It’s a rhetorical question, of course. The answer is ‘pretty daft.’ After being buttered-up by British ministers on innumerable occasions since Brexit – only to find themselves let down more times than a well-bucket – they have now relented from their two-year boycott of the Good Friday Agreement institutions and returned to Stormont. Tail between […]

This week the BBC asked First Minister Michelle O’Neill if she was prepared to attend a Northern Ireland match. “Of course, I’m happy to do so,”she replied. The BBC felt no need to ask the Deputy First Minister if she would attend a Republic of Ireland game. In football parlance it was Parity of esteem […]

Last week I was reminded of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returning from meeting Hitler and holding that piece of paper declaring “Peace for our Time”. Watching Jeffrey Donaldson clutching the Command Paper “Safeguarding The Union” and declaring the Union safe felt like a similar moment of desperate wishful thinking. Rather than save the Union […]

Tuesday February 27th – irishborderpoll.com brings the Constitutional debate to the heart of Westminster. Book your ticket now via Eventbrite. Two constitutional fires burn on Westminster’s hillside. Scottish nationalism, for so long a marginal force, came within six percent of winning the referendum on independence held in September 2014. It briefly triggered a bout of […]

Political prediction-peddling is a mug’s game. But let me nevertheless lurch forwards into the realm of pointless speculation, poring over the coffee grinds in my flat white in the process, and offer you the following. And so, 2024 begin much as 2023 ended. With Jeffrey Donaldson stood there, like a man wearing expensive new shoes […]

Ray Bassett is a former Irish diplomat. He was intimately involved in preparing the groundwork for negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement. Never be afraid to engage, peace is made with your enemies, not your friends. In early 1993, and against the continued conflict in Northern Ireland, a series of clandestine meetings took […]

Fundamentally, the Republic of Ireland doesn’t have a refugee problem. It has a government problem. Since the foundation of the 26 county state, Ireland has never served its people first. Business has always been front of the queue: first it was cattle farmers, then it was landlords, and now supermassive tech multinationals have become Ireland’s […]