The results of the 2010 Westminster elections were inconclusive in Britain. But in the North of Ireland they marked a new stage in the development of long-term trends, which comprises the break-up of the unionist bloc, the rise of Nationalism and within that the rise of Sinn Fein as its most resolute expression. SF is [...]

The dust is still settling on the results over the water, and it’ll be some time before we know the composition of the next UK government. So that’s the subject of another post. However, it was clear straight away that this was an extraordinary election here in Northern Ireland, with a number of pointers towards [...]

Originally posted on Socialist Economic Bulletin.
The Tory Party has launched a joint manifesto with the Ulster Unionist Party.
This is a revival of a formal alliance that stretches back nearly 100 years, when the anti-Home Rule wing of the Liberal Party (the ‘Liberal Unionists’) split and joined the Conservatives to form the Conservative and Unionist [...]

John Barry is Associate Director of the Institute for a Sustainable World and Reader in Politics both at Queen’s University Belfast.  He was educated at University College Dublin and the University of Glasgow.  From 2003-2009 he was co-chair of the Green Party in Northern Ireland and was a key figure in the creation of an [...]

While DUP and Sinn Fein politicians in the Stormont coalition argue about policing and parades the economy of Northern Ireland is worsening by the day. Twenty thousand people lost their jobs in Northern Ireland 1n 2009.You’d think that our elected representatives might want to discuss that instead.
Last week while political leaders from the DUP and [...]

Young Boys Will Stick Their Head Anywhere!
I have always found the politics in Northern Ireland very confusing, I must confess. As I am understand it, the place is divided up into two part, one ruled over by a militaristic authoritarian misogynistic reactionary Protestant fascism, which want to take everyone back to the 17th century, and [...]

I was horrified to read Suzanne Breen’s latest instalment in her brave solo exposition of what is one of the most disturbing stories to emergence from behind the Iron Curtain of the Sinn Féin spin machine in recent years. Two women, the first a former national secretary of Ogra Shinn Féin and niece of Joe [...]

The number of unresolved issues in the Northern Ireland Assembly is increasing - such as the transfer test replacement, the new good relations strategy, the Review of Public Administration and, of course, the devolution of policing and justice powers. All have foundered on the attempts of parties in the mandatory coalition to make gains for [...]

Ideologies are not issued self-developed and completed into the aether of the idea rather they are generated by the development of specific historic processes in the real world. Ideas are not primary but secondary reflections back into reality through the mediation of the mind. Material reality is primary in the evolution of thought just as [...]