Splintered SunriseSplintered SunriseBlog reporting on Irish politics and current affairs from a socialist perspective
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We have moved!
2007-04-25 13:20:00 Please take the time to visit the all-new Splintered Sunrise on WordPress! And if you have any bookmarks or links pointing this way, please update them. Our own links will be updated in short order. More About: Blogging , Move , Have
Tomás Mac Giolla: I ain?t dead yet
2007-04-20 20:14:00 Courtesy of WorldbyStorm over on Cedar Lounge, my attention has been drawn to the extensive interview with long-time Workers Party leader Tomás Mac Giolla in the latest Magoo magazine. And very sprightly Tomás seems too ? I?m slightly surprised to hear that he?s still alive, but surprised in a good way. Like WbS, I?m rather more sympathetic to Tomás now than I would have been in the past, although probably for different reasons.Apropos of Tomás?s comments on Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and the discussion on CLR about the Official/Provo split, it strikes me that there is something to WbS?s point about the defence of old old positions. As opposed to the de Rossas or Grizzlys who abandon old positions without putting anything in their place save the pursuit of power within the current system. That?s a charge that can?t be laid against either Mac Giolla or Ó Brádaigh. Certainly, one of Ruairí?s great selling points is that nobody is ever in any doubt about where he stands. And while I can well im... More About: History , Ireland , Dead
He bounces on the ground
2007-04-16 20:27:00 How does this balloon get so much work? I ask merely for information. At time of writing, Stephen Nolan has a daily show on Radio Ulster, a network show on Five Live and a TV show. At the current rate of expansion, Nolan will soon have a bigger presence on BBCNI than the Hole In The Wall Gang.Strangely enough, despite his limitations ? he?s hopelessly out of his depth when it comes to politics ? the rotund DJ does illustrate something about the level of discourse in the North. Billed as a shock jock, Norn Iron?s equivalent of Stern or Imus I presume, the only times Nolan deviates from conventional wisdom is when his heroic ability to miss the point kicks in. There is no break from the sycophancy that surrounds our political class ? you have to go to The Folks On The Hill for that. Steve makes up for this, however, by affecting a permanently raised voice which is meant to give the impression of anger.I happened to catch a little of Nolan Live on BBCNI last week. The topic for discuss... More About: Wireless , Ground , Bounce , Round , The G
Kurt Vonnegut is dead
2007-04-14 12:39:00 Just a brief stopgap post today, and I assure you a longer piece will be along shortly as time and energy permit. I just wanted to say I was deeply saddened to hear about the death of Kurt Vonnegut , whose novels I used to devour on a regular basis. He was a standing example of what was good about American culture, and American socialists aren?t so thick on the ground that the loss of an articulate radical is easily missed.I expect there will now be something of a run on sales of Slaughterhouse Five, and rightly so. But do yourself a favour and dig a little deeper. Check out Mother Night or Cat?s Cradle. Maybe even Bluebeard. But certainly don?t miss Mother Night.Rud eile: From What Next?, this sterling defence of James Connolly by Rayner Lysaght may be of interest to regular readers. More About: Books , History , Ireland , Socialism
Stormont MLAs say no to useless talking shop
2007-04-11 16:23:00 One small story from the Teddy Bear?s Head that I almost missed ? with the restoration of Stor mont imminent, the British government is dead keen on restoring the Civic Forum. ?What?s the Civic Forum?? I hear the broad masses cry. This is a 60-member consultative body, appointed by the First and Deputy First Ministers, which makes the Free State Seanad look like a legislative powerhouse. Its job is to provide a space where peace process ?stakeholders? can have a say on Executive policy.So, who gets to be on the Forum? Well, in the first instance there are failed Assembly candidates, either influential old-timers who need appeasing or rising stars who are highly esteemed by their parties, but less so by the great unwashed. (In the latter category, one might want to look out for the SDLP?s Sharon ?Lovely Girl? Haughey or the DUP?s Christopher ?Milky Bar Kid? Stalford.) In addition, the community sector, alias the peace industry, is in there. The loyalist paramilitaries are in there, un... More About: Norn Iron , Talk , Shop , Talking
Real life ever more closely resembles a Colin Bateman novel
2007-04-06 13:50:00 One of the advantages of covering the peace process is that quite often it manages to be GUBU in about five dimensions at once. Such is the case with this week?s most startling event, the big conference called to consider how the Ł1.2m public subvention to the UDA is going to be spent. Chaired by business honcho Sir George Quigley and attended by chief constable Sir Hugh Orde and the Catholic bishops as well as loyalist paramilitaries, a solemn discussion was held on how giving a big whack of public money to drug dealers, pimps and extortionists was going to turn them into facilitators for the peace process. Since most of the paramilitaries are part of the peace industry already, how this is going to work beats me.This was preceded by a meeting of foreign ambassadors in Dublin, which had been summoned by Bertie to talk about how the international community could help the UDA go legit. This raises the prospect of yet more windfalls for Uncle Andy and Big Mervyn ? unless the foreign g... More About: Life , Norn Iron , Close , Real , Ever
What's Left? A note on sources
2007-04-04 13:32:00 On returning from my short break, it is a matter of extreme pleasure to your humble scribe to get a nice plug from the estimable Mick Fealty over on Slugger. This has meant my site traffic going through the roof over the last day or so, so I?d like to take this opportunity to welcome new readers. I hope you enjoy the commentary here and decide to stick around.The obvious story to go with is the restoration of the Executive, but this is going to run and run, and the major theme of this blog ? the GUBU nature of Northern politics ? will I?m sure get ample fuel from the new devolved dispensation. So I?m going to fulfil a long-standing promise to regular readers, and begin looking at Nick Cohen?s What?s Left ? Nick?s book being the disjointed ramble it is, and owing to the fact that it?s difficult to read more than three pages at a go, this will be a serialised review.The most obvious place to start is on Nick?s sources. A good deal of Nick?s authority comes from his reputation as an inv... More About: Books , Journalism , Note , Sources
Interlude: Consimilis calefacio
2007-03-26 13:14:00 Sorry about the move to moderated comments, which I hope will only be temporary and shouldn’t slow things down too much. It’s a pain in the arse I know, but no more so than my cyber-stalker from the Socialist Party, who is hell-bent on getting me to confess to affiliations I don’t have and “facts” he’s just made up. I suppose I should feel flattered to have attracted the attention of a heresy hunter, but to be honest I’m more irritated.At any rate, to cushion the blow, we will be resuming our popular series on the revolutionary programme. I should, I realise, explain why we’re taking Éire Nua as the source for this discussion. This is partly for biographical reasons, because I’m familiar with the attempts to marry the programme to revolutionary practice, and partly because, whatever criticisms I may have developed in the interim, I still have some affinity for the old orange pamphlet. (This is why I can’t easily discuss the very interesting programmatic history ... More About: Inter , Cale , Cons , Milis
Uncle Andy wins the Lotto
2007-03-23 13:18:00 So, apart from the main parties giving off that Gordo’s £1bn financial package for the North is much less than they expected, there has been some comment about the £1.2m grant our beautifully groomed proconsul has announced to help the UDA move away from violence, sectarianism and criminality. This £1.2m, payable over three years, has been flagged up by the proconsul as just the down payment, and there is much more to come if the UDA behaves itself.The £1.2m is little enough, compared to the big whack of public largesse the UDA has been in receipt of for years now, so much so that the Good Friday process has pretty much seen armed loyalism’s grassroots put on the payroll of the peace industry, without much accompanying reduction in the UDA’s nefarious activities. What is interesting is the blatancy of Hain’s move. This money is not being dressed up as “community development”, but openly handed over to the UDA, via its front organisation the UPRG. What we, the punters... More About: Lotto , Andy , Wins , Uncle
The Kingstown pimpernel
2007-03-22 16:15:00 If you live in Dún Laoghaire, you will in all probability be familiar with this character here. In fact, there isn’t a black-and-white poster goes up in Dún Laoghaire that doesn’t feature Richard Boyd Barrett in some capacity. Richie Boy has of course been a fixture of Irish left politics for quite some time now, longer than you would think from his Peter Pan-like countenance. But I’ve only just discovered his own dedicated website.And a quite attractively presented website it is too. We, the visiting proletariat, are given a brief biography of Richie Boy and an overview of the divers “Down with this sort of thing” campaigns he heads up. There is the Irish Anti-War Movement, of which our boy is the main spokesman and which is undoubtedly his major claim to fame. There is the People Before Profit Alliance, for which he is the Dún Laoghaire candidate in the upcoming general election. There is the anti-developer campaign Save Our Seafront, which leads me to ponder whether ... More About: The King , Pimp , Town , King , Kings
Big Ian to hit Tinseltown
2007-03-21 19:50:00 On the recurring theme of the GUBU nature of Northern politics, I couldn’t resist this story from the Beeb. It seems the Paisley family has commissioned a biopic of Big Ian, with Gary Mitchell as screenwriter and Ian Óg as executive producer. There is even the unlikely idea that Ballymena’s other famous son, Liam Neeson, might play the lead.What can you possibly say about this? I’m sure there would be a market for such a picture in Norn Iron, although foreign sales might prove elusive – unless those Southern Baptists who turned out in such numbers for The Passion of the Christ get their act together. And Papa Doc’s eventful life has the makings of a good story – see for example Ed Moloney and Andy Pollak’s Paisley, badly dated now but still indispensable, and Dennis Cooke’s excellent Persecuting Zeal. Neither of these books, however, is much in favour in the Paisley camp, and the hagiography the Dochtúir Mór’s family will be looking for would probably have less ... More About: Town
Glittering vista of devolution takes shape
2007-03-20 16:10:00 So, with the elections out of the way, attention now turns to the formation of an Executive. This is due to happen next Monday, and Big Ian is currently involved in a game of chicken with our beautifully groomed proconsul as to whether the 26 March deadline will be met. Paisley says the date isn’t set in stone. Hain says it is, and what’s more the date is enshrined in law.Actually it matters very little either way. Hain knows that the law can be changed in ten minutes via an Order in Council, and Big Ian will want to push the process past 26 March just to prove that he’s calling the shots. But there likely will be an Executive set up at some point – whether it lasts is another matter.What, then, will be the shape of the Executive? I’m not talking about personnel here, but about what, if anything, it will do. Some clues are hidden in what the Brits gave the DUP at St Andrew’s, in a significant rewriting of the Good Friday Agreement. Under the GFA, for instance, both “co... More About: Evolution , Vista , Take , Ring , Shape
The Old Firm election, part 3
2007-03-16 13:21:00 Whereat we cast a beady eye on the dissident republicans and go under the SEA with Captain EamoIn this final post on the Stormont election results, I want to take a look at the two forces aspiring to offer an alternative – the republicans and the left – and assess the likelihood of them being able to do so. I should state in advance that my conclusions will not be terribly optimistic. But to begin with, I should point out that there are two constituencies, which are distinct even though they overlap to some extent. This is the traditional republican constituency, which is mostly rural though with some urban support, and what might be termed a left republican, republican socialist or Connollyite constituency, which is almost exclusively urban. The election results partially illuminate these audiences.The actual votes for dissidence are not all that much out of line with what I was expecting. They might have surprised outside observers relying on press reports (and, despite the ef... More About: Election , Part , Part 3 , The O
The Old Firm election, part 2
2007-03-12 20:26:00 Provos make out like bandits as SDLP continues its slow deathMoving on to the nationalist side of the fence, there is no question but that this election has been a triumph for the Provos. If the DUP election machine is impressively slick, the PSF machine is space-age. Incredible vote management delivering five out of six in West Belfast; all three Mid-Ulster candidates returned on the first count; Paul “Butch” Butler winning an unlikely seat in Lagan Valley on the back of an enormous turnout from Lagmore. The deployment of the Provos’ small army of election workers in the latter stages – notably an invasion of South Belfast by Shinners from the West – was wondrous to behold. Even their own activists were stunned by some of the results, such as Mitchel the Draft Dodger topping the poll in South Antrim, young Dáithà McKay only a whisker behind Papa Doc in North Antrim, and coming close to a second seat in Upper Bann.By contrast, the results make grim reading for the South ... More About: Election , Part , The O
The Old Firm election, part 1
2007-03-10 12:09:00 Big Ian triumphant as the OUP crumbles in a pincer movement and the Cream Bun is toastHold onto your hats, because we’re going to be covering the North’s federal election in three parts. First, we’ll look at the unionist result; second, at the nationalist/republican result; finally, we’ll number-crunch the republican and left votes to get some sense of where an opposition might come from.Why do I call this the Old Firm election? Well, if you’re a kid in Glasgow, you’re hardly going to support Part ick Thistle, are you? Likewise, it had already been determined in advance that there were only two main parties, and since the preferred outcome was a DUP-PSF coalition – the idiot savant in Downing Street having divined that this was the best chance of stability – there was a mighty incentive to the electorate to confirm recent trends and put those two parties in the driving seat. Which they duly did.In broad terms, the DUP beat the OUP by better than two to one in votes (3... More About: Election , The O
Polling day reflections
2007-03-07 19:39:00 Just a few haphazard thoughts on the election, and on last weekend’s PSF Ard Fheis. Firstly, and I’ll get onto the southern situation in due course, was the Ard Fheis pledge on coalition – which may or may not be academic according to the Leinster House arithmetic. There are of course a lot of yahoos running around the Irish left screaming “No Coalition” as if these magic words will cover up a dearth of ideas, but Grizzly faces a bit of a problem here. The PSF leadership would dearly love to be in government in both states, but much of the southern cadre suffers an allergic reaction to the very concept of coalition with Fianna Fáil. Thusly the Ard Fheis pronounced itself against the idea of coalition with… the Desocrats! As if!I am also slightly bemused by the euro. Not the currency per se, but if I recall correctly the Provos opposed the Free State’s adoption of the euro, on the quite sensible grounds that the Maastricht convergence criteria would rule out radical ec... More About: Reflections , Poll , Polling , Reflection , Polli
The DUP goes cross-community
2007-03-07 19:10:00 In reviewing the West Belfast election addresses, I left out Diane Dodds of the DUP, on the grounds that I hadn’t seen hers. This is a stroke of good luck, because in fact Diane has had two addresses out. The one, for the Shankill Road whence nearly all of her first preferences come, is the usual stentorian Paisleyism. But Diane has also issued a separate and different address geared towards the nationalist areas that make up the bulk of the West Belfast constituency.This makes some sense. Remember that last time out, Diane only won her seat with a margin of 97 votes over PSF’s Sue Ramsey. Therefore a few lower preferences, adding up to fractions of votes in the later stages of the PR count, could make all the difference.So, how is Diane appealing to her Catholic constituents? By pitching herself as the family values candidate. Notably, she makes a big deal of being the only West Belfast MLA to vote against gay equality. This is the DUP’s idea of cross-community politics – a... More About: Community , Muni , Cross , Unity , Comm
West Belfast candidates address broad masses
2007-03-05 20:25:00 This past wee while has been extraordinarily boring as far as the Norn Iron election is concerned, but as polling day is only two days off I feel it is incumbent on the Sunrise to return to the story. I won’t be making any predictions – that’s a mug’s game. Although many of the results are indeed predictable at this point, there are a few constituencies up in the air – South Belfast for one, and North Down is of course a law unto itself. So it makes more sense to wait for the results of the PR count and do an analysis of the small print.So we shall take a run through the manifestos. I have in front of me most of the election addresses dropped in West Belfast. I am missing the DUP and the South Down and Londonderry Party, which is no great loss – those interested can find the Big Doc’s detailed manifesto here [pdf] and the Stoops’ printed Mogadon here [pdf]. And for some psychedelic fun, check out Rainbow George’s Make Politicians History site.But on to the literatu... More About: Dates , Dress , Candidates , Dida
Traynor, Kamm and cognitive dissonance
2007-03-01 13:54:00 The judgement of the International Court of Justice in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Serbia and Montenegro is interesting in a number of respects, not least in how it knocks holes in the arguments of the cruise missile left and puts question marks over the approved history of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. It also dents the increasing tendency for the activist school of law to get mixed up in international affairs.The case, alleging that the Serbian government of the late Slobodan Milošević was responsible for waging a campaign of genocide against non-Serbs, was brought by the Izetbegović government in Sarajevo in the early stages of the Bosnian war. This, it should be noted, was long before the Srebrenica massacre, which was added to the case later. Thus, the ICJ has thrown out the original case – except for a few riders relating to Srebrenica – and implicitly recognised that the very real atrocities which took place in Bosnia, although definitely war crimes deservin... More About: Diss , Sona , Tray
Kuk im on, dem tone
2007-02-27 20:48:00 I don’t know whether Norman Geras or Eve Garrard speak Yiddish. My guess would have to be not, as neither of them has much of a sense of irony. For proof, simply take a look at this document over on Normblog. Norm and Eve, writing in a cod-philosophical style for reasons that escape me, are replying to the recent (and entirely welcome) formation of Independent Jewish Voices.The article is entitled “Just because you’re Jewish, it doesn’t mean you’re right”, and opens with the statement that “There are people who seem to think that if a certain kind of view is held by a Jew, this gives it special authority… The fact that someone happens to think something as a Jew, or to hold the same opinion as a Jew, is neither here nor there in establishing its cogency.” Are Norm and Eve criticising the attempts by their Engagenik buddies to suppress criticism of Israel, or their assumption that goyim (except for reliable “friends of Israel”) have no moral authority to speak o... More About: Tone
Watching Nick
2007-02-26 20:33:00 Well, I have held my nose and procured Nick ’s little book. From first impressions, it’s even worse than I feared. This is sad in a way, because a lot of Nick’s latter-day comrades are people I would expect no better from. Nick, on the other hand, has quite an illustrious history and used to be downright brilliant on domestic politics – Cruel Britannia was probably the best analysis of Blair’s Britain, and Pretty Straight Guys was a good read too, although the incongruous chapter on Iraq, which gave all the signs of having been added at the last moment, pointed the way to his current position. Foreign policy was always Nick’s weak point, so it was probably inevitable that his downfall would come from that quarter.So, what are we to make of What’s Left? Well, as I say, there are people from whom nothing better could have been expected. Kamm’s book was utter bilge, but then we all knew what Kamm was like. To find Nick, sometime one of my favourite journalists, writing s... More About: Watch , Watching
The phoenix rises from the ashes, clutching a piece of bread and butter
2007-02-23 13:00:00 The other night I was flicking channels and happened to come across the party election broadcast by the Workers Party. I will say this for the WP, after the almost unbearable paddywhackery of the Sinn Féin Nua broadcast, theirs was pleasingly low-key. Mostly it consisted of the WP’s most prominent Northern honcho, John Lowry of Twinbrook, speaking direct to camera about various issues of the day.What Lowry actually said was an unexceptionable run through of various worthy positions the WP has taken. There was nothing there to frighten the horses (especially since Lowry isn’t what you would call a riveting speaker in the Eoghan Harris mould) and the message might even have been attractive to some naïve person who doesn’t know much about the kind of organisation the WP is. There was some stuff about non-payment of water charges, opposition to privatisation and building an anti-sectarian socialist alternative. Which would all be fair enough, if one had any faith in capacity of ... More About: Phoenix , Ashes , Read , Bread , Clutch
Trawling the net, 21.02.07
2007-02-21 13:45:00 Just a brief stopgap post today, flagging up things that should be in my pending tray but are having to wait behind the flurry of local news. I may or may not get back to them later, but here are some useful links in the meantime.Courtesy of the estimable Louis Proyect, we have a critique of the Euston Manifesto by Paul Flewers of New Interventions. Obviously there is a huge amount that could be said about the Decent Left, but Paul deals with Euston much more calmly and concisely than I could manage.Like I suspect most of its readers, I read the Weekly Worker for the gossip, not the political analysis. When they try to write for themselves, the Conrad Party of Great Britain can often be a bit ropy – this steaming pile of Matgamnite horseshit is a case in point. But I was impressed by this very good piece by Anne McShane, on Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs and how the SWP have taken it up as an excuse for their retreat into rightist puritanism.Finally, this argument on the Br... More About: The Net , The N
BĂ©albochtachas PrĂłvach
2007-02-20 16:12:00 Never let it be said that Northern nationalists have lost their knack for street politics. Although they have been fairly quiescent of late, Northern nationalists have a long and not easily forgotten history of voicing their discontents, on occasion inscribing pithy slogans on placards and gathering together in numbers to give off. Thus we see a mass rally being organised for West Belfast next Saturday.So what is the subject of the rally? Are the proletariat protesting against the restoration of Stormont and the prospect of Big Ian becoming prime minister? No, as far as can be seen most people cling to the vain hope that some deal will be done. Are they, as the left hope, all riled up over water charges? No, although nobody actually wants to pay the charge the non-payment rallies have not been growing – rather the reverse. In fact, the masses are due to rally in support of the promised Irish Language Act.This is rather revealing of how the peace process works. At the St Andrew’s... More About: Acha
Election fever hits Wild West
2007-02-19 13:32:00 Or rather, it doesn’t. One has so far failed to detect a wild upsurge of electoral enthusiasm from the broad masses of West Belfast. Nonetheless, the parties are well into the swing of things, and Grizzly’s mug beams down in Big Brother style from every lamppost.In fact, if Bob “Cream Bun” McCartney is running in six constituencies, one might say that Grizzly is running in all eighteen. This time more than ever, the Provos are running a determinedly presidential campaign. So, although they are standing a five-person ticket in West Belfast – they should have four safe seats out of six, and last time out weren’t far off a fifth quota – the other four may as well be anonymous. Of course, Sinn Féin Nua do have a slight problem in that their other proven vote-getter, Twinbrook’s Michael Ferguson, is inconveniently deceased. Plus, putting Sue “Shell Dockley” Ramsey on a poster might actually lose them votes.The main problem the Provos are facing in the West is apathy.... More About: Wild , Election , Ever , Hits
The swami of unionism
2007-02-16 19:18:00 Amidst all the excitement of the Stormont elections, one barely noticed footnote has been the appointment of Professor Paul Bew of Queens to the House of Lords. Lord Bew of Trenchcoat can thus swank about in an ermine robe and sit next to his latter-day patron, Lord Trimble of Garvaghy. He can enjoy the company of great thinkers of our time like, well, I suppose Jeffrey Archer and Conrad Black. And this is a fitting way for Bew to end his political trajectory.These days Bew is best known as one of Ulster unionism’s small and hardy band of intellectual boosters. He was of course a long-time member of Trimble’s kitchen cabinet. Today he is a bigwig at the neoconservative Henry “Scoop” Jackson Society, a body whose patrons are a motley assortment of Cold War loons and whose journalistic farmhands include towering intellects like the oleaginous Kissingerite Oliver Kamm and the howling Croat nationalist Marko Attila Hoare. This marks him out as an honorary member of Nick Cohen’... More About: Union
The double-headed monster of opportunism
2007-02-16 11:04:00 Still on the theme of the candidate lists for Stormont, there is a tale almost as odd as that of Bob McCartney’s ability to be in six places at once. (Eat your heart out, Padre Pio!) That is the intervention of the Socialist Workers Party. Readers with even a fleeting experience of the SWP will be aware of their addiction to setting up front groups, so much so that it’s a bit of a surprise these days when they do anything under their own name. But this time around, in deploying two fronts simultaneously, they are really spoiling us.Since Eamonn McCann has been polling respectable if not earth-shattering results in the city-state of Derry, it was inevitable that he would run this time in Foyle. Eamonn’s candidacy is in the name of his established vehicle, the Socialist Environmental Alliance. One might, then, have expected that any other candidates would run as SEA, as with the SWP’s unsuccessful foray into the Belfast Corporation elections a few years back.But no! Let me int... More About: Double , Port , Monster , Head , The D
The mystery of the multilocating cream bun
2007-02-14 13:31:00 The Electoral Office has announced the line-up of candidates for the Stormont poll, and the most immediately striking fact is that Bob “Cream Bun” McCartney, leader of the UK Unionist Party, is running in six of the eighteen constituencies. Not the UKUP in six constituencies – the party is running in thirteen, in six of which the Cream Bun will be the standard-bearer. Under the Good Friday Agreement, it is not quite clear what will happen if Bob gets elected more than once – would he have to give one of his seats to a substitute, or would he have more than one vote in the Assembly? Nobody seems to know. This may seem par-for-the-course egomania from the man whose political vehicle used to appear on ballot papers as the “United Kingdom Unionist Robert McCartney Party”. Or possibly one may speculate that Chairman Bob has invented human cloning. But it’s the latest unpredictable move in Bob’s long and colourful political career.I remember, back in the late 80s and early... More About: Cat , Multi , Mystery , Myst
Hot air from the Eustie Boys
2007-02-12 20:25:00 If you haven’t already seen it, I urge you to read this article by Stuart over at Indecent Left. This is, by far, the best review I’ve yet seen of Nick Cohen’s What’s Left? – it really obviates the need for me to write one, although I probably will by and by. Nick is too tempting a target to miss, and from the look of it his book has enough howlers, tendentious assertions and jarring logical jumps to keep a critical reader busy for months.While on the subject of the Euston Manifesto crowd, I note this precious little piece from Norman Geras favourably quoting his pal Oliver Kamm on the question of whether blogging is good for democracy. Norm and Ollie conclude that it is indeed a good thing to let a thousand flowers bloom, but unfortunately “blogging debate… includes a lot that isn't conducive to deliberation, in a good meaning of that word, or to open-minded consideration of the views of others”. Norm argues that what is needed is “to improve the culture of Inter... More About: Boys
Architects of the Resurrection ride again
More articles from this author:2007-02-12 13:32:00 A wee while back I did a review of the republican press. Eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that I left one journal out, and deliberately so. That’s because it isn’t strictly speaking a republican journal – in fact, it’s exceedingly difficult to categorise. I am of course referring to the Hibernian, the monthly magazine edited by Gerry McGeough, which I find compulsive reading for all the wrong reasons.A glance over the back issues of the Hibernian, which are conveniently available online, will confirm that this is hair-raising stuff. The magazine manages to be wildly eclectic while at the same time having a consistent worldview. A lot of this is related to the personality of McGeough, who is a fascinating character. He’s a long-standing and very tough republican, and one of the most articulate critics of the Grizzlyite peace strategy, while at the same time being an extreme Catholic traditionalist, of the sort that Seán Sabhat might have recognised.So to read the Hiber... More About: Ride , Again , Archi , Resurrection , Architects 1, 2 |
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