Glens of Antrim. He attended Larne Grammar and Belfast Royal Academy, where, like a lot of his peers, he got into politics at the time of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. David then read History at Oxford and during the nineties was an active Young Unionist and Unionist Graduate, "an enthusiastic Trimblista". Now David teaches history and politics in Edinburgh but is less active in actual politics.

David Trimble - The Easter Rebellion of 1916

Published in 1992

Click the link to read each chapter: Chapter One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven.

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Linda Ervine

Linda Ervine is well known for her activism in East Belfast in the field of the Irish language. In September 2012 she became Irish Language Development Officer with East Belfast Mission. Linda is 54 and was born in Belfast and self-identifies as British, Irish and Northern Irish. She went to Park Parade Secondary School. Becoming a young mum she continued her education in my early 30s. Linda went to QUB and did a degree in English, followed by PGCE, becoming an English teacher in a girls’ secondary school in East Belfast. 

Brian John Spencer: "When did you first learn about the Easter Rising of 1916?" Linda Ervine: 

James Joyce in Vanity Fair (1922)

Joyce by Mina Loy. Also by Djuna Barnes here. 

Djuna Barnes wrote about her meeting with James Joyce at the Deux Megots for Vanity Fair magazine, published in April 1922:

"There are men in Dublin who will tell you that out of Ireland a great voice has gone; and there are a few women, lost to youth, who will add: “One night he was singing and the next he wasn’t, and there’s been no silence the like of it!
 For the singing voice of James Joyce, author of The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and of Ulysses is said to have been second to none.

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Rev Brian Kennaway

The Reverend Brian Kennaway was brought up in North Belfast. After a time in industry he attended Magee University College Londonderry where he was President of the Students’ Representative Council (1969-1970). He then attended Trinity College Dublin where he graduated in 1972.  

Syriza imposed austerity shows that Sinn Fein would impose austerity

Above is a letter to Portuguese Finance Minister Mário Centeno co-signed by European Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, asking for explanations as to why the Portuguese government is planning to cut structural deficit by only 0.2% of GDP in 2016 – which, the Commission notes, is “well below” the recommended target of 0.6% of GDP. More below. 

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Shane Davey

Shane Davey is a 28 year old exile originally from Kilrea, a small town in rural County Derry. Shane ventured away slightly and went to secondary school in St Mary’s Magherafelt, followed by university in NYC, where he currently resides. He is a full time trader based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. 

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Ian James Parsley

Ian is 38 and his home village is Groomsport, Co Down. Though he grew up and was educated largely in England and Germany due to his father’s work, who himself is a Londoner. Ian's mother is from Belfast. Ian now lives in Co Antrim running a small management consultancy which also offers classes and translation services. Ian is a member of (though holds no position in) the Alliance Party.

Sir James Craig was Irish

Sir James Craig, Viscount Craigavon, by society painter Sir John Lavery

William O'Brien wrote a description of Sir James Craig, the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and utterly loyal adjutant to Sir Edward Carson, in ‘The Irish Revolution and how it came about’ (1923):

"Sir James Craig… The Ulster leader was never an incorrigible enemy of a modus vivendi with his Southern countrymen. Like so many of the higher Orange type, if he was an irresponsible being for half a dozen mad “ anniversary ” days, he was for all the rest of the year a kindly neighbour, a fast friend, more honest of heart than complex in the convolutions of his brain matter, but in all things, flattering or otherwise, as irredeemably Irish as the granite ribs of Cave Hill."

TIME Magazine featured Sir James Craig on the May 26 1924 cover of the magazine. Inside it produced a short feature on the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland:

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Belfast Barman

The Belfast Barman, or Kris Nixon as he is known to friends and family, was born in Dundonald and went to Braniel Primary School in East Belfast. He is 28. He moved to Brighton, England for High School; them to London for University for a few months but ended up back in Belfast again. He has spent "far too long behind a bar" and now writes for a living. 

Edmund Burke's "political testament to Ireland" (December 1796)

Edmund Burke behind and with hands on Richard B. Sheridan and Charles James Fox who bow before him. Burke says, "Behold the abettors of Revolutions, see the authors of Plots & conspiracies, and take cognisance of the enemies of both Church & State..."

Edmund Burke was called the "ornament of Ireland" by the Irish Magazine in 1808. He called the United Irishmen, as you can read below, "that unwise body". Wolfe Tone said:

#NorthernIreland2016 Interview Series - Colin McCusker

Colin McCusker was born, raised and educated in Portadown, Co Armagh. The son of Ulster Unionist Party grandee Harold McCusksr graduated from UUC in 1992. He is married to Anne-Louise with 2 children at Primary School. After a time in business he moved into politics. Colin is a local Councillor representing the town of Lurgan and is employed full time by the UUP.

Partition in Ireland is strengthened by violence

Cartoon by Ian Knox

George Bernard Shaw portended that partition in the north would lead to "an autonomous political lunatic asylum." J.B. Armour, liberal presbyterian and Home Ruler, said:

"For years they have been yelling against Home Rule, and now they have got a form of Home Rule which the Devil himself could not have devised."