Robin has been with the Andersonstown News and subsequently the Belfast Media Group for over 30 years. He began his career in journalism with the company writing cinema and TV reviews as a freelance before becoming a staff reporter and going on to be appointed editor of the Andersonstown News in 1993. He became Group Editor of the Belfast Media Group with responsibility for all titles in 2016. He's the author of The Road, a memoir about growing up in Belfast.
THE trickle of schools starting back turned into a torrent this week as over 300,000 children across the north returned to the classroom for the first time since the middle of March on Tuesday.
MIXED feelings among parents this week as schoolchildren returned to the classroom five months after schools closed in response to Covid-19.
NO one can deny the huge positive differences which the internet, broadband connectivity and social media have made to our lives.
If, as that other great Northern leader vilfied by RTÉ and the mainstream press, former President Mary McAleese, contends, peace is a journey rather than a destination then John Hume was surely the beacon who led us through the nightmare of 30 years of violence to the promised land of peace.
If, as that other great Northern leader vilfied by RTÉ and the mainstream press, former President Mary McAleese, contends, peace is a journey rather than a destination then John Hume was surely the beacon who led us through the nightmare of 30 years of violence to the promised land of peace.
AT times it can be easy to forget the progress that has been made here in the north on that long and twisting road towards justice and equality.
A FINDING in the long-overdue Russia Report that the UK government “actively avoided” looking for evidence of Russian inferference in the 2016 EU referendum will come as no surprise to those of us who have been paying attention to the increasingly close and toxic relationship in recent years between senior Tories and obscenely wealthy, London-based oligarch friends of Vladimir Putin.