JM

@timcairns @smccarthynire What is a cultural unionist?

@smccarthynire I disagree being unionist is much more than just voting, I think that was a problem with the Beattie Bouncers and you seem not to have learned

Tim, the single biggest flaw at the heart of unionism is the point you're articulating. Unionisms core aim is to maintain 🇬🇧. That's it. Protestantism, orangism, monarchism, conservativism, etc. all have their own isms & all fragment the majority we need to keep our 🇬🇧 together.

#HappyValentinesDay2026 from Ireland!🇮🇪

the simpsons have a track record in predicting the future

An open letter to Gavin Robinson from Robin Livingstone Dear Gavin, Last Wednesday you advised the families of the Bloody Sunday dead to “move on”. You were speaking after the PPS decided not to prosecute members of the Parachute Regiment for perjury. The families should stop, you added, “the endless pursuit of others”. Although I’ve lost someone close to me in violent and unexpected circumstances, and although I write for a living, I will never if I live to write another billion words come anywhere near to bettering a description of the chest-emptying reality of grief and loss that I heard some years ago. Let me share it with you… “The only relief I get is when I wake up in the morning. There’s a few seconds when you’re still half-asleep, a few more seconds until you’re properly awake, and a few more seconds while you ease into the new day. “Then, you remember…” The woman who spoke those words that I’ve just quoted might like to “move on”, I don’t know. Speaking from my own family’s experience and that of the countless victims I’ve met as I potter towards the end of a long career in journalism, I’d say she would. I don’t know for sure, but why wouldn’t she? Who would choose to start every day with an electric jolt of newly-remembered grief in the heart? Who would choose to sob on hearing a bar of a half-remembered song? Who would choose to be suddenly racked with guilt during a moment of family joy? Who would choose not to open a biscuit tin of old family photos because sorrowful smiles are 99 per cent sorrow and one per cent smile. Your concept of what the Bloody Sunday families are in pursuit of, with its concomitant imperatives of punishment and incarceration, is not one that I recognise. I can’t and don’t as a bereaved relative speak for every name in Lost Lives, that hefty Book of the Dead that’s still as essential to my desk in work as the notebook, phone and keyboard. I can’t and don’t even speak for every member of my family. But I know that what I feel is common coin in the place where grief lives. Like the Bloody Sunday family, my family is in pursuit of justice, in our case for Julie. We probably won’t know what justice is until we get it – or until we get something that feels like it. At this point all I know about the British soldier who shot my sister dead at 14 is that he’s Welsh. I don’t know his name or where he lives. I have not the faintest idea of what he looks like. Heck, I don’t even know if he’s alive. Why don’t I know these things? Simply because the man was never made the subject of the kind of meaningful investigation that would necessitate these things being divulged. What’s more, I don’t particularly want to know his name or where he lives – I don’t know if I have sufficient storage in my emotional hard drive to let him into my life. But if these things are made known as we try to complete the picture of how Julie died and why, then so be it. What I do know, Gavin, is that I don’t want this anonymous Welshman – if indeed he is still alive – to spend a second in jail, never mind long years. What I do know is that the idea of punishing him has never entered my mind. But it goes deeper than that. The man who fired the plastic bullet is likely my age – probably just a little bit older. If, like me, he has children and grandchildren, I hope he loves and enjoys them as much as I do mine. The idea of pursuing him has not only never occurred to me, it is something that I don’t even understand. He is at this point merely a means to an end; as much a part of the drama of Julie’s death as the armoured vehicle and the plastic bullet gun; with more agency, granted, but not much. If he ends up being interviewed I hope it’s on his sofa in Wales and not in a barracks in Belfast. If he ends up being charged I can’t help that, but if he was convicted I’d step forward to ask the judge that he not be jailed, no doubt while your DUP colleagues queued up to get their pictures taken with him and claim him as one of their own. It’s no surprise to me that you fail to understand that people can no more move on from doing right by those they have lost than they can move on from breathing. Why would you? What does surprise me is that you think victims of the British state like the Bloody Sunday families are in “pursuit” of human beings – of “others”. That is a venal and catastrophic misunderstanding of the sacred and immutable nature of a commitment made while standing over a coffin. What they are in pursuit of, Gavin, is not Soldier X, or Y or Z. They are merely old and rusted signposts on the road to their journey’s end. What they are in pursuit of is a time when they can fall asleep at night in the knowledge that they have finally kept a promise they made – spoken or unspoken – to the innocent grey face among the mass cards; to the mother, father, husband, wife, brother, sister, son or daughter they lost. What they are in pursuit of is a time when they can wake up, and alongside the every-morning shock of that moment of re-remembering, feel for the first time a surge of pride in a promise delivered. I don’t know what’s happened to you in the last year or so – maybe a little longer. I specify that time scale because December 2024 was when you crossed the city to get a drive-by picture taken on the Falls Road beside some pro-Palestine graffiti. I don’t think I need to remind you about the extent and nature of the wall art that you passed without comment in your East Belfast constituency to get here, so I won’t mention that except to point out that I don’t remember you ever having your picture taken beside any of it. It struck me forcefully then that this didn’t seem like the kind of stunt that a generally mild-mannered bloke like you would pull. Then last March you again stuck your barrel chest out, thumbed your lapels and issued another stirring message to Loyal Ulster: you were going to instruct your MLAs to “put a marker down” in relation to the Irish language at Grand Central Station. That also didn’t strike me as a Gavin-style move. And in the autumn you got even more in touch with your inner-Jamie by welcoming the Soldier F acquittal on social media not just with the expected comment that it was a “common sense judgement” but with a big old Para flag. And now, in case anyone thought that the Para flag was a slip of your phone thumb, here you are telling the people still trying to get their heads round your Para play to “move on”. The most recent LucidTalk poll shows your party up 1% to 19%, and the Belfast Telegraph was reliably excited enough to suggest that this statistically negligible figure points suggests your party’s “shift to the right” has won back voters. But it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than a single point to suggest that the DUP is back, whatever the unionist papers say. I’ve no doubt that your Palestine picture, your Irish language way cry and now your “move on” exhortation will bring familiar fish to the top in the pool you’re currently fishing in. But you need to drop your line in deeper waters and you need a bigger catch if you’re to move out of your polling teens. And in that sense, it may be you who most needs to move on.

Outrage as Alliance accuse DUP of secretly wanting rid of Fleadh: Fight over fringe event that clashes with Ulster Pipe Band Championships continues trib.al/Nwu8fyT

@GAAjuggernaut @officialgaa Hooters in but like rugby. Next time it goes dead that isn’t for a foul then the game is over.

Anyone actually a fan of the hooter? I’d say most people would accept some time controversies with the refs blowing late or early than this hooter bullshite. Get your hooters out @officialgaa

@BelTel Some amount of spin applied to that headline 🤦🏻‍♂️

Almost half back keeping Ulster Banner for Commonwealth Games in new poll belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/ne… belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sunday-life/ne…

@MaggieBrown13 @JonBurrowsMLA @sean_murray1 Why is he worrying about Iran or people talking with Iran while there are homeless people dying here? Unless he just said that for a soundbite and to put the boot into themmums which makes him as useless as the next politician.

@IsMiseJM @JonBurrowsMLA @sean_murray1 What a retort filled with stupidity 🫣👀

The Iranian regime is wicked. ⁦@sean_murray1⁩ should clarify whether he is paid as a special guest of Tehran. Belfast filmmaker refuses to say if Iran is paying him as he is ‘special guest’ in Tehran alongside sanctioned Wagner group figure belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/…

@SmallerFishGAA Derry are still playing their 2024 slow build up, take a million hand passes, football. Last years results show that doesn’t work anymore.

Huge win for Meath, beating Derry 0-19 to 1-13 They only scored 0-03 in the first 25 mins with the wind and conceded a brutal goal Get Meath out of Croke Park 😃

@BelTel Unionist complaints/concerns/fury/anger/etc! Suppose when you have nothing else to offer you may as well stop everyone moving forward.

Unionist politicians — including the deputy First Minister — have criticised the inclusion of Irish-language rap group Kneecap in this year’s AVA Festival line-up in east Belfast, with some writing letters of complaint to organisers. belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-…

@Bmangall20 @LADFLEG An old journalist pal was a drunken mess in a Belfast bar one night. He had the horrors the next day, but after a pre-booked flight to New York, he was smoking outside a jazz bar in the Village. Life was good. Then a passerby said "you were some cunt in Lavery's on Thursday".

Good Luck to @GlenullinGAC in tomorrows All Ireland Final from all here @GlackGAA 🟣🔵🟢🟡🏆

The amount of times I’ve watched this is unhealthy.

The GAA has today published a set of recommendations aimed at targeting the dramatic demographic changes taking place in Ireland that are having a significant impact on rural and urban clubs. Read the ground-breaking report in full ⬇ #GAABelong gaa.ie/article/gaa-s-…

The Celtic fans say farewell to Martin O'Neill as he signs off his final game in charge with a 1-0 win over Dundee 🍀

• 6 Games for MoN... ~ 5 Wins, 1 Loss ~ 16 Goals Scored ~ 5 Goals Conceded • Closed the gap at the top of the league • Won a Glasgow Derby that took us to the LC Final • First away win in Europe in 4 years • Put a spark back in the team #Legend 🍀 @CelticFC

The full provincial draw for the 2026 football championships

World Cup Playoff Permutations 🚨 - 16 teams (12 2nd places & 4 Nations League) - 4 Pots (Pot 1 vs Pot 4 & Pot 2 vs Pot 3) - Nations League teams in Pot 4 - Have to win semi-final & final - Open draw for home advantage in final - Ireland currently in Pot 2 (based on World Rankings) but need North Macedonia & Austria to avoid defeat on Tuesday night, otherwise we’ll be in Pot 3 - Draw is this Thursday at 12pm - Thursday 26th March for semi-final - Tuesday 31st March for final Tried to explain it all here:

90+5mins: 🇭🇺 2-3 🇮🇪 Ireland holds its breath, on the last throw of the dice... Hat-trick for Parrott 😮😮😮😮😮😮😮 📺 @rte2 @rteplayer shorturl.at/X2pcP 📻 @rteradio1 shorturl.at/gi0y8 📱Updates: shorturl.at/BX36M