I don’t normally write in this blog about international affairs: about Donald Trump or Israel/Palestine or Ukraine. There are ...

In breaking news this morning the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, has announced a new government body to research the possible constitutional futures of the island of Ireland. It is expected to sit within ...

The Taoiseach’s new constitutional research body will examine three futures for the island: a unitary state, a devolved united Ireland and the status quo. Rather than staking everything on a border ...

Seven months into the financial year, Stormont still has no budget. That would be unthinkable anywhere else in these islands, and this time there is no collapsed Executive to blame. Ministers are ...

Gadfly is a political geographer from Belfast with a particular interest in the relationship between democracy and the creation of more sustainable futures. Northern nationalists and republicans have ...

While the unionist parties may be trying out a new game at Stormont portraying restraint as strength rather than weakness, what is the temper of the times among the people? Will something far worse ...

The Royal Irish Academy’ s Dictionary of Irish Biography has just published its entry for Maurice Hayes. in my book Maurice was a principal hero of the Troubles, the very model for adapting a Catholic ...

I’ll be exceptionally blunt in this post (some may be pleased to hear). Carla Lockhart and now Diane Forsythe want Michelle O’Neill removed as First Minister. Whilst unionist anger over Drumcree is ...

Conleth Burns is Associate Director (Ireland and Northern Ireland) at More in Common. More in Common is a research agency that aims to help leaders understand and better navigate public opinion. You ...

Fellow Slugger poster Hughie Beag and I have crossed swords a few times in the comments section, particularly over my attempts to understand unionism and his challenges to how I’ve approached it.

Last week, there was a ‘Dallas’ joke. This week, a ‘Derry Girls’ joke. However ‘Blue Lights’ remained no laughing matter as the show reached the penultimate episode of its fourth series. Before we get ...

In 1988, a Moscow paper called Nagorno-Karabakh “our Northern Ireland.” In Part III, Peter Emerson asks why “this or that?” questions divide us, from Belfast to the Balkans, and makes the case for ...