In May 1950, Philip Larkin was appointed sub-librarian at Queen’s University in Belfast. He knew little about the city, or indeed the university, but needed a change. His application for a job in London had been rejected. Belfast offered an …
What we forget about Northern Ireland
Outside of a handful of busy seaports, the population of Britain between the Norman Conquest and the Fifties was extraordinarily stable. But Irish migration to Britain was huge, even if it is usually left out of the noble lie we …
Will the Windsor Framework get Brexit done?
Could something positive have finally happened in Northern Ireland’s never-ending Brexit story? After years of diplomatic failure, yesterday a package of measures was unveiled by Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen which might actually resolve the border dilemma. The …
Were the DUP right all along?
Northern Ireland is the Brexit wound that will not heal. Britain’s fourth prime minister in as many years now finds himself in the same position as all the others: locked in a defining battle with Brussels, seeking an answer to …
Were the DUP right all along?
Northern Ireland is the Brexit wound that will not heal. Britain’s fourth prime minister in as many years now finds himself in the same position as all the others: locked in a defining battle with Brussels, seeking an answer to …
Idleness is the tool of the devil
Idleness is the strangest of Beveridge’s five Giants, an amorphous shapeshifter in comparison with the terrible lumbering colossus Want. It appears last in Beveridge’s sequence, a place usually reserved for the most baleful of adversaries — Death upon its pale …
Sinn Féin has given up on a united Ireland
A false narrative about Northern Ireland is in danger of becoming the accepted wisdom. If you believe the headlines, the United Kingdom is on the verge of breaking up. Scotland is on the brink of another referendum; Wales is wobbling; …
How Rishi can rescue Northern Ireland
As the prospect of yet another election looms over Northern Ireland, the UK government faces a moment of decision in its Brexit negotiations. This may seem strange since, in theory, Brexit was delivered in 2020. Things, however, are not that …
Ireland’s Troubles will not return
The political climate in Northern Ireland has always been reflected in its graffiti. In nationalist and unionist areas, slogans and murals commemorating aspects of the Troubles are still common, though the paramilitary emphasis has declined in recent decades. Years ago, …
The Tory circus must not go on
Belfast
Just as Tolstoy observed that “each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”, so it is with dysfunctional governments. Each is dysfunctional in its own way, though there are certain family resemblances between them — a certain shared …
Sinn Féin won the demographic war
When I was researching my first book, which was about demography and ethnic conflict, I met with a well-known Sinn Féin politician in his Stormont office. I wanted to understand whether the elevated Catholic birth rate in Northern Ireland during …
A united Ireland is not inevitable
By all accounts, last week’s election to the Northern Ireland Assembly was destined to confirm the start of a revolution in the politics of the Province. With a Sinn Féin victory anticipated, the distant prospect of a united Ireland was …
Will Sinn Fein unite Ireland?
Brexit was predicted to be baleful for Ireland. Remember Bertie Ahearn and Tony Blair declaring that if there were a land border between the UK and Ireland, there would be a bit of a problem? “Oh experts, give over,” the …
Northern Ireland’s dangerous future
It’s been exactly three years since the 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee was killed in the Creggan area of Derry, hit by a stray bullet from the dissident “New IRA”. She was reporting from the scene of a riot, an event …
Ireland’s elites are rewriting the past
When the Irish government published a video to commemorate the centenary of the Easter Rising in 2016, there were a number of glaring absences. The 90-second clip made no mention of its combatants or the bloody crushing of the rebellion …