The Slugger Awards

A hardline republican group in Fermanagh is using Facebook to recruit young people, reports The Impartial Reporter today. The 32 County Sovereignty Movement, which has a faction operating in the county, is using the website to attract teenagers. The group is regarded as the Real IRA’s political wing, although members would deny this. PSNI Chief [...]

The reality of massive public spending cuts has finally hit the devolved administrations (if not all their politicians). As Mick highlighted in his recent essay, NICVA’s report suggests that Stormont will have to make budget cuts of (at least) £1.2 billion in the next five years. Earlier today, the Independent Budget Review in Scotland recommended a fa […]

It would be true to say that Dr Paisley’s jibe at his successor record against Sinn Fein has gone down a little sourly in certain sections of the DUP.  But it does not, as David Gordon hints, mean that the DUP is about to be pipped at the post by Sinn Fein: The Paisley article [...]

They just can’t help themselves… Mr McGuinness was speaking at the official opening of the first high-speed road link between Belfast and Dublin. He said: “I think Peter Robinson and I will have more good news to announce in regard to the development of the Maze/Long Kesh site. “We have actually reached agreement and we [...]

I was uncharacteristically lost for words when I discovered, through Mark Devenport’s latest post, that a senior and highly capable Sinn Fein MLA was using material gleaned from a UK based right wing ginger group (funded so far as we can tell, by non taxpaying British expats) with a known record of rolling together own [...]

The reason Caitriona Ruane has been struggling to fulfil her party brief to end selection in schools is that she lacks the power to do so.  However she does have carte blanche in allocating budgets, which is one reason why she has decided (albeit conditionally) to fund four new Irish language schools in Magherafelt, Kilkeel, [...]

The announcement of the closure of the UK Film Council earlier this week came as a shock to those working in the industry. Seems like a politically expedient decision rather than a well thought out strategic choice, particularly when it came to light that for every £1 spent on film here by  Northern Ireland Screen [...]