Last night I was in the city centre and there were people everywhere I went. It was absolutely insane. Crowds at City Hall, then we went around towards Custom House Square. There were crowds of people at Donegal Place. There were massive crowds outside White’s Tavern. Custom House Square was completely full. Walking through the Cathedral Quarter, it was absolutely rammed. There were queues to get into the new pop-up bars.

Walking past Kelly’s, there were queues to get into that square. There were queues to get into the new electric light station venue. There were massive crowds outside Madden’s. It was just utterly astounding, the amount of people who were in Belfast last night. I think it will probably end up that it will be the biggest amount of people ever in Belfast city centre, certainly that I can ever remember.  It will probably be even busier this weekend.

There has been a view over the past few years that city centres are dead. People just want to sit in the house on their devices with no human contact and order everything in but Fleadh shows that this is wrong. There is an intrinsic need for human connection, to get out there and celebrate life and community.

We need to build on the success of the Fleadh to make our towns and cities more people-friendly and walkable, to have more festivals and celebrations. If you are living your life through the medium of the internet and social media, it’s easy to conclude that the world is utterly despairing at the moment but the Fleadh shows that there is goodness out there. Music and culture and the arts show what the true meaning of living is.

We are more than the playthings of billionaire tech corporations whose every emotion is controlled by algorithms. Joy is an act of resistance. We can celebrate life, and we can celebrate it together.

I initially had some trouble locating the talk on the ‘Crisis of Confidence in Policing’ as it seemed to have been hidden away at the end of a labyrinth of corridors and stairs. Perhaps this was an omen, as this talk was the most depressing talk that I have attended in the past 4 years. The speakers and audience were all pleasant, there was no hostility or unpleasantness but there was an absence of hope for the future.

Ably chaired by Paddy Kelly, the speakers were Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice, Brian Feeney, Seána Quinn and Máirtín O’Muilleoir and, unsurprisingly, the focus was very much on the legacy of an unresolved past.

Máirtín Ó Muilleoir spoke first and from the start the clear message was that the PSNI had been forced to accept and defend a cultural legacy from the RUC and as such was unable to secure the support of those outside the unionist community.

Brian Feeney spoke persuasively on the decline in the number of Catholic/Nationalist applicants to the PSNI since the DUP persuaded the Tory government to end 50/50 recruitment in 2011, with the number of Catholics applying currently in decline. (See graph)

Mark Thompson and Seána Quinn gave commentary on how slow the process towards justice was perceived to be and how former members of the RUC were perceived to be impeding the progress towards transparency.

There were conversations about the failure of the PSNI to tackle Loyalist paramilitaries and a suggestion that racist rioters were in fact not tackled because they were connected to loyalist groups. There was a discussion of the lack of the use of Irish on PSNI stations and vehicles.

I knew that the audience and panel contained people who had lost relatives to Loyalist violence or even had relatives killed by the RUC, so I was not anticipating a positive perspective on the PSNI. However, there was applause when it was mentioned that during a policing engagement event held at a Twinbrook school, over 400 of the school’s 722 pupils did not attend the Chief Constable’s speech, with the mass absence being authorized by the students’ parents.

Obviously as someone from the unionist community who has taught students who went on to join the PSNI, or the RUC in the past, my perspective on such issues will be different. It seemed to me that some of the audience did not want to see the PSNI succeed in recruiting Catholics or Nationalists to the PSNI. I certainly felt the unrelenting criticism of the PSNI needed to be balanced by some realistic suggestion of what should be done to make the PSNI acceptable.

Most accept that a police service is always a necessary evil. None of us like having our freedoms restricted but we want the freedom of others restrained when they fail to follow the rules that protect our freedoms. (I did not like getting 3 points on my licence for speeding, but I am very much in favour of the police stopping dangerous driving practices.)

This talk did not invite questions or comment from the floor, but I was grateful to the panel who allowed me to speak to them afterwards.

I made the point to the speakers that if we are approaching a border poll, then tensions will rise significantly in N. Ireland and we will need some organisation to keep the peace. If we do not have an acceptable PSNI, what alternative force will we be relying on during a tense border poll?

I also pointed out that many Loyalists would be very surprised to hear people arguing that the PSNI was too favourable towards Loyalist paramilitaries.

When I was invited to make my own suggestions on what needed to change, these were clearly inadequate. I made the obvious suggestion that we need to return to 50/50 recruitment when possible and that if putting Irish signs on police cars or police stations would make a difference, then it was a small price to pay.

That I left this meeting very dissatisfied and depressed is not the fault of the speakers, but it is very clear that our communities need to have a serious think about policing.

Suggestions

The PSNI is no longer responsible for investigating legacy crimes and this should be acknowledged. They are not responsible for protecting the reputation of the RUC – and perhaps discussing these two issues together is a mistake.

We in the unionist community were premature in ending 50/50 recruitment, and restoring it will be complex, as it could restrict overall recruitment. However, it should be restored as soon as is possible. We need more people from outside the unionist community to join and serve their community in the PSNI.

Giving up on the PSNI is not an option for either community. If you walk away from policing then someone else, not of your choosing will take your place. Waiting for a Border Poll to resolve today’s problems is no solution. As we get nearer to a Border Poll, community tensions will inevitably rise. We will need more active policing and whichever way the poll goes, one community will be bitterly disappointed, and we will need sensitive and responsive policing.

Both unionist politicians and republican politicians need to recognise our shared interest in having an acceptable police force. They need to work together to encourage more people from a nationalist background to apply for jobs, serving their community in the PSNI.

As I upload this piece, I note that the DUP are concerned about PSNI recruitment and today have suggested creating a Police Cadet scheme in schools, similar to the Army Cadet scheme.  While I do not want to dismiss this out of hand, I fear it would do nothing to attract applicants from outside unionism. 

Pleasant streets can only partly explain the numbers in the city centre. What unionist visitors are discovering is that the Fleadh is not repellingly “political”, as that term is applied in Northern Ireland. Culture is always political, of course, but the songs are not sectarian, the atmosphere is not partisan and the national symbolism is discrete. I noticed only one Tricolour in a whole afternoon, contrary to the TUV’s fears.

Unionists are often presumed to be hostile to any manifestation of Irish culture, a view underscored by growing tensions over bilingual English and Irish signs.

But signage arguments are primarily territorial, not cultural. Unionists have always maintained an interest in traditional Irish music and dancing, and this has always been evident at festivals in unionist-majority towns. Northern Ireland is so divided that many nationalists have not witnessed this – just as unionists have been oblivious to the Fleadh.

Féile an Phobail, the West Belfast Festival, is also taking place this week, providing a well-timed illustration of the difference between the political and the non-political in Northern Ireland terms. Although some unionists do attend Féile, they will never flock to an event associated with Sinn Féin, where discussions and exhibitions take a republican perspective on the Troubles and a united Ireland.

The contrast many cannot help drawing is between the Fleadh and the Twelfth of July. Efforts have been under way since 2007 to create a week of cultural activities around the Twelfth, heroically branded as “Orangefest”…

But there’s work to do…

Earlier this summer that campaign was stood down. In our final statement we said: “We felt, and we still do, that is is important to develop alternatives to the courts for those who wish to address the very real division caused by decades of conflict between rival traditions on this island through means other than a very adversarial criminal justice system that often pits communities against each other. It was patently obvious that relying on the courts to deal with the legacy of over 3,500 dead and over 45.000 injured by the conflict was not only a totally inadequate approach to dealing with these issues, but counter-productive in many cases.” [The group made clear we were not opposed to individual people taking court action to find the truth about what happened to their family members.]

“We were also encouraged by the success of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains ((CLVR), which provided for ‘protected disclosures’ to be made by former combatants, and other people with information relevant to victims’ families seeking the recovery of their loved ones’ bodies, without facing prosecution. We felt, and still believe, that the narrow ground between protected disclosure and conditional amnesty could have been bridged by appropriate legislation. But neither the British nor the Irish governments have shown any interest in exploring this alternative to the tortuous and expensive process of criminal prosecution through the courts.

“With the benefit of hindsight, we have to accept that the Truth Recovery Process was probably initiated much too late. It was something many of us has assumed would have emerged naturally in the aftermath of the 1998 Agreement. Like others we failed to realise that the priority for most of the politicians involved in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement was to consolidate the positions of their parties in the new constitutional dispensation rather than address the underlying causes of recurring conflict.”

A number of former combatants had committed in a personal capacity to participating in a Truth Recovery Process if it could be established. They had been involved in the earliest and bloodiest years of the conflict in the 1970s. Our initiative may have been a case of “too little, too late” for them. Since the TRP campaign began almost all of the ex-combatants we were in contact with have died.

Successive British Secretaries of State did not last long enough to complete their learning curve in dealing with this extremely complex legacy of the ‘Troubles’. However the Irish government – which showed even less interest than the British – had no such excuse for their inertia and lack of ambition. For a while they hid behind the excuse that conditional amnesties would be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, although Dublin Senior Counsel Micheal Lynn examined the ECHR and told us that was not the case.

All that is left is a few public inquiries (like the Pat Finucane Inquiry), trials and tribunals that will seek to address a small handful of outstanding cases. Many thousands of other families seeking the truth about the deaths and serious injuries of their loved ones – as well as unaddressed miscarriages of justice where people were wrongly convicted of serious crimes – will be the flawed legacy of the past that Northern Ireland will have to use for navigating an uncertain future.

We concluded our statement: “Reconciliation is dependent on establishing the facts – the whys and the hows – leading to apologies and forgiveness. It is not going to happen all the time, but as countless truth and reconciliation programmes have shown, the journey is an important as the outcome. Whatever the future holds for Northern Ireland, be it part of a United Ireland or United Kingdom, or as its own state, it desperately needs a process concentrating on reconciliation. The two governments seem happy to kick this can down the road, blithely ignoring the forever damage it causes.” At a TRP conference in Belfast in April 2023, we heard impressive testimonies of how post-conflict peace and reconciliation programmes in South Africa, Colombia and Chile had dealt with difficult legacy issues, something the Good Friday Agreement had largely ignored.

The British government’s response to the legacy problem was to set up (in May 2024) the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR), although this was opposed by all Northern Ireland’s political parties, largely because they doubted its investigative capacity due to the NI Secretary of State retaining powers over the disclosure of confidential British national security information. It was nevertheless headed by three distinguished and honourable men: former Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan; Peter Sheridan, former senior RUC and PSNI officer (the highest ranking Catholic in those bodies) and chief executive of Cooperation Ireland; and former Chief Commissioner of the NI Human Rights Commission, Professor Bryce Dickson.

Despite this widespread opposition, the ICRIR has received requests from around 300 families to investigate their loved ones’ deaths and serious injuries. However it has faced a serious problem in seeking cooperation from the Garda Siochana and the Irish authorities. It has sought information from the Garda in around a dozen cases. These involved bombings or shootings that happened “within hundreds of yards of the border, where the killers fled straight across, in some cases straight into the guards’ arms, who arrested them,” senior ICRIR investigator Keith Surtees (the former London Metropolitan Police commander highly regarded for his work on the Operation Kenova inquiry into the British Army agent ‘Stakeknife’) told the Irish Times‘ Mark Hennessy.¹ Some of those arrested were subsequently let go. Others were prosecuted for possession of firearms. But noone implicated in any of the dozen or so cases in which information was requested were ever convicted of any of the offences the ICRIR is investigating.

These cases are just a few of around 500 IRA killings with connections to the South, the ICRIR believes, yet it is barred by the Irish Government from getting information from the Garda about any of them. Eight letters to the Department of Justice and the Garda have merited nothing more than an acknowledgement, while just one received a ‘we’ll get back to you’ letter.

“It is hugely disappointing that the engagement that would have occurred three years ago with Operation Kenova’s investigators has now completely disappeared,” said Surtees. “It’s now off the agenda.”

This is despite a vague ‘framework’ ‘agreement on legacy issues between the British and Irish governments last September. The main result of this so far has been the bringing into effect in June of Irish legislation that will enable sworn evidence to be taken from the Garda, former Ministers and other relevant Southern public bodies about the Omagh bombing.

It remains to be seen if this will be effective 28 years after that atrocity, the worst of the ‘Troubles’. In the words of Kenny Donaldson, the director of the Fermanagh-based victims and survivors organisation SEFF: “That atrocity was planned in and executed from the South, with the bomb carried across the border and the bombers escaping back across the border. The Irish government should have given the British judge carrying out that inquiry access to courtrooms in Dublin where he would have had full rights to compel witnesses to attend, and to bring people in from the Southern administration in to answer questions. 75 per cent [of the planning and preparation] of the Omagh bombing happened south of the border. Those responsible had been involved in a bombing spree for the previous 18 months and were being watched by the Southern authorities. If that’s not forensically brought out in any inquiry, you’re going to have a very, very jaundiced outcome. If the Irish state were to show a level of responsibility and acknowledgement around those issues, it would perhaps make sections of the unionist community in Northern Ireland begin to think ‘here’s a state prepared to actually look at itself and to deal with its wrongs’.

PS A final word of tribute to my friend and former Irish Times colleague Padraig Yeates. This distinguished journalist, historian – author of four acclaimed books about the 1913 lockout and Dublin during the War of Independence period – and trade union activist, was the real dynamo behind the Truth Recovery Process initiative. That initiative may have come to naught. But those of us who passionately believe in reconciliation in the North as a necessary pre-requisite (or at least accompaniment) to the possible eventual coming together of people on this island are greatly in his debt.

¹ ‘You have to tell the truth about the hurt that people suffered in the Troubles’, Irish Times, 16 July 2026

This is the second of a series of articles on the strength in depth of our provincial squads ahead to the start of the season next month. The first article – on Connacht – is published here.

The Ulster squad quality is similar to Connacht’s with 15 Irish internationals compared to Connacht’s 16. With 41 senior professionals to Connacht’s 39, they also have a bit more depth, particularly at lock, but curiously only one specialist openside, Nick Timoney. What will Ulster do when Timoney is in Ireland camp, particularly if Bryn Ward, an 8 who can play 7, is also in Ireland camp? David McCann can probably cover there, but Ulster really need another specialist 7. Perhaps Ulster are hoping that academy flankers Tom Brigg or James McKillop have the potential to grow rapidly into that role.

It also looks as if Tom O’Toole is condemned to play tight head for Ulster while competing for a loosehead spot with Ireland. Handy if Ireland only bring 5 props to the World Cup, but otherwise less than ideal for his chances of Ireland recognition, especially when test looseheads Porter, McCarthy, and Boyle return from injury and given the rise of Sam Illo ahead of Bealham at tight head. Ulster have five props in their academy, so are clearly hoping to grow their own props for the future.

Otherwise, Richie Murphy has recruited well, with the signing of Mathew Devine a real coup, Argentine international Eduardo Bello replacing Angus Bell, and Eli Snyman replacing Mathew Dalton and bolstering the pack as Henderson edges towards retirement.  It is not surprising that Ulster’s three non-Ireland eligible players Bello, Snyman and Augustus, are all forwards known for their physicality. Ulster’s pack have been bullied on too many occasions.

Jamie Benson (Harlequins), Ben Donnell (Cardiff), Keynan Knox (Nevers), and Chay Mullins (Connacht) are also brought in to replace the departing John Andrew, Rory Maguire, Brian O’Connor, Marcus Rea, Sean Reffel, Lorcan McGloughlin, Dave Shanahan, James Humphries, Ben Moxham, and Werner Kok – the only other first team regular departing. Bryn Ward, Henry Walker, and Aitzol Arenzana-King are promoted from the academy to bring the numbers up to 41, down two from the 2025/6 season.

So what are we to make of all these changes? Angus Bell and Werner Kok are undoubtedly a loss, but perhaps compensated by the recruitment of Eduardo Bello and rise of Zac Ward. Hopefully, Bello is a better scrummager than Bell and Snyman a better lock than Dalton. Mathew Devine and Jamie Benson should address a lack of depth at 9 and 10. But Ulster will need some of their erstwhile journeymen pros and academy graduates to come good if they are to compete on two fronts – something that was their undoing towards the latter end of last season.

Ulster’s first XV includes 12 internationals but rugby is now a 23 man game and Ulster have been found wanting when injuries and squad rotation have taken their toll. At full strength and at their best, they can give any team a hard time, but the problem has been maintaining that standard right through a season. Richie Murphy has been able to address some issues – a lack of power in the pack and depth at 9 and 10.  But Ulster need another specialist 7 and have been very reliant on a very young Jack Murphy at 10. Some of their third and fourth choice players have yet to convince they can hold their own against the South African URC teams.

The URC is getting stronger all the time and the leading French teams are awesome in the European and Challenge Cups. Players and tactics that were good enough a few years ago are no longer good enough now. It looks like Rory Best and Richie Murphy are slowly assembling a stronger playing and coaching squad and the appointment of Joe Schmidt to a consultancy role should improve the elite player development pathways over the longer term. Ulster have in the past been very reliant on imported players including some star performers but also a lot of journeymen pros coming and going without leaving a lasting impression.

Constrained finances and the limit of three non-Ireland players will always limit the number of star players that can be imported, but the academy has been contributing an average of only three players a season for the last few years so hopefully an improving indigenous player base and elite player development pathway will gradually make its influence felt more profoundly in the make-up of the senior squad. So, the verdict has to be – a lot done, but a lot more hard work to do. There are ultimately no short-cuts to sustained success unless you have a multi-millionaire benefactor. Anyone seen Rory McIlroy recently?

Prediction: The absence of Champion’s cup matches in the early part of the season should take some of the pressure off the squad depth, and that, combined with a good coaching ticket should ensure a good start to the season. A lot depends on Ulster’s long term injury profile, but I would back Ulster to make the URC play-offs and have a good run in the Challenge cup – or roughly on a par with an improving Connacht.

One change that has made the news is that teachers of History must teach the history of the N. Ireland Troubles at both KS3 (Year 8-10) and KS4-GCSE. Until now this has been optional and it was possible even to teach GCSE History without covering the events of the Troubles.

Various sources (Appendix Three below) debate how consistently our pupils are taught about the conflict known as The Troubles but there is a belief that Catholic (maintained) schools were more likely to teach about the years 1965-1998 than non-Catholic (controlled etc) schools.

What reasons could teachers have for being wary of teaching about the Troubles?

No teacher wants polarisation or upsets in the classroom, but the human stories of the Troubles are emotionally difficult and bad reactions can be triggered due to family histories of which teachers may be unaware. (Think of the events of Bloody Sunday, Bloody Friday, the Enniskillen Bombing or the Greysteel Massacre.) As well as the upset for the individual student, it is easy to find a complete afternoon’s lessons derailed and future classroom relationships damaged.

Equally no teacher wants to be accused of bias, but this is always a risk. On BBC Talkback and in the Newsletter, Unionist leaders have outlined their concerns about teaching the history of the Troubles. Jon Burrows said, “this history must be taught accurately, sensitively and without revisionism”. He continued, “No curriculum should sanitise terrorism, diminish the suffering of victims or allow contested political narratives to be presented as established fact.” Sammy Morrison of the TUV said, “It is vital that the voice of victims and the savagery of the terrorist campaign is spelt out.” He advocated highlighting that the IRA largely targeted off duty UDR men, focusing “the fact that the terrorists went and shot the postman, the milkman or the farmer as they went about their day-to-day jobs”, as a way of removing the ‘glamour’ around terrorism.

In the face of pressure to avoid such accusations, teachers may be encouraged to just ‘teach the facts’, but this prevents teachers (especially at KS4-GCSE) from discussing abstract cause-and-effect relationships which are essential for cognitive development and for higher marks in exams. Eg “Was the Orange Order influence within the Unionist Party detrimental?”, “Did internment contribute to the violence?” or “Did the IRA help destroy the Sunningdale Powersharing Settlement?”

At GCSE, short factual recall questions attract 1-2 marks, while more abstract essay questions requiring arguments attract 11-15 marks. Clearly, teachers must teach more than the basic facts. (See example GCSE History questions at end.)

How do Other Countries Control the Teaching of History

The teaching of History is controversial in many countries and several techniques have been used by politicians and governments to control what is taught.

In Germany denying the Holocaust is a crime punishable by a fine or a prison sentence of up to five years. Most federal states mandate or heavily subsidise school trips to Holocaust memorials and former concentration camps. For obvious reasons, Germany is an extreme example, but it is not alone.

In 2005 France introduced a law requiring high school teachers to explicitly teach the “positive values” of French colonialism, especially in North Africa. Public controversy forced the repeal of this law the following year. 

In Turkey the national curriculum strictly forbids the teaching of the 1915 massacres of Armenians as a “genocide,” instead framing the event in state-sanctioned textbooks as wartime relocation or a response to Armenian rebellion.

In both Hungary and Poland, the governments have tried to control which history textbooks are available to suit their own narratives.

In the US, President Trump has mounted a persistent campaign to reduce the prominence given to the history of slavery. Trump criticized the Smithsonian on social media, claiming the institution was “out of control” and focused too much on “how bad slavery was“.

The US Department of the Interior has instructed the National Park Service to remove signage, educational resources, and webpage references regarding the history of slavery and systemic discrimination.

Through an executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” Trump has been accused of trying to minimize the horrors of slavery and arguing against teaching that the Founding Fathers were hypocrites for owning slaves while talking of freedom.

Conclusion

I do not expect any legislation to attempt to control how teachers in N. Ireland teach our history, but History teachers will expect scrutiny from parents, politicians and school governors. However, the teachers that I have known have been professional and determined to give pupils the skills to make their own interpretation of history.

My daughter who is young enough to remember being in school feels the requirement to teach the history of The Troubles is an overdue decision, as do I, but what do you think and what problems do you foresee?

Appendix One:

From 2028, schools will be obliged to teach

1. The origins and course of the Troubles
2. The peace processes and the legacies of conflict
3. The impact of political violence and security measures on daily routines and community relations
4. The creation of Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State
5. Efforts to build non-sectarian spaces (the Peace People movement etc)

Appendix Two: Sample Questions from GCSE History, 2025

Appendix Three: Weblinks

Divided Histories

HTANI

https://www.htani.org/gcse-ni-troubles-resources/

https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/consultations/consultation-northern-ireland-curriculum-2028

So far, the organisers seem to have done a wonderful job. The stage and big screen in City Hall were great. We brought some folding chairs and were happy sitting on the grass watching the acts.

If I was to give one suggestion to the organisers it would be to put the running order on the big screen so people know what’s coming up next and at what time. The change over between acts was very slow, they should have used the change over downtime to showcase some amateur musicians who would love a shot at the play for such a big crowd or the safer option to run some pre-recorded video of performances.

It was impressive to see all the various buildings that have become pop-up venues and bars, for example, the bars on Donegal Street. The big revelation was the electric light station, which is next to St Mary’s Church on Church Lane. I’ve walked past it for years and never thought about what was behind those doors but it turns out to be a massive Victorian warehouse that makes an amazing music venue. Who knew? Rumour has it Barney Eastwood used it to park his Rolls Royce in. I imagine it will become a permanent venue but it does need a bit of TLC as I would say it would be absolutely freezing in wintertime.

If you come in for the Fleadh, here are some tips for you.

The main issue is it is overwhelming the sheer amount of events. It can be hard to know where to start. Laverys Bar has created a very good website that lists all the events: https://belfastfleadh.com

Transport: obviously it is best if you can take public transport but if you are driving there are lots of car park spaces around Belfast. You just need to think ahead and be clever. Thanks to deindustrialization and the troubles, Belfast has an insane amount of surface-level car parks, many of which are not very obvious as they’re basically waste ground that the owner has stuck a parking machine in.

What you need to do is download the RingGo App and it will show you the locations of all the car parks. Best of all it will show you live how busy they are so you can see where has spaces. My recommendation is this one on Millfield, its only £1 an hour and its only a 2 minute walk to Maddens, Kellys Cellars etc. There is another one to the left of it, which is only 50p an hour. Although it does have vibes of “not sure if you’re gonna come back to your car on concrete blocks and your wheels missing”.

Eating/drinking: Belfast is eye-wateringly expensive these days. I was charged £23 for two drinks. It was expensive even before the Fleadh. The average price of a pint now is £7. I think Belfast must easily be the most expensive city in the UK or Ireland now for eating out and drinking. even London is cheaper. What some places are doing is even putting a service charge on every drink. As you’re being handed a plastic cup, it really rubs it in to be charged an extra 15% for the pleasure of standing in the middle of the street.

If you’re coming into Belfast with a family, the obvious thing to do is to bring a picnic. I especially recommend bringing some folding chairs. Remember there are lots of supermarkets in Belfast City Centre. You have the M&S Food Hall near City Hall, which has an enormous selection of food and snacks. You also have the Lidl on High Street and lots of Tesco Expresses so it is possible to keep the costs down. You also have the usual fast food places like McDonald’s etc.

Given the crowds more than a few people to stuck a few cans or bottles in their backpacks and topped up on the fly. They are checking bags going into City Hall but it’s just a cursory glance, obviously I would never suggest sticking alcohol in a water bottle, that would be against the rules. Oddly there is no bar or food in the grounds of City Hall. Be aware that there is a separate entrance and exits. There were reports of some people leaving to get a drink or an ice cream but couldn’t get back into the grounds due to the crowds.

If you’re in the Cathedral Quarter, 44 Hill Street has opened up a lovely little courtyard area where you can get reasonably priced food and drinks. It’s also quite quiet so it will give you a break from the chaos. There is also a pop-up bar opposite the Oh Yeah centre on Gordon Street selling beer for four quid.

Some suggestions for next year’s event.

Some venues are working better than others. For example as I mentioned above, the electric light station is an amazing success whereas I called into the Telegraph building yesterday afternoon and it was pretty grim: not many people, loud, dark, and smelling of pee. Now to be fair, come Friday night and Saturday the place could be rammed but the organisers need to think is it better to focus the crowd to certain areas, especially during the mid-week quieter times as at the moment it is very fragmented.

There needs to be a dedicated family zone as at the moment everything is far too alcohol focused with zero for kids to do. The obvious place for a family zone is St Annes Square or the revamped park next to the art college which will be open for next year. St Annes Square is a wonderful location so I was very surprised to see it not really being used. I passed it a few times and there was nothing on. Very strange. You need a safe family zone with a small stage for kids to play music on, street performers, bouncy castles and other attractions, crafts, face paints, etc.

Ironically I didn’t actually hear much traditional music being played, especially by random musicians. There were a few around trying their best but it was next to impossible to hear them given the loudness of the environment. I imagine that there are lots of musicians trundling around trying to find a session to play in. There needs to be more thought given to where musicians can actually play. Musicians are the golden goose of the Fleadh and they need to be relentlessly accommodated. If the organisers haven’t got them already, there needs to be some kind of musician concierge service that helps organise sessions and informs musicians of what’s happening and what’s going on, what venues are hot, etc. I would even go as far as having musician-only locations that are not known to the general public, as everyone loves a bit of exclusivity. I would even have a subsidised canteen where musicians can get a low cost fed and meet up with each other.

I will give you an example of the problem. I personally am involved with a local school of music but in our WhatsApp group they are struggling to think of where 20 odd musicians could meet up to have a session during the Fleadh. There needs to be a better way to support and encourage impromptu sessions. That may sound like an oxymoron as the whole idea of an impromptu session is that it’s well impromptu but you can do things to help the process, fertilise the ground as it were.

What currently seems to be happening is all the focus is on the paid musicians that venues are putting on, which is positive and it’s good to see professional musicians making a living but there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity to play for the amateur and independent musicians who are visiting.

Musicians can be delicate little flowers and shoving them in a tent with a thousand people shouting and talking over them is not a great experience. I’m sure the organisers are already engaging with the experts from TradFest etc if not then they need to be fully engaging with musicians and taking their feedback and suggestions on board as a priority.

Venues also need to stop with the piped background music. You can’t have an impromptu session with Christy Moore blaring in the background.

There needs to be some quality control over some of the stalls. Some of the sheer crap that they’re selling in Royal Avenue is embarrassing. Selling things like BB guns etc. has no place in Belfast and the organisers should review what stalls are selling and not let them back for next year.

My take away from the event so far is that the organisers have done a wonderful job. They are getting good crowds and people seem to be enjoying the festivities. My main criticism would be that there’s too much focus on alcohol and street drinking. Now I know absolutely every event in our society is alcohol-soaked so this is nothing new but the event needs more soul and emotion.

My fear is that visitors to Belfast will be going home with the feeling that they had their wallets emptied and did not actually experience much in the way of culture. In fact I would go as far as to say that Belfast has more culture going on in normal times than I’ve actually seen during the Fleadh. I will acknowledge the issue could be one of communication and discovery. As with so many events it’s overwhelming trying to know what’s on and where to go to.

It might sound like I’m being a bit negative. I am not. I just think it’s important to review what’s working and what’s not working so next year’s event can be even better. It was very encouraging to see a wide range of people from all parts of society enjoying the festivities, but the organisers must fully engage with all of the Belfast arts community to make sure that next year’s event is more than standing in the street drinking overpriced beer out of a plastic cup. When it comes to culture you always need to balance the heart with the head.

The Fleadh has been a success so far, but I want to see good becoming feckin’ amazing next year.

At eleven o’clock on a typical Sunday morning in Belfast, a shop worker in a small shop will be serving customers. Next door, a shop worker in a large store will not, because the law prevents her employer from opening. Both work in retail. Only one of their employers is restricted. If the restriction is now defended as securing a common morning of rest for shop workers, the difference needs to be explained.

The answer is that the Shops (Sunday Trading &c.) (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 contains not one compromise but two, adopted for different reasons and now argued about as though they were the same thing. The first decides who is regulated: large shops are those with a relevant floor area exceeding 280 square metres, and everything below that line trades freely. The second decides when the regulation bites: large shops may open between one o’clock and six.

Why 280 square metres, and why one o’clock

The legislative record is clear about why each was chosen, and it has been absent from the current debate. When the draft Order came before the House of Lords in November 1997, Lord Alderdice asked directly whether the floor area figure was arbitrary. Lord Dubs, the Northern Ireland Office minister, answered that the limit had to be clearly understandable and easily enforced in order to maintain a level playing field, that Northern Ireland had simply followed the Sunday Trading Act 1994, that he did not know how the Great Britain figure had been arrived at, and that both the Keep Sunday Special campaign and the retailers’ reform lobby had supported it. His answer concerned administrability and competitive neutrality, agreed between opposing interests, not the welfare of shop workers.

The hours were another matter entirely. Great Britain permits large shops to operate for six continuous hours, anywhere between ten and six. Northern Ireland was given five hours from one o’clock, and Dubs told the House that the reduction from the Great Britain model had been made “in recognition of the concerns of those for whom Sunday is a special day” (HL Deb 20 November 1997, vol 583, col 671). The protected morning is, therefore, a recorded concession to Sunday observance.

The only lever below Stormont

Belfast City Council can alter neither. Paragraph 9 of the 1997 Order gives a district council discretion to designate any area in its district as a holiday resort, which lifts the hours restriction for up to eighteen Sundays between March and September. Dubs noted at the time that this went further than the 1994 Act. Every interest with a stake in Sunday trading is therefore left arguing over a holiday resort designation, because it is the sole discretionary power the 1997 Order leaves to anyone below Stormont. It engages one half of the settlement, by way of exception rather than amendment. As with the street-by-street surveys that decide dual-language street signs, a question of general application is being settled geographically, because the available instrument is a local one.

That is why a landlocked city has designated itself a holiday resort for two Sundays during Fleadh Cheoil, with a review due by the end of October, whereas a full designation would have run thirteen weeks. Belfast Chamber called the outcome a cop-out rather than a compromise, which is fair as a description of the result but unfair to a council working with the one instrument it possesses.

Each contemporary objection appears different when examined against the part of the settlement it actually concerns.

The threshold does not protect workers

The strongest comes from the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw), which says its members report pressure to work Sundays and that extended hours would reduce their family time. The obvious defence of the threshold is that it is a proxy for employer power: a multiple can compel Sunday working through rostering where an owner-operated shop cannot. That argument is not an invention of today’s opponents. Lord Cope made it in 1997, arguing that the weaker competitive position and bargaining power of small shops meant the public needed less protection from them than from the great multiples. The argument concerns the position of firms, though, not the vulnerability of their staff.

On representation, however, the available evidence points in the opposite direction. Usdaw’s own submission to the council sets out longstanding recognition agreements with Tesco, Asda, Co-op, Primark and Sainsbury’s, so the restricted employers are precisely those with established collective bargaining. Across the United Kingdom in 2025, 28.1 per cent of employees in workplaces of fifty or more were union members, with a union presence in 65.4 per cent of such workplaces, compared with 15.2 per cent membership and 31.9 per cent presence in smaller workplaces. Headcount and floor area are not the same measure, and some large-floor-area shops employ very few people. But whatever the 280-square-metre line tracks, it is not the absence of representation.

The 1997 Order did protect workers through a separate limb. Schedule 2 confers rights that attach to the person and are enforceable before an industrial tribunal, which is the more natural vehicle, because such rights follow the worker wherever they are employed, whereas a trading restriction reaches only those inside premises that meet a statutory definition. Doubts about whether that limb works are as old as the Order itself: Cope thought the equivalent Great Britain protection was widely regarded as ineffective, Dubs put the number of tribunal cases since 1994 at around thirty, and Lord Molyneaux described employers dismissing staff who had been given only verbal assurances about conscientious objection. The council’s own report concedes that the protections attach to Sunday working as such rather than to particular hours, and that workers contracted solely for Sundays have limited cover. A defender of the present law might take those failures as a reason for keeping the restriction, on the grounds that a rule closing the doors protects people who would never bring a tribunal claim. That is the serious version of the argument, and it concedes what is at issue: the restriction is being asked to compensate for a weak employment right rather than to do its own work.

A concern about worker protection, therefore, points towards employment legislation rather than trading restrictions. The council’s report itself notes that the Republic of Ireland operates effectively deregulated Sunday trading alongside a Code of Practice on Sunday Working in the Retail Trade, which lacks the force of law but is admissible before the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court. A voluntary charter of the kind Belfast drafted in 2018 is not a substitute for that.

Conscience needs a right, not a rule about floor space

Religious observance raises the same question in a sharper form. A person who will not work on the Lord’s Day deserves an enforceable personal right, not a market regulation that happens to shield some of them. Parliament understood the difficulty in 1997. The 1994 Act’s provision allowing large shops closed on the Jewish Sabbath to open freely on Sunday was omitted from the Northern Ireland Order because Dubs advised that it would offend section 17 of the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973, which voided provisions discriminating on grounds of religious belief or political opinion. Accommodating observance by differentiating between premises was a problem then, and it is now, whatever the position. And this is not secular Belfast versus religious Belfast: 64 per cent of respondents from a Protestant community background supported the extension. A stronger opt-out would protect observant workers wherever they work, including the many already serving in small shops while large stores remain shut.

Scope is the council’s to decide

The Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) makes a competition objection, and part of it is right. A citywide designation is not supported by a rationale based solely on city-centre footfall, hotel occupancy, and St George’s Market, and would principally benefit suburban supermarkets. That is an argument about scope, which is the council’s to decide, and it should be conceded: designate the city centre for the full thirteen weeks, monitor it properly, and press separately for strengthened opt-out rights. Translink states plainly that it has no funding to extend Sunday services and takes no position on the policy. That is a cost, and it bears on the phasing of any extension, but the gap would exist under any liberalisation and explains nothing about floor area.

A framework asked to do four things at once

The concerns are genuine. The trouble is that several distinct questions have become trapped inside a single provision, because no other provision is available to anyone below Stormont. Neither the threshold nor the hours has been amended since 1997, and the last occasion on which the Assembly seriously considered doing so was 2011, when officials told the Social Development Committee that the Minister, Nelson McCausland, regarded the existing hours as an enforceable compromise and was minded not to change them. Even a Christmas Day trading ban, which drew very strong support in the same 2011 consultation, was never brought forward, and Northern Ireland still lacks the equivalent of the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004.

Before deciding whether Sunday trading should change, Northern Ireland should be clear about what the present law is designed to achieve. A framework assembled from one compromise on shop size and another on Sunday morning is now expected to protect shop workers, religious observance, independent retailers, and the city centre at once. Until that is acknowledged, the argument will continue to be conducted through a holiday resort designation, because it is available, rather than through the instrument suited to the problems people actually want solved.

Sources: Shops (Sunday Trading &c.) (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, SI 1997/2779 (N.I. 20); HL Deb 20 November 1997, vol 583, cc 670–81; Belfast City Council, Sunday Openings 2026 consultation report, Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, 22 May 2026; Department for Business and Trade, Trade union membership, UK, 1995 to 2025: statistical bulletin; Northern Ireland Assembly, Committee for Social Development, review of Sunday trading laws, 8 September 2011.

This is the first of a series of four posts reviewing the strength and depth of our four senior men’s provincial rugby teams for next season starting next month.

The first thing to say about the Connacht squad is that it is well balanced with thirteen of the fifteen likely starters full Irish internationals and some of the bench as well. 39 players is on the small side for a senior professional squad, and they are a bit light on numbers in case of injuries in the second and back rows and among their “fast twitch” players in the back three.

Nevertheless, they were happy to let go locks Joe Joyce (to Gloucester) and Oisin Dowling (retired /injured), flanker Oisin McCormac (released), centre David Hawkshaw (released) and wing Chay Mullins (to Ulster). The front row is a particular area of strength despite losing props Denis Buckley (to retirement), Peter Dooley (Leinster), Jack Aungier (Munster) and Temi Lasisi (released). Jack Carty has retired, but they were annoyed to lose the exciting Mathew Devine to Ulster. He is one of the fastest players in Irish rugby and should give Nathan Doak a run for his money at scrum half.

Stuart Lancaster has recruited well. Francois Van Wyk (34) has over 200 caps for Western Force, Northampton, Leicester, and Bath and should provide some good mentoring and cover for the emerging Billy Bohan. Jerry Cahir held his end up well as emergency cover during Leinster’s crunch fixtures towards the end of last season. Ciaran Frawley and Will Connors are excellent replacements for Jack Carty and Oisin McCormac.

The Connacht academy has been producing some excellent talent of late, and the newly promoted Billy Bohan, Mathew Victory, Fiachna Barrett, and Seán Naughton look to be very good prospects. Local man, tighthead Thomas Connolly was recruited from AIL club Old Belvedere.

So overall Connacht look in very good shape for next season – barring a big run of injuries in the same position. They have a blend of experienced players and emerging talent with Bohan, Illo, Darragh Murray, Sean Jansen, Shayne Bolton and Hugh Gavin capped by Ireland last year. Academy players Diarmaid O’Connell, Éanna McCarthy, Sean Walsh and Daniel Ryan impressed for the Ireland u.20’s and should see game time with the senior team during the season.

Stuart Lancaster has a way of improving players and teams, the longer he has with them, and Connacht improved a lot as last season progressed. If they can continue that momentum, they should be a force to be reckoned with in the URC next season and pose a serious challenge to any opposition.

They are in a tough group in the Champions Cup with Toulouse, La Rochelle, Saracens, and Exeter and so will probably struggle to qualify for the knock-out stages. However, I wouldn’t put it past them to cause the odd upset or two and go on to do well in the Challenge Cup. In any case Connacht supporters have some mouth-watering matches to look forward to.

Predictions: Top 8 and knock-out stages of the URC, and a good run in the Challenge Cup – always assuming they can avoid a run of injuries in a specialist position.

Nine months out from an assembly and local election, Northern Ireland’s electorate is contemplating redrawing the political map. This week’s widely reported LucidTalk poll saw Sinn Féin (22%), the DUP (15%) and the Alliance Party (10%) all drop to five-year low levels of support at the expense of a resurgent UUP (16%) and SDLP (13%). This aligns with national trends in Great Britain, where Reform UK and the Green Party are threatening to end the Labour-Conservative duopoly. Like all polls, they are reflective of a moment in time and should be understood as a sense checker in a turbulent political environment, and not as a firm prediction of how votes will be cast in next May’s elections.

That being said, its omen is significant for the main three Executive parties. The DUP has been usurped by the UUP for the first time since August 2021, with the political fallout from Donaldson’s conviction for child sex offences. The party’s forthcoming independent review, the sentencing of Donaldson and his appeal of the conviction make it far more difficult to course-correct, than after the removal of Arlene Foster and Edwin Poots as leader. While Sinn Féin remain on course to be returned as the largest party and retain the position of First Minister, they now face the prospect of a 7% drop in support since the 2022 election. There are signs that Michelle O’Neill’s time as First Minister has not delivered expected results; with 4 in 10 of Sinn Féin’s own voters viewing the downscaling of Casement Park as a political failure. The party will be strongly incentivised to take the Communities portfolio next time round to firm up support within their base vote. Meanwhile, Alliance now sit in sixth place, polling at just 10%, placing their 2022 electoral gains at significant risk and potentially serving to reignite speculation on Naomi Long’s future as party leader, after almost a decade of service.

A rejuvenated UUP under the leadership of Jon Burrows has plenty to celebrate, with current polling levels last replicated as far back as 2007, placing them in the driving seat for gains at the Assembly level next May. This is the departures of high-profile former leaders Mike Nesbitt and Doug Beattie. With conflict between the party’s leadership and its MLA team an open secret, this poll and recent strong personal support for Jon Burrows may now embolden him to shape the party in his image. Candidate selections continue ahead of party conference season in late September. These will be crucial in determining whether he can turn increased support into more seats. Likewise, the SDLP’s uptick in support has vindicated its approach to form the first opposition since 2016. Matthew O’Toole’s performance as Leader of the Opposition and Claire Hanna’s pivot as party leader has recaptured support lost to Alliance in 2022. However, they may now be wise to avoid becoming trapped by two competing currents: a pressure to translate time in opposition into an Executive ministry, and their previous comments criticising Alliance for re-entering the Executive without reform of the institutions.

The UUP, SDLP and Alliance are all contemplating the prospect of entering opposition, and the TUV has a longstanding refusal to serve in a Government with Sinn Féin. The probability of a two-party SF-DUP Executive looks significantly higher than previously thought. This eventuality would place the two larger parties under significant pressure to work together to prioritise legislative delivery, enact public service reform and maintain a sustainable financial position. If the latest opinion poll was reflected in an election, Sinn Féin and the DUP could end up forming a minority government, for the first time in Northern Ireland’s history. Arguably this would provide the UUP, SDLP and Alliance with more leverage in opposition, as legislation would have to be negotiated on an individual basis, rather than being a smaller party in an NI Executive dominated by two political heavyweights.

What you need to know

I understand the point JFK was making about people working together for the common good; he was seeking to invoke a sense of unity, belonging and loyalty at a time when the potential for conflict with the Soviet Union was growing.  During the long conflict that we refer to as the Troubles, tribal loyalty was strong on both sides and people were expected to be loyal to their side; often there were negative and sometimes violent consequences for not sticking with your own side.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, it has been accepted that people are now free to peacefully choose their own nationality. We can collectively choose an Irish future or a British future. Like P7 children who have to choose which secondary school to attend, we would be daft not to attend the ‘open days’ and listen to the talks in advance. We should weigh the options before we have to choose our future direction.

Such exploration of the options is very unpopular within my unionist community; there is still a strong disapproval of anyone listening to those who would tell us that the grass would be greener on the other side – this is seen as ‘disloyal’. On last Friday’s BBC Talkback I heard Ben Lowry describe unionists attending Ireland’s Future events as ‘Sinn Féin puppets’.

For some, national identity is ideological, it is not about assessing which option offers the best for our people.  This translates into voting for parties that put ideology before good government such as Sinn Féin and the DUP, and look how well that is going at Stormont.

Make no mistake, many unionists feel Irish unity would be a horrible experience; I have heard it described as being like the death of our national identity.

If you stop to think about it, most of us are not frightened of being dead; rather, we are all very much afraid of the process of dying. Similarly, while most of us know that we could exist perfectly well with an Irish passport and an Irish government, we very much fear the chaos and disruption that the process of creating a united Ireland would bring.

Ben Lowry has stated that that Brexit did not encourage as big an increase in support for Irish unity as he had feared, and I suspect it is because Brexit was so disorganised and so badly planned that people fear a repeat of that mess. Brexit has put some people off the idea of living through constitutional change.

Given that we live in a place where a Border Poll is likely at some stage and that we will be asked to choose our constitutional future, choosing not to attend talks, investigate the issues or ask hard questions amounts to wilful carelessness.

Before we have to make a choice, we should be asking

• What can Irish unity do for me, and
• What can retaining the union do for me

Just two rules. Keep it civil and no man/woman playing.

Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.

So discuss what you like here, but no politics.

Comments will close at 12 pm on Monday.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Who could not be inspired by the opening words of the American Declaration of Independence signed by Congress on the 4^{th of} July 1776.

For a very different take consider what the celebrated escaped slave, Frederick Douglass had to say in 1852.

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him … the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

Let us explore where it all went wrong.

But first back to beginnings and the glorious dawn, one in which Ulster Presbyterians played a significant part.

At least four of the 56 signatories to the Declaration of Independence were first generation immigrants from Ulster. One of them, Charles Thomson, born in Maghera in 1729 arrived as a penniless orphan in 1739. Evidently a hugely talented man he became a lawyer. He was notable and unusual in his advocacy on behalf of the native Indians who called him ‘the man who speaks the truth’. From the outset he was a supporter of the revolutionary cause and served as secretary to the Continental Congress.

The Declaration of Independence was printed by John Dunlap from Strabane.

The influence went further back than that. Francis Hutcheson from Saintfield was the most influential Irish radical philosopher of the 18^th century. While running a dissenting academy in Dublin in the 1720’s he wrote his major philosophical works.

Amongst his propositions perhaps two were crucial: ‘That humanity should seek ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’. Vitally in the context of developing events in the 18^th century he argued that ‘the people have the right of defending themselves against the abuse of power’ and carried that proposition further arguing that colonists ‘may justifiably constitute themselves into an independent state… if the mother country attempts anything oppressive towards a colony… the colony is not bound to remain subject any longer’.

Hutcheson was appointed to the influential position of Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University in 1729 and inspired a generation of students destined for the Presbyterian ministry in Ireland and others who emigrated to the American colonies. His texts were taught at the leading American universities, and the leaders of the American revolution were influenced by his work. Amongst them was Thomas Jefferson who played the leading role in drawing up the Declaration of Independence.

It has been estimated that during the eighteenth century as many as 200,000 Presbyterians emigrated to the future United States. One cause of their disaffection was the religious disabilities they suffered. The legitimacy of their marriages and funerals was called into question and they were disbarred from public office. Although these restrictions often remained in abeyance the threat remained.

More significantly their hardships on the land triggered particular peaks in emigration. Successive bad harvests could be a push factor, but rack-renting by the great landlords led to acute hardship and pervasive discontent.

From the 1750’s onwards these grievances accelerated. Many families who had arrived from Scotland in the 1690’s had been granted leases on relatively generous terms. By mid-century those leases were running out and rents had trebled. Now landlords, and notably the Donegalls in County Antrim, seized the opportunity to demand large fines equal to three or four times the annual rent for the renewal of leases. These were often beyond the means of sitting tenants who faced eviction when their leases were taken on by moneyed middlemen.

The situation was exacerbated by crop failures and a recession in the linen trade in 1770-1772. It was a situation which sparked the emergence of an agrarian resistance movement and mainly in County Antrim, the Hearts of Steel.

They described their circumstances thus;

… they have reduced us to such a deplorable state by such grievous oppressions that the poor is turned black in the face , and the skin parched on their back, that they are rendered incapable to support their starving families, that nature is but barely supported, that they have not even food, nor yet raiment to secure them from the extremities of the weather…

In December 1770 one of their leaders, David Douglas of Templepatrick was arrested. His followers determined to secure his release and marched 1,200 strong on Belfast. There they first wrecked the house of Waddell Cunningham, a leading merchant and middleman. The military fired on them killing three but they refused to disperse.

The situation was so threatening that the Sovereign was forced to release Douglas.

It was a temporary reprieve as the Lord Lieutenant issued a proclamation and warrants were issued for the arrest of many of the ring leaders, though landlords were to be disappointed by the unwillingness of juries to convict.

It was against this background that between 1770 and 1774 at least 12,000 Presbyterians emigrated to the American colonies.

One well documented exodus involved some 1,000 members of mainly covenanting families from districts including Ballymena, Ballymoney, Kellswater and Vow who sailed to South Carolina in 5 ships between August and September 1772. This was an exodus that can then be directly connected to support for the American revolution.

The movement was led by the Rev. William Martin, Minister at Kellswater, and a prominent figure in covenanting circles. It may have been triggered by conflict between members of his congregation and bailiffs and he preached warning that they were threatened by evictions and poverty.

He himself had received a call from his co-religionists already in South Carolina. Now in December 1771 he advertised in the Belfast News-Letter inviting ‘well disposed families that have a design to embrace this favourable opportunity to go to a country where they may enjoy the comforts of life in abundance, with the free exercise of their religious sentiments’.

The emigrants on arrival enjoyed a free allocation of land with heads of families securing 100 acres each and other adult members of each family 50 acres. As early as 1773 Martin was able to erect his own covenanting church.

Although their settlement had been of only a few years duration they knew where their loyalties lay once the American War of Independence broke out and reached South Carolina. In 1780 Martin preached a sermon describing how ‘their ancestors had been driven out of Scotland and Ireland; how they had come here and made a new life and were free, only for the British to try to deprive them of everything again’. He encouraged the recruitment of two companies of militia to resist.

Retribution followed; he was arrested and his house and church were burnt down but following the British defeat he was to re-emerge in a prominent if sometimes controversial role.

More generally the later migrants had often found themselves consigned to virgin territories on the western edge of existing settlement where they became battle hardened in periodic conflict with the native Indians.

Thus, it was that they were central to a crucial victory in the revolutionary war, the Battle of King’s Mountain, on the border between North and South Carolina in October 1780. The Patriot militia described as ‘the Overmountain men’ routed a Loyalist militia force. 43 of the patriot force have been identified as having been born in Ulster, and some were young recent immigrants with 21 having been born after 1750. Thomas Jefferson described this as ‘’the turn of the tide of success’. Indeed, it put an end to Loyalist hopes in the south east and ultimately led to Cornwallis’s entrapment and surrender at Yorktown in 1781. This in turn led to the overall British defeat in the war.

More generally it has been estimated that at least one third of the patriot army came from an Ulster Presbyterian background.

Constitutionally the new and emerging nation was initially governed by the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union adopted in 1781, however these were wholly inadequate for purpose as they gave the federal government no taxation powers, a crucial matter when it came to maintaining an army, and provided no central mandate for conducting foreign affairs.

Thus it was that a constitutional convention was summoned in May 1787 and by September it had agreed a new constitution. This was influenced by English common law including the legacy of the Magna Carta, and by enlightenment thinkers such as David Hume, John Locke and Montesquie.

It was a wholly republican constitution and it provided for a separation of powers between the elected House of Representatives, the Senate, and the President, with judicial oversight provided by the Supreme Court.

However the constitution contained within it an enduring taint. This was a slave owning democracy. Washington, Jefferson and even Benjamin Franklin all owned slaves. 70% of congressmen at their first meeting were slave owners. While northern leaders believed that slavery would fade away and did not wish to enshrine provision for it in the constitution, the six southern states refused to sign up unless slave owning was provided for.

This was done in spades. Although slaves were denied the vote it was agreed that they could be counted to three-fifths of their number in determining the electoral weight of each state, a provision that advantaged the slave owning states, indeed in the first congress the slave owning states commanded 45% of the seats in the House of Representatives It also included a provision for the return of escaped slaves to their masters, and permitted the continuance of the African slave trade until 1808.

So it was that one of Frances Hutcheson’s moral strictures – that slavery was ‘a reason for abhorrence and indignation’ was wholly evaded.

On a more positive note some states demanded further protections for individual rights and the first ten amendments to the constitution carried in 1791 constituted a Bill of Rights though these hardly applied to slaves.

Given circumstances in Ireland it was understandable that Presbyterians almost universally welcomed the American revolution and the new constitution. They did so entirely uncritically. Thus the United Irish Northern Star did indeed declare that ‘every breeze from the west brings us news of fair liberty’. Their increasingly estranged and conservative opponents led by William Bruce and Henry Joy in their 1794 ‘Thoughts on the British Constitution’ did look at the new American constitution and declared in its favour. For them ‘it is a declaration in writing of most of the primary principles of that very British one …’ and was ‘deservedly boasted, and well calculated… for the manners of the inhabitants’. This was surprising because in defending the British constitution they had proclaimed the virtues of an hereditary monarchy and of a largely hereditary House of Lords. Clearly the American constitution had done away with any hereditary element.

It may be that it was in response to Bruce and Joy’s publication that the Northern Star in September 1794 published an article entitled ‘Striking Resemblances Between the British and American Constitutions’. Perhaps the author did accept the structural similarities between the two constitutions but was certainly writing with tongue in cheek when he referred to the ‘few trifling’ differences between the two.

Thus amongst other things ‘the King can make peace or war, while the President cannot… The King can prevent any law from being enacted, which the President cannot’. Furthermore the King cost £2 million a year while the President had a salary of £4,000.

The British House of Lords was hereditary while the American Senate was elected as was the American House of Representatives. Meanwhile members of the British House of Commons represented ‘their own money’, and two thirds of them enjoyed government appointments.

Finally the Americans had already amended their constitution at a peoples convention while in Britain to suggest such a thing was an act of treason.

We need not doubt that the author’s final sentence in which he declared that ‘the English constitution is deservedly the wonder of the world’ was deeply satirical.

Neither the United Irishmen nor their opponents saw fit to criticise the skewing of the American constitution in favour of slavery!

It was only in the nineteenth century and from 1830 onwards that the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society became increasingly strident in its criticism of the American constitution and the actual extension of American slavery. As the United States expanded a subsequent compromise was made by which any new slavery free state had to be matched by one where slavery was permitted. Thus by 1860 the original 6 slavery states had expanded to 15.

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act particularly enraged abolitionists as it made the provision of any assistance to an escaped slave a criminal act. Worse still in 1857 in an infamous case the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent. Thus even in states that had abolished slavery blacks were to be denied citizenship. It was no accident that the Chief Justice who wrote this judgement which helped trigger the Civil War was himself a slave owner and advocate of slavery.

We deservedly make much of the Presbyterian pioneers from Ulster and their role in the American revolution but we are less frank about their role in slavery or indeed in the extirpation of the native Indians

Take the first of those American presidents with Ulster connections that we so uncritically laud, Andrew Jackson who was President from 1829 – 1837 and who was controversial even in his own time.

He was the one with the most immediate Ulster connection. His parents had emigrated from Boneybefore near Carrickfergus in 1765 and he was born just two years later. He was unusual for his humble beginnings as his parents died at an early stage. Their family home in Ulster is a visitor centre, but I do wonder what legacy visitors find there?

Jackson made his mark in early conflicts with Indians but became famous for his role as the general leading the American forces in the crucial defeat of the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1814. During his lifetime he owned 5 plantations and between 95 and 150 slaves and whipped them as punishment. Applying hickory oil was a euphemism for whipping and hence Jackson’s nickname ‘old hickory’.

Jackson was also a key figure in encouraging the western expansion of white settlement at the expense of the native Indians. He signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which legislated for the removal of all Indians east of the Mississipi. This led to the expulsion of the Cherokees in a mid winter forced march in which 4,000 of the 16,000 expelled died, an episode that became known as the ‘Trail of tears’.

For a truly horrifying account of the interaction of frontier settlers and the Indians we have to travel to Pennsylvania earlier in the 18^th century. Presbyterians immigrating from Ulster had found Puritan New England hostile territory and flocked to Pennysylvania with its more tolerant Quaker regime. In 1720 the administration there thought it had found a use for these new arrivals – ‘We were apprehensive from the northern Indians… [and] thought it prudent to plant a settlement’ but they found these Ulster settlers ungovernable – ‘[They] alleged that it was against the laws of God And nature, that such land should be idle, while so many Christians wanted to labour on it, and raise their bread’.

Inevitably tensions arose and in December 1763, buoyed up by the view that Indians were ‘Canaanite’s’, the settlers, now described as the Paxton Boys, engaged in an unprovoked attack on the Indian village of Conestoga Town where they massacred the inhabitants. Some Indians escaped and found shelter in the neighbouring Lancaster Workhouse. They were pursued there and massacred. The Paxton Boys now 300 strong marched on Philadelphia intending to put to death all Indians found there.

None other than Benjamin Franklin managed to mobilise a larger militia force to halt the advance of the Paxton Boys who agreed to disperse when it was agreed that they should submit their complaints in writing. Their argument was predictable – ‘All Indians are perfidious and deserving of annhilation…’ They also wanted a bounty for Indian scalps.

Benjamin Franklin’s verdict was emphatic – ‘The Indians would have been safe among any other people on earth, no matter how primitive, except these Christian white savages’.

Much later poetic justice was meted out on the leaders of the Paxton boys. They sided with the Patriots in the revolutionary war and in July 1778 were killed in what became called the Wyoming Massacre. It was Indian warriors fighting on the loyalist side who did the deed.

That instinct to settle beyond existing frontiers, to colonise new terrain extended beyond the Indians. It can be seen in the expansion into what became Texas and in involvement in the Mexican War of 1846 – 1848. One cannot argue a direct connection but surely some of the seeds of the insatiable United States empire building lie here..

Returning to the issue of slavery the Belfast Anti-Slavery Society which was primarily driven by evangelical Protestants increasingly focussed on the role of the American churches. The issue came to the fore during the visit of the Frederick Douglass, in 1845. It transpired that the Free Church of Scotland had been raising funds from slave owning Presbyterians in the southern states. Now he urged ‘send the money back’ in excoriating terms –

A man becomes the more cruel the more the religious element is perverted in him…if they are woman-whippers, cradle-plunderers, and man-stealers before their conversion, they are women-whippers, cradle-plunderers, and man stealers after it, and religion is to them but an additional stimulant to re-enact their atrocious deeds.

The Belfast body supported the refusal of communion with Presbyterian supporters of slavery. In the United States the church actually split on the issue and southern Presbyterian rudely rebuffed approaches from the Irish General Assembly on the matter.. It also turned out that many Baptists and Methodists were equally guilty.

In September 1853 another American visitor, a Mr McKim, Secretary of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society, identified another problem;

He had met many persons in this country who were for abolition, but who, as hundreds of others had done on arriving at the other side of the Atlantic, afterwards threw up these feelings, on the change in their position when they went to the United States – in fact, then they became the patrons of the slave system.

That was why Mary Ann McCracken at the age of 89 was to be found in 1859 handing out anti-slavery leaflets to those embarking on an emigrant ship.

McKim’s allegation was a matter of fact; Ulster men who settled in the south, and including former United Irishmen, were amongst those who became slave owners. One example was John Neilson from Ballycarry who settled in Virginia and became a prominent architect working for both Presidents Jefferson and Madison. When he died in 1827 he left ‘eleven slaves’. He had maintained contact with the McCracken family and nominated none other than Mary Ann as executor of his will.

Meanwhile at the lowest level the Irish found themselves in competition with blacks and could even be the underdogs. One traveller reported how he had seen black slaves throwing bales of cotton off a bluff to a Mississipi barge where Irish labourers were expected to catch them at great peril. The witness asked the owner why he put the Irish in danger and got the reply that the slaves were worth money while the Irish were worth nothing.

At the time of the American Civil War the Irish fought on both sides, indeed there were specifically Irish regiments on each side. An estimated 150,000 fought on the union side, while 20,000 fought for the Confederacy. The disparity in numbers arose because the huge weight of immigration from the famine onwards, and overwhelmingly of Catholics, arrived in the north.

On the Confederate side 16 colonels were Irish. Few of them actually owned slaves, but an exception was Jack Thorington who had been born in Armagh in 1810 and became a lawyer in Montgomery, Alabama. As per the 1860 census he owned 33 slaves and no less than 20 of them were children aged 12 or under. One is bound to ask was he breeding up slaves for sale?

Of course the most notorious Irish supporter of the Confederacy was the Young Irelander, John Mitchel, originally from a Unitarian background in Newry. Already celebrated in Irish circles for his dramatic escape from Van Dieman’s Land as recounted in his best-seller, the Jail Journal, he not only supported slavery but advocated the re-opening of the African slave trade and he sacrificed two of his sons in the Confederate cause.

Meanwhile Mitchel’s fellow Young Irelander and escapee from Van Dieman’s Land, Thomas Francis Meagher, became general of a celebrated Irish brigade on the Union side, almost all of whom were Catholics.

While the Catholic church formally opposed slavery that had not been the case with many of its American adherents. Daniel O’Connell, in contrast to his Young Ireland opponents, had been an outspoken opponent of slavery. When some slave owning supporters of his campaign for the repeal of the union sent him funds he sent the money back.

While newly arrived Catholics formed the core of Irish recruitment to the Union army one should not assume that they actually supported black emancipation. Irish immigrants were at the heart of the draft riots in New York in the summer of 1863 that turned into an anti-black pogrom.

A century later there were echoes of these attitudes when Bernadette Devlin arrived as the heroine of the Irish civil rights struggle and was ceremonially given the keys to New York. She went to Harlem and gave them to the Black Panthers. Cue Irish American outrage. It was one thing to sing ‘We shall overcome’ as part of the Irish struggle; it was quite another thing to insist that it’s message should apply for blacks in the United States.

After the Union victory black slavery was finally abolished in 1865. No such liberty was extended to the native Indians who suffered from broken treaties and wars of extermination. They only gained automatic citizenship in 1924 but continued to suffer from policies of ethnic cleansing including sterilisation and the seizure of their children for placement in Christian boarding schools right up to the 1970’s.

For blacks the emancipation of 1865 was to prove a false dawn. Initially the Federal government sought to force through reform or ‘Reconstruction’ in the south but in 1876 there was a very closely contested Presidential election. It was only in 1877 that a corrupt deal was done by which the southern Democrats accepted the Republican victory but on condition that federal forces were withdrawn from the south.

Thus the federal government abandoned Reconstruction and left the outcome in the hands of state governments. What were called the Jim Crow laws were adopted in the southern states which dictated segregation and placed huge obstacles to black suffrage compounded by the actual violence of the Klu Klux Klan. These injustices were only resolved by Supreme Court judgements and new constitutional amendments in 1964 and 1965.

There are still major loopholes which impede American democracy. At state level the re-location of polling facilities far from disadvantaged communities is designed to dissuade them from voting. President Trump’s efforts to increase the requirements for voter registration could have the same effect. Gerrymandering or the re-drawing of the boundaries of electoral districts is still in fashion. I had thought that we invented gerrymandering. Not so. The term is named after a Governor of Massachusetts, one Eldridge Gerry, who in 1812 re-designed an electoral district shaped like a salamander. You see – Gerry and mander!

Although the courts have been increasingly cowed during Trump’s reign that is not enough. He has made use of Presidential pardons to release many who by any reasonable assessment were guilty of serious crimes. Conversely he has misused the judicial system to instigate the prosecution of political opponents and often on wholly specious grounds.

Fundamental to the disfunction of the American political system is the way that big money determines outcomes. It was ever thus. The Presidential campaigns in 2024 spent 5.5 billion dollars. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that no viable Labour Party ever emerged to challenge the big two, both parties of capital.

It must be a mystery to all of us as to why the Americans cannot impose appropriate gun laws. That second amendment to the constitution granting the right to bear arms was passed when people still remembered being unarmed at the time of the revolutionary war. Now the National Rifle Association is paymaster of millions of dollars to enough congressmen to ensure that the two thirds majority needed to repeal the second amendment can never be achieved, and so the annual slaughter of innocents in homes, on streets, in colleges and schools goes on.

Particularly in present circumstances it may seem bewildering that United States support for Israel’s genocidal actions in Palestine and now the Lebanon seems unshakeable. The millions of dollars provided to politicians by The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Christians United for Israel no doubt help seal the deal.

Any number of metrics suggest that the United States is a fundamentally unequal and unjust society. It has the highest level of income inequality in the developed world. Although it is the richest nation in the world 11% of the population or 37 million people live in poverty, and 28% of the population are functionally illiterate. Americans have the lowest life expectancy in the developed world. It is the only such country where the death penalty still reigns, and has a prison population of two million which is larger than that of some states.

There are inevitable and virtuous links between the United States and Ireland but too many suggest that we should go a step further and adopt their societal model. That way disaster would lie.

The curren6 disastrous Iran war threatens finally to undermine the imperial ambitions of the United States. It was easy in 1846 when they went to war with Mexico and annexed California and other future states. It was easy too in 1898 when they went to war with Spain and established their hegemony over Cuba and the Phillipines, or in 1953 when they collaborated with the British when they overthrew Mohammed Mossaddegh, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, because he embarked on the nationalisation of the oil industry.

It is of course in the Americas that they demand particular allegiance. It was in in 1973 that they engineered the overthrow of President Allende’s left wing government in Chile in favour of the torturing dictator, Pinochet. It was even easy to decapitate Chavez’s Venezuelan government and to secure that country’s oil. Let us forget the absurdity of Trump’s claims on Canada. More seriously he appears to be intent on overthrowing the Cuban regime by literally starving the country of essential resources. Imperfect that government may be but it did replace the corrupt and brutal Batista regime that the Americans supported.

The new Iranian war is more in line of succession to the disastrous wars in Vietnam, and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. These have increasingly shown that military might alone applied without any sensitivity to the arena involved ultimately fails.

And who is the United States answerable too if in the course of these ventures it shall we say oversteps the mark. It has for long rejected the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over American personnel. Trump has gone a step further by imposing sanctions on the judges of the court.

He defies the rule of law both at home and abroad.

Of course emigrating to the United States was a magnetic draw for those living in dire poverty or facing direct persecution in other countries. They did not seek perfection, rather they merely sought the possibility of a better future and many actually achieved that outcome in a country that rapidly expanded across the continent while simultaneously industrialising.

As the lines on the Statue of Liberty put it;

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Not now in the era of the Mexican wall and kidnappings carried out by ICE on American streets.

Despite all my reservations about what happened afterwards we must recognise the American Declaration of Independence as a landmark moment in human history and the American Constitution adopted in 1787 as the first modern republican constitution. Ulster Presbyterians certainly played a significant part in these developments and in the revolutionary war and those who stayed at home were in turn inspired by them.

And what of that unwritten British constitution that was in part a model for the American one. When Americans demonstrate against Donald Trump bearing banners saying ‘no kings’, I am reminded that we still have the anachronism of an hereditary monarch and his dysfunctional family. We still have a bloated House of Lords where some hereditary peers hang on, bishops sit, and much of the remaining number are the nominees of failed prime ministers or the cronies of others. I could go on.

So what of the American Ulster Scots now? Over two and a half centuries the links grow fainter. In the 2000 census only 1.5% of Americans defined themselves as Ulster Scots. Of course the early settlers merely defined themselves as Irish and the Ulster Scots designation was an invention of the late nineteenth century. It does not seem to have stuck in the United States. In other ways old bonds loosened, thus many Presbyterians left that strict discipline for the warmer embrace of the Baptists and Methodists. As with other immigrant groups many came simply to see themselves as Americans.

But the question does arise as to how those who still claim Ulster Presbyterian descent view Donald Trump’s co-option of God in pursuit of bloody war, indeed how he takes on the mantle of Christ himself? It is of course a problem for American Catholics of Irish descent too – many appear to have been ensnared by Trump’s moral conservatism despite his personal immorality. Now that he has attacked the Pope will they waiver?

One then comes up against a harsh reality – that no constitution can offer an absolute defence against tyranny where that tyranny has a popular mandate. There is no question that Trump won the popular vote in securing a second term as President, and in securing majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, he removed key checks and balances on his conduct. In the meantime by packing the Supreme Court he at least partially disabled the last line of defence as was evident in a judgement just this year diluting some of the protections of the 1965 Civil Rights Act, and another confirming the right of the President to dismiss the heads of supposedly independent state agencies, and, unsurprisingly, he immediately dismissed the non-partisan leaders of the Federal Election Oversight Agency.

It does have to be acknowledged that the court, however conservative, has baulked at some of Trump’s most outrageous proposals, and most notably his attempt to remove the automatic right to American citizenship of those born in the country.

Some rather apocalyptically see parallels with the Weimar Republic and the rise of Hitler. A feature of that disaster was the way that conservatives foolishly thought that they could tame Hitler and helped clear his rise to power. One could say the same of many American Republicans with regard to Donald Trump.

And yet quite recently we have seen how a popular democratic revolt in the face of a rigged constitution can succeed. Victor Orban’s 16 year semi dictatorship in Hungary in the name of a white Christian order had seemed unassailable and yet he was overthrown in a landslide victory for the opposition. Trump had made no bones about backing Orban – ‘I am with him all the way’. Let us hope that Orban’s downfall is a harbinger for a similar revolt in the United States.

Even at this 250^th anniversary can one detect that Trump’s overreach has gone too far? He seized control of the anniversary celebrations from a bipartisan congressional committee, and handed the organisation to a private company. Perhaps it was the wrath of God that was evident in an oppressive heatwave and thunderstorms. Much of his programme became a monumental flop.

Perhaps some Americans of Ulster Presbyterian lineage will now play a part in another and peaceful rebellion, and alongside those from a Catholic or non-religious background, or is that too much to hope. I do speak in solidarity with the many fine Americans who I have known and who have given me and mine hospitality and who say ‘not in my name’. That includes my half sister, now an American citizen, and her family in Brooklyn, New York. Their struggle continues.

Northern Ireland Secretary Sir Chris Bryant has said that an Irish border poll is “not top of my list of priorities”…Pressed on whether he believes a united Ireland will happen, Sir Chris said: “I believe a lot of things.“I am deliberately avoiding answering the question. “I am not starting the poll now, or this week, or this month, or I will suggest this year.”

This is of course unsurprising. Whenever a new Secretary of State is appointed, Nationalist politicians predictably call for a border poll and, just as predictably, the new Secretary of State rules it out. It’s almost a traditional element of establishing a relationship. It is possible Bryant was slightly more eager to decisively rule a poll out given that when he was Shadow Culture Secretary in 2024 he told Sky News that ‘a vote may come at some point‘. Whilst his comments are not a contradiction of his words from back then, they do mean the issue remains in the deep freeze.

However it wasn’t only Nationalists that he disappointed, Unionists were in for a letdown as well. Questioned by the Newsletter regarding the Windsor Framework he responded that…

“I’m determined to exploit those as much as I possibly can. And I’ve already… been talking to some of my trade counterparts in other countries in the world about how we can talk about more investment into Northern Ireland”.

Róisin Whyte provided a support act, singing primarily her own songs while playing guitar. For example, her second song was The Purple Hand Gang, with its theme of blackberries (appropriately enough) and pickers identifiable by purple hands. Whyte’s fifth and final song was a cover version of “Star Star”, as a tribute to the recently deceased Glen Hansard.

Fagan-Thiébot introduced herself with an explanation behind the main theme of a blackberry path:

“The Blackberry Path is a time capsule; a place of dappled light, where the Atlantic Ocean can lull you into a thousand Donegal dreams, only to catch you off guard and pull you under a relentless, rolling wave.

“Though we each have our own path to follow, in this moment, we are all here, together, travelling.

“The world can be a heavy place to live. We each carry that weight.

“Growing up, here, in the ‘80s and ‘90s — the things we couldn’t say hung in the air, diminishing pieces of us.”

Before playing her first song, La Fosse, she described how when she was a teenager, she escaped to France and spent her summers working in a guesthouse on the Breton coastline. She found this place, La Fosse, setting a “new normal”: “afternoon sea swimming, evening picnics on the beach, and nights danced away to Alanis Morrisette and The Fugees”. Fagan-Thiébot added that she learned that “hate” is never the right word, saw inclusion and diversity, and felt acceptance.

Before singing her eponymous song, she explained that sense of belonging in France made her look back at where it all began:

“We each have our own story of beginning. The place where we took the first step onto the path. For me, that was Craigavon — in a childhood shaped under the shadow of armed conflict, besides hedgerows and Damson trees, on black bicycle paths, inside the kind embrace of friendship.”

Subsequent songs reflected points further along the path: as a mother (“a child arrives to rewrite the map”); destiny (“ghosts of opportunities missed”); companionship (“choosing another person… brings you home”); grief (“for our beloved ones, passed, and for those of us still finding the way without them”); guardianship (“that person who holds up their lantern, when our own light has dimmed”); care (“the healers, the observers, the quite ones”); and revelation (“the thicket thins… a journey from darkness into light”).

Tia Bow’s final song performance was “Donegal Dreams”, reminding the audience that the blackberry path is never a straight line:

“It is a tangle of highs and lows, of moments where we conquer the world and moments when we retreat, to grow, ready for the next adventure. With one foot in front of the other, every step brings us closer to the understanding of ourselves and what it means to walk the Blackberry Path.”

Hot Press magazine describes the Blackberry Path album as a sound that “bridges folk, rock, and electronica”. Tia Bow’s style can also be called “folktronic”, with its blend of electronic textures and powerful songwriting. Think Portishead meets Mary Black.

The composition and tone of the songs were as varied as the emotions they were meant to provoke. This was complemented by the talented repertoire of the band’s musicians: Fagan-Thiébot played several instruments (guitar, violin, and keyboard), well accompanied by musicians Clare Galway (on keyboard and backing vocals) and Danny Trouton (on guitar and drums).

Blackberry Path is a departure from Tia Bow’s music based more on oral tradition. Yet it is richer for weaving her personal story with universal experiences, presented in a contemporary style that pays homage to cultural traditions. Blackberry Path is inspired by specific places and human connection, and speaks to everyone on its journey.

Blackberry Path is due for release in November 2026. Further information is available at Tia Bow’s Instagram account.

Cross-published at Mr Ulster.

The three main unionist parties together take 43% — UUP 16, DUP 15, TUV 12 — while the nationalist parties reach around 38, with Sinn Féin on 22, the SDLP on 13 and Aontú on 3. Set against the 2022 Assembly result, the unionist bloc is up about three and a half points and the nationalist bloc down about a point and a half.

It is only a slight shift, very close to the margin of error, and no basis for prophecy. But the direction is what matters, because almost everyone assumes it can only run one way. Yet there’s no sign of the momentum on either side, particularly when you consider that disengagement is significantly bigger on the unionist side of the ledger

Unionism’s problem is not what it looks like

The DUP is unmistakably in trouble. At 15% it is on its worst showing in memory, and its overall trust score of 24% is the lowest of any party measured, with only 57% of its own voters convinced it has been straight about what it knew of Jeffrey Donaldson.

Writing in the Belfast Telegraph, David Graham argues that the DUP is not unionism, that its lost votes have moved sideways to the UUP under new leader Jon Burrows and to Jim Allister’s TUV, and that unionism’s real weakness is fragmentation across three parties — curable, he suggests, by consolidation into two.

David’s diagnosis is largely right but the remedy is wrong. Fragmentation is not a malfunction under the single transferable vote; it is how it was designed to operate. A bloc spread across three parties loses nothing so long as they transfer to one another. What costs unionism seats is not the party count but transfer failure and Graham’s own evidence, the 38% of non-DUP unionists who say they will no longer give the DUP a preference, proves it.

“Unionist unity,” meanwhile, a remedy as old as the hills, never arrives.

So why are the transfers slowing? For one, the thing that once enforced them is gone. For a decade, discipline inside unionism rested on a single shared prize: keeping Sinn Féin out of the First Minister’s office. That prize was spent in 2022 and buried when Michelle O’Neill took the post. Remove the threat that manufactured unity, and voters do what a preferential system invites: they vote sincerely rather than tactically.

This is also where the DUP’s trouble turns structural rather than merely Donaldson-shaped: at 15% it sits on barely half the 30% it commanded at its 2011 peak, the height it reached precisely when “keep them out” still sold. Strip that prize away and all that remains on the shelf is the party’s record: the best part of nineteen years of power-sharing with Sinn Féin, punctuated by walkouts and stalemate, for a return few unionists would call impressive.

That leaves it pincered between the TUV attacking from a purism from never having sat in an executive with Sinn Féin, and the UUP offering a fresher version of a volubly pro Agreement unionism. A party whose whole pitch was keeping Sinn Féin out, and which governed beside them anyway, has little answer to either challenge.

Yet the unionist bloc remains consistently ahead of parties that are explicitly pro unity.

Nationalism’s problem is quieter, but may be harder to solve

Nationalism has the opposite profile: a clear number-one party and no fragmentation to speak of, but no momentum either. Sinn Féin shed seven points and nobody obviously caught them. The SDLP’s rise to 13% is real, its best since around 2011 but nowhere near enough to absorb SF’s drop, and Alliance fell too. When a bloc’s leading party bleeds and no rival soaks it up, the likeliest explanation is not realignment but demobilisation: voters staying home.

The answer may be found where a new Casement Park was meant to rise from the ashes of the old. O’Neill becoming First Minister was a real moment, but the top office has delivered nothing the base can point to: on health, not cost of living, nor the flagship stadium stalled in the heart of west Belfast, which four in ten SF voters call a major political failure.

John Garry’s research albeit from 2013 suggests that performance-based accountability has historically failed to bite within the nationalist camp. Unionists have long been willing to punish their parties on competence and probity rather than on the border. The RHI “cash for ash” scandal battered the DUP in 2017, and the collapse of trust over Jeffrey Donaldson similarly now.<

Nationalist choice,  the research suggests, has stayed far more anchored to ethno-national identity. That is what makes Sinn Féin’s slide in the polls a real puzzle: is Casement the issue that finally brings performance politics to a bloc that never really been interest in it?

Much commentary reads the slide as Sinn Féin being too passive: ie. too wedded to O’Neill’s “First Minister for all” posture, too slow to go toe-to-toe with the DUP and suggests taking the gloves off. But this gets things backwards. If Sinn Féin were losing ground because an aggressive DUP had outmuscled it, you’d expect the DUP to be a beneficiary, when it is plainly isn’t.

The DUP is down six points too, almost exactly in step. Both governing principals are being punished at once, and for the same thing: ie, a partnership that in recent years has produced little more than photo ops and smiles to the camera.

Instead the dysfunction is generating a die back effect, which more confrontation will only feed: you do not build a stadium, or fix a health service, by going further to war with the partner you need to build it. A base that calls its own flagship project a failure is not one itching for more trench warfare, but one disappointed by the absence of delivery.

On this reading, the base staying home is a verdict on SF holding office without providing any visible product.

An old diagnosis coming due

Some of this I argued a long time ago. Writing in 2012, amid the flags protests, I made the case that Northern Ireland’s deeper problem was a politics hollowed of content: a settlement in which every party was guaranteed office through D’Hondt, with no opposition and nothing to lose, so no one paid a price for a poor product.

More than a decade on, this poll may indicate that diagnosis is finally coming due. Alliance, which I suggested even then had made itself indispensable without ever securing a defensible position of its own, is now the centre party going backwards: a five-year low, its promised rebrand shelved, and no direct answer to a reviving UUP.

For unionism, the lesson is not to broker a merger but to find a new organising purpose, or to accept there isn’t one; consolidation without a shared prize just relocates the same argument inside a bigger tent. For the SDLP, 13% is more than a green shoot, Claire Hanna’s personal standing seems to be translating into higher party support, after polls stuck around 11 and a low of 6% against SF’s 31 in 2023.

It seems like the SDLP has been waiting for an age for some opportunistic tide to finally raise its boats. But in spite of the encouraging news here, thin organisation may still turn a flattering poll into disappointing transfers. It must work harder at its offering to a broader base of voters if its serious about making the weather.

Repositioning is not substance. From the Opposition benches it cannot pass bills or cut waiting lists, but it can do what the office holders cannot: expose the Executive’s failures and set out the alternatives their internal bickerings continue to block.

It should return to the Belfast Agreement, whose rigid provisions can only work when the lead partners actively seek to cooperate together, as its primary cause, thereby paralleling Burrows, in order to deliver benefits across all communities.

If it wants to tempt ex Sinn Féin voters from the sofa it needs a distinct constitutional vision of the future, one that allows them to work with unionists in the here-and-now rather than always deferring to a winner-takes-all border poll that never comes.

The richest rewards will go to parties prepared not just to demand the destination but to show a practical route to their preferred futures. In 2003, we argued the only escape from NI’s prisoner dilemma requires dealing fairly with each other.

Both blocs, then, are really facing the same problem in two forms. A bloc only holds together while it has something worth holding together for and that something, these numbers suggest, now has to mean delivery, not just constitutional positioning.

Now we’ve found out nothing else that’s been tried has worked, this pot of gold has been hidden in plain sight since April 1998.

Sainsbury’s has agreed to sell Argos for £120m as the supermarket chain aims to focus on its core food business.

The buyer, Swift Partners, is a company which has been created to buy the brand and includes former Co-operative Group boss Richard Pennycook.

There are Argos 667 shops across the UK, with 201 operating as standalone stores and 466 operating within Sainsbury’s. It also has more than 450 collection points.

Swift Partners’ Pennycook said he believed “strongly in Argos’s future and see real opportunities to invest and build on its progress”.

The deal is expected to be completed in February next year.

Sainsbury’s bought Argos – and all the other retail brands owned by Home Retail Group – in 2016 for £1.4bn.

I have always liked Argos. Like many of you I have fond memories of flicking through the toy section of the catalogue when I was a kid. It did seem to be the one brand who could take on Amazon as the only thing better than next day delivery is same day delivery, which Argos was able to offer. But the problem has been they were never as slick as Amazon. The app and web buying experience was always very clunky in comparison to the one-click wonder of Amazon.

But maybe the new owners can revitalise the brand as I do think it has good potential given the right leadership.

For those looking for a trip down memory lane, you can view online versions of the old catalogues here.

Located on the North African coast directly across the Strait of Gibraltar from mainland Spain, Ceuta holds a unique geopolitical status as Spanish territory on the African continent. Because Ceuta is part of Spain and the European Union, its 8.4-kilometer border with Morocco fortified with double-fenced wire barriers, sensors, and naval patrols represents one of Europe’s most heavily guarded external frontiers. The city periodically sees diplomatic and humanitarian strain during surge events, as migrants from Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa attempt to reach EU territory by land checkpoints, scaling border barriers, or swimming around coastal breakwaters.

For the past few days it seems it’s not so heavily fortified as tens of thousands of migrants have been pouring into it, from the BBC:

About 49,000 migrants have crossed into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco in the last 24 hours, officials estimate.

Videos and images showed thousands of people swimming into the city on Thursday, while local media reported crossings continuing overnight.

Officials say at least 18 people have died while trying to reach the territory in recent days.

This comes after Spain’s Supreme Court ruled this month that migrants stopped at sea while trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla, another Spanish enclave, cannot be summarily returned to Morocco.

The astonishing estimation by Spanish officials suggests the number of migrants who entered into Ceuta in the last day or so could be more than half of the population of the city – which sits at around 83,600 according to the latest local figures.

Officials say at least 7,000 of those who crossed illegally into the territory in the last 24 hours are minors.

Italy is calling for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen free travel agreement as they are concerned that the migrants will make their way to mainland Spain and on to other parts of Europe. There are also accusations that the Moroccan government is facilitating the influx.

Obviously the migrants have got it into their head that all they need to do is reach the city and then they will get automatic entry into the EU. It’s all a bit of a mess and is likely going to turn violent and become a bit of a humanitarian disaster.