Conn MacEvilly

This is maddening.

I would endorse this except that it looks a bit chilly for the ould country.

I am finally reading Borderlines by @lewisbaston.bsky.social.

The France/Germany chapter is a great antidote to the pompous Brexiter claim that it was more likely NATO (and general economic recovery) that kept the peace after 1945, not the EU.

Furious response to column saying Ireland has ‘tenuous claim to nationhood’ Writer Melanie Phillips' column is entitled 'Britain is the authentic nation in this battle'

The parallels are stark between the language used by Melanie Phillips about the Irish (not really a nation or culture distinct from the British, not really independent) in a notorious article in the Times (of London) and that of Russians towards the Ukrainians.

www.irishtimes.com/news/politic...

Intro card (or whatever it’s called) for the Australian soap “The Sullivans”

A photo taken from “Dublin, The Heart of the City”, by Ronan Sheehan and Brendan Walsh. A pre-apocalyptic scene from the 1980s: two cheery boys stand on waste land in front of a row bricked-up/collapsed Georgian houses.

Amazing narrative opportunities based on that idea include:

a. The nuclear attack having been thwarted (with extreme prejudice - arf!), humanity survives by unleashing ropey soaps from around the world

b. The Fair City cast survive, emerging into a wasteland akin to 1980s Dublin, and thrive

Sounds like sometime between Aug 2026 and Aug 2027, “Pride and Prejudice” became self-replicating, possibly self-aware.

I’d take this narrative to be entirely plausible except that I calculate that in around Dec 2026 the UK’s strategic supply of character actors would be entirely depleted.

Awesome

LeGuin wrote about the desire for 'unassailable safety' as one of the deep roots of evil, and I think about that a lot.

This is a fantastic explanation of a dynamic which is wrecking our politics (in the UK and Ireland, and anywhere else in the world in which housing costs have gone crazy).

Epic stuff

The agony of watching that small boy raise that flag and call out for deliverance, knowing that for people living it that situation in real life right now no deliverance will come, was powerful enough to carry the whole film imho.

Yep

Great article. If there’s an apostrophe in your name (O’’Neill, O’Connor, etc), prepare for WASP obliteration.

Good analysis. I think that photo of Mitterand and Kohl holding hands in Verdun has led people to think that for the Franco-German relationship to work, it has to be a dreamy marriage. It never was like that!

A key point.

I apologise for not being clear.

The UK and IRL govts are the parties to the GFA but its terms represent the grand bargain between those states and paramilitary orgs.

Paramilitary groups (new and old) would see casus belli. No recourse for them to diplo/econ sanctions/taking UK to court.

"Assessment of the 2024 general election We agree with the Electoral Commission’s assessment that the 2024 general election was well run. But we note once again that considerable concerns have been raised about the potential for things to go wrong in any one of the elements necessary to deliver a successful election. We are concerned that the fabric may not hold, potentially placing an election result in doubt. We also note that while the Electoral Commission have consistently reported that elections are well run, they have also consistently raised concerns. To better judge how elections are run the Electoral Commission should develop criteria and, where appropriate, metrics, for assessing and judging how effectively an election has been run."

Striking warning from the House of Commons Constitutional Affairs Committee that the "fabric" of the UK's electoral machinery "may not hold, potentially placing an election result in doubt".
publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cm...

I’m simultaneously surprised and not surprised.

… treachery, betrayal of a hard-won peace. Enough would regard subjecting people in NI to solely British courts for vindication of their rights as sufficient to constitute casus belli that it’s very much worth avoiding.

But many in the UK, England especially, are utterly blind to this./end

… foundations because it would remove the right of IRL to sue UK for human rights abuses and for individuals in NI to bring human rights claims against UK to a non-British court.

It’s exasperating that so many in the UK fail to see why many in IRL would regard UK withdrawal from ECHR as …/7

The whole point of the GFA was to blur partition into practical nothingness.

That’s why Brexit and its reimposition/increase of legal barriers/differences between NI and IRL was *always* and *obviously* going to threaten peace in NI.

ECHR withdrawal would be a tac nuke into those fractured … /6

That misinfo includes presenting the NI conflict as “finito” rather than in stasis. It’s called “the peace process” for a reason.

Misinfo also includes presenting the conflict as based on religion rather than the legitimacy of partition (and of the national identity partition protects). …/5

… the UK, the US or EU. The concept of the independence of small states doesn’t fit with their worldview, and they make the error of thinking the UK is still a large state rather than a middle-ranking one.

The other major crack in the foundations is due to decades of misinformation about NI …/4

… is the failure on the part of many in the UK (and almost all Brexiters) to acknowledge Irish independence as real. At best they think it’s a mistake IRL will ultimately undo, at worst they think it’s a lie that needs to be undone. They regard IRL as intrinsically a vassal state, whether of …/3

… they have turned out so far for UK-IRL relations (at international and personal levels), in part because the EU so staunchly supported IRL, leading to an outcome which looks and feels close to “no change”.

But I fear this won’t last. One of the main cracks in the foundation of the peace …/2

Yes. FWIW, back in 2016 I anticipated (a) that the impossibility of the Brexit promise would lead to an angry blowback which the far-right would capitalise on; and (b) Ireland would take at least some of the blame for Brexit not turning out as promised.

I expected things to get much worse than …/1

I think it’s reasonable to believe that the current Labour govt has a better chance of rebuilding trust than its predecessor.

But it’s unreasonable to believe that Labour govt = trusted UK.

The UK electorate endorsed the Tory approach to the EU multiple times. New govt does not imply new demos.

Garamond - Wikipedia

Garamond is so beautiful, especially if your text includes lots of italics. It gives them urgency. Basically the font equivalent of waving your hands around when you talk.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamond

I apologise for not being sufficiently clear. My point was that the UK and Irish governments are the parties to the GFA but its terms represent the grand bargain between those states and paramilitary organisations and the political parties they represent. I don’t see the IRA accepting SB’s plan.

Mark, it’s important to remember that although the parties to the GFA are the UK and Irish governments, there were several other key stakeholders in it.

Many in NI would *never* agree to losing the right to hold the UK to account before an international court for breaches of human rights.