Opinion Pieces | Belfast Media

SQUINTER: Drumcree concerns are strictly of the usual kind

THERE’S a common but catastrophically mistaken perception among the general public that bias and discrimination in politics and the media are necessarily driven by what m’learned friends are pleased to call mens rea, or a guilty mind.

GERRY ADAMS: Máire Drumm: Our pride in a remarkable republican

A SERIES of events have taken place in South Armagh and in Belfast to remember Leas Uachtarán Shinn Fein Máire Drumm.

JUDE COLLINS: Queen Carla is not good news for her loyal subjects

If an election were held tomorrow, I’d put down at least £100 that Sinn Féin would romp home with a whopping majority. Unionist politicians, not surprisingly, are horrified at the thought. Imagine, law-breakers being elected as law-makers. It’s enough to make Jim Allister’s face turn from its habitual red to white or blue.

OPINION: A New Ireland - what's in it for me?

The biggest obstacle to a New Ireland may not be opposition to it, but the absence of a compelling reason to change.

PLATING UP: Bombay carrot and sweet potato soup with sourdough

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...

HEALTHWISE: Eggs are back in fashion – but only if cooked

IN the low-fat era of the 1990s, eggs were pushed aside like yesterday’s leftover dinner. Scares of high cholesterol and heart disease made people disregard the egg.

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE: Assessing the lie of the Garvaghy land

Feelings,Nothing more than feelings;Trying to forget myFeelings of love.Teardrops,Rolling down on my face,Trying to forget my,Feelings of love...

SQUINTER: Those PSNI security assessments in full

THE PSNI has come under a lot of pressure over its first Garvaghy security assessment – the one that allowed the Parades Commission to give Portadown District permission to walk. Briefly, that assessment was that any decision to allow Orangemen to walk the Garvaghy Road would lead to an outbreak of peace and love in north Armagh. So much so that local maternity hospitals were advised to prepare for an uptick in cross-community births next... July.

ANDRÉE MURPHY: Criminalisation failed before – and it will fail again

The British and unionist casting of Irish citizens and Irishness as criminal, or suspect, is an old trick. Repeating it around parading is tedious and nothing more than a distraction.

EYE ON THE PAST: October 1985 – Men suffer sectarian attack in Derriaghy

We look at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in 1985...

PLATING UP: Grilled paneer with black and green olives and salad

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...

HEALTHWISE: Women’s eating habits can be problematic

CHOOSING the right food and drink can help women manage their changing life stages from social transition, hormonal changes and body development.

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE: Impassioned pleas don’t always get a yes

ONE of the DUP’s many cunning plans to oppose the 2012 decision to stop flying the union jack at City Hall 24/7 was to try and get the flag up permanently at the nearby Cenotaph. The thinking was, I imagine, that at least there would be a union jack visible at City Hall all day long, even it if was a bit less prominent.

ANDRÉE MURPHY: Commissions are our modern-day colonial outposts

The dehumanising of our community by unionism is not something new. Casting our rights to equality and dignity as in violation of laws which compound inequality and indignity as also as old as occupation and colonialism itself. It is the deliberate trick to privilege the position of the oppressor. To experience it in 2026, following a couple of decades of progress is annoying but nothing we can’t handle.

JUDE COLLINS: Getting to know you at Drumcree and Garvaghy

“Follow the money” is sensible advice in all sorts of circumstances. In the case of the Drumcree/Garvaghy Road stand-off, the money leads to the PSNI, which cost some £3 million. Imagine if your house and the house on either side of you got £1 million each – it’d be life-transforming. In the case of the policing of Garvaghy Road, it has not so much transformed the life of residents (it wasn’t they who got the money, it was the PSNI) as helped make their lives liveable again.

Soccer: Cliftonville boss Magilton hopes his side can take improve ahead of Glens visit this evening

SOCCER: Shevlin strike condemns Reds to fifth straight defeat

Gaelic Games: JHC - Paddies are crowned Junior champions after Belfast derby win over Lamh's

Gaelic Games: 13-man Ardoyne come unstuck by Ballymena in final clash

PLATING UP: Prawn and asparagus parmesan risotto

HEALTHWISE: It’s that colds and flu time of year yet again

ROBIN LIVINGSTONE: My return to the Biggest Show in the Country was never going to end well

ANDRÉE MURPHY: Micheál Martin out of step with the Garvaghy unity of purpose

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