Opinion

PLATING UP: Grilled chicken with broccoli and cauliflower skewers

We hope you enjoy our cookery  column with chef Paul Watters who each week will take the fear out of cooking with his easy to follow recipes... 

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE: Arts Council’s strange choice of poster-boys

I THINK the following is a reasonable and accurate statement: I know more about loyalist parades than most non-loyalists.

WE SAY: Garvaghy Road call is a no-brainer

IF Paddy Power was laying a book on the imminent Parades Commission decision on the Orange Order’s latest application to march along the Garvaghy Road it is likely the company would have paid out early by now.

ANDRÉE MURPHY: Irish footballers must not be given a pass as Israel games loom

She was 21 years old and decided that she would not handle oranges from South Africa, and by doing so gave Ireland a moral compass in the face of governmental failure. Dubliner Mary Manning was a member of a trade union, not one of the biggest, and that union had passed motions against goods and services from the Apartheid state. Mary was in a low paid job in Dunnes Stores in Dublin City Centre in the 1980s, when most of those of her age were forced to emigrate to England or America due to the poverty and high unemployment rates. But she still chose to take a stand. From 1984 until 1987 she, and ten other Dunnes Strikers stayed on strike pay until the government was forced to adopt an embargo on South African goods. An ordinary working-class woman on a check out stood up while others found excuses not to. When Nelson Mandela was released and came to Ireland, he insisted on meeting her and her fellow strikers, and thanking them.

PLATING UP: Chorizo red pepper and mozzarella egg muffins

We hope you enjoy our cookery  column with chef Paul Watters who each week will take the fear out of cooking with his easy to follow recipes... 

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE: Trump derangement syndrome flips

“STAY calm,” UUP leader Jon Burrows told us on Monday morning as Loyal Ulster struggled to come to terms with The Great Betrayal.

HEALTHWISE: Spread the word: Watch your butter intake

BUTTER is a concentrated source of milk fat which is mainly composed of saturated fat.  Too much saturated fat can increase bad cholesterol which is a risk factor for heart disease.  Recommendations for saturated fat are no more than 20g per day for females and 30g per day for males.

ANDRÉE MURPHY: This united front is what's needed to end the union

There is nothing performative, minimal or ordinary about what happened in Cardiff this week as Sinn Féin, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party signed a memorandum of understanding which brought mature 21st century politics into the British colonial denial of self determination to our Celtic nations. A united front from the parties that want to disunite the union.

MINDFUL MOMENT: Community is the greatest part of any curriculum

There is an old African proverb that tells us, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Sitting recently in a packed St Mary’s University College for the Aisling Bursary Awards, I found myself thinking that perhaps it also takes a community to raise a scholar.

JUDE COLLINS: It's all about the money, stupid

President Trump flew into Ireland at the weekend and everyone was delighted. Well, everyone in Doonbeg. A village of 200 people, it’s received a huge injection of visitors since Trump took it over and especially since he’ s said he’d begoing to see the Irish Open golf tournament at his Irish gem.

PLATING UP: Tom yum soup with veg noodles and crispy prawns

We hope you enjoy our cookery  column with chef Paul Watters who each week will take the fear out of cooking with his easy to follow recipes... 

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE: Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours...

THE question that needs to be asked of Portadown District is a simple one: Why Jamie?Jamie Bryson has walked into so many lampposts in his relatively short and hilariously colourful career that the Department of Infrastructure would probably have billed him for repairs by now were it not headed up by the DUP. Everyone has their favourite Jamie moment and the quotes and the clips are rolled out with savage predictability by his online detractors every time he declaims squeakily in the public square. To be fair to him, he seems relatively unfazed by the negative attention. If I took a battering like that every time I opened my mouth I’d have abandoned Twitter years ago.

HEALTHWISE: Pay attention to the roast when choosing coffee

COFFEE is the most widely consumed drink in the world.  It contains vitamins B2, B3, B5 and the minerals magnesium, manganese and potassium, which are needed for energy release and movement, as well as bone and teeth health. 

ANDRÉE MURPHY: An attack on memory and hope

On the 5th February 1992, Christy Doherty (52), Jack Duffin (66), James Kennedy (15), Peter Magee (18) and William McManus (54) were killed in Sean Grahams Bookmakers on the Ormeau Road. Nine were wounded, including Peter Magee’s brother in-law Mark Sykes. Systemic RUC collusion in that attack has been laid bare after the families were forced to engage a Goliath battle seeking to have that truth established, with family members dying young as a result of trauma and injury. One of the weapons used in the attack was placed on public display in the Imperial War Museum, while the investigation was still live. At the 29th anniversary commemoration PSNI officers arrested Mark Sykes in one of the most appalling acts of public authority indecency seen since the ceasefires.

JUDE COLLINS: If a border poll is not on, how come so many are talking about it?