Irish Border Poll

Amal Khalil - who worked for Al-Akhbar - was documenting the destruction and Israeli attacks in south Lebanon. She had prev received death threats from an Israeli number. ‘We know where you are… we will reach you… leave if you want to keep your head on your shoulders’ was one threat 🧵

Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was found dead after hours of searching under rubble. She was killed in an Israeli strike, after the Israeli army fired at ambulances trying to reach her, delaying her rescue. She is the fourth journalist killed by Israel while in the field since 2 March. She was a professional, kind and dedicated journalist, and always a pleasure to run into in the field.

The Italian forces of UNIFIL replace the crucifix in Debel, Lebanon, which was destroyed by an Israeli soldier using a sledgehammer. Video: debelalerts

"The coloniser suppresses the language of the colonised…” That’s how Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o explains it. Centuries earlier, Edmund Spenser was living in /occupying north Cork [Corcaigh]… writing the Irish name Cill na Mullach down— and quietly pushing it into the past.

John Swinney announced today that if SNP win the election he wants to collaborate with SF and Plaid to break up the UK-Union. A seminal moment. Game on. History beckons. Let’s get it done.

SNP leader says “the Union will be irreversibly changed” if @SNP @Plaid_Cymru @sinnfeinireland are the largest parties after next month’s elections. Let’s get the done people👏😀 @IrelandsFuture @KevinPMeagher @bjacollins @Reunify32 @molloy1916 @StephenFlynnSNP @yogijunior3

📚‘A Nation for All’ 🔸Caoilfhionn Ní Dhonnabháin in conversation with @molloy1916 The book explores history, politics, & ideas, telling the story of Ireland’s unfinished revolution & proposing a new society built on sovereignty & equality. Register now: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

John Swinney: I want to collaborate with Sinn Féin and Plaid Cymru to break up UK trib.al/cRMIS1y

Solidarity with my friend @AmalKhalil83 and Zeinab Faraj currently besieged by I$raeli forces in Al Tiri in southern Lebanon who are refusing to allow the army or Lebanese Red Cross to attend to victims of an airstrike or carry out a safe evacuation of those trapped

From 50 years ago (Irish Times)

SNP would work with Sinn Fein 'to change the dynamics of the United Kingdom', says John Swinney dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/…

The story we have forgotten - the often difficult economic fortunes of the Irish in Britain over 200 years - told in a fascinating new exhibition now opened in Dublin - The Irish were an underclass, 50% poorer than the English’ irishtimes.com/politics/2026/…

Watch how a runner from North Down Athletic Club (yellow vest) forgets his own race and helps. 👏👏👏🌟🌟🌟🌟

If Sabrina Carpenter sang Blanket On The Ground it would be a worldwide hit but the Irish country music haters don't wanna admit tha x #philomenabegley #irish #culchie #tyrone #countrymusic

Last week, I saw that Ronnie Thompson's (Funeral Home) had put out a plea as a lady had died locally but unfortunately there was no next of kin or anyone at all to bury her or attend the funeral. In this day and age when families are smaller, separated over time and often living apart, you can completely see how this sort of situation might arise. But I'm sure I'm also not the only one who thought with a sad heart; omg could this be me or someone else I love someday? With no one to bury me? I wanted to attend the funeral, but knew I had to be in Parliament to question the Prime Minister & Chancellor, so it wasn't possible for me to go. It didn't leave me though and I was thinking about the lady, Peggy Murdoch, a lot. It just goes to show that we are a very similar bunch in our wee town as you were all obviously thinking the same thing! So much so, that people from right across the town, musicians, others, Ronnie Thompson themselves who part-funded the burial as well as local schools St Patrick's Academy & Lisnagarvey High School all pitched in to give this lovely lady a brilliant send off today and to show that in Lisburn & Lagan Valley that people care, that we care. So proud of our town and this whole community- thank you for caring ❤️

Today in 1969, the day before her 22nd birthday, Bernadette Devlin walked into the House of Commons and tore up the rulebook. She had just become the youngest woman ever elected to the Westminster parliament, having won the Mid-Ulster seat five days earlier on a Unity ticket, beating Anna Forrest of the Ulster Unionist Party. The seat had fallen vacant because Anna's husband George had died. Devlin was already a gifted orator and a prominent voice in People's Democracy, the student civil rights organisation that had grown out of Queen's University Belfast, she had been on the streets demanding basic rights for Catholics in Northern Ireland at a time when many in Westminster could barely locate the Bogside on a map. Taking her seat was itself a statement. For Irish nationalists, Westminster was not their parliament. Sinn Féin's abstentionist position, stretching back to the 1918 general election, held that recognising the legitimacy of a British parliament and taking an oath of allegiance to the English Queen was a step too far. Devlin standing in the chamber declared herself to be there in the same tradition as Constance Markievicz, the first woman ever elected to the parliament. Though Markievicz, of course, had refused to take her seat. Devlin broke tradition immediately. Maiden speeches were supposed to be boring, uncontroversial and deferential to the House. Devlin had no interest in any of that. She acknowledged as much from the outset, saying she understood she was flouting the unwritten customs of the chamber, but that the situation of her people made that necessary. Her target was Robin Chichester-Clark, MP for Londonderry (Derry) and brother of the incoming Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Chichester-Clark. He had been in the Bogside, surveying it with what Devlin memorably described as hands clasped behind his back, saying tut-tut every time a policeman had his head scratched. She had been there too, she told the House. Building barricades. What made the speech remarkable was that she refused to pitch it as a sectarian grievance. Catholics and Protestants, she said, were the ordinary people, the oppressed people, the ones she came from and the ones she represented. There was no place in society for them, the ordinary peasants of Northern Ireland. Whether the political corruption in a place like Omagh was green or orange, she said, both were Tory. The ruling minority kept itself in power by keeping everyone else divided and down. She was unsparing on the Unionist Party itself, condemning what she called its deliberate policy of division. Its bigotry, its sectarianism, all deployed as tools to maintain power over a population that deserved better. The New York Times reported that a 21-year-old Irish girl had held the House of Commons spellbound with a maiden speech of quiet eloquence and powerful emotion. One journalist called it the finest maiden speech since Disraeli. The House had been warned. Devlin had more to say, and she would keep saying it. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

“Europe’s political leadership may ignore our protests and our petitions but they cannot ignore industrial action” Author, Sally Rooney ✊

Morning