Sean Bateson

This Sunday at 2pm we will gather at the Bobby Sands Statue in Twinbrook to mark the 45th anniversary of Bobby Sands. Let’s come together as a proud and united community, to honour the memory of the hunger strikers as we work towards our vision of a new and united Ireland.

Those behind last night’s attack in Dunmurry speak for absolutely no one. They have no vision, no support, and have nothing to offer our society. Our communities deserve peace. No one is going to deny our young people and future generations that. We will keep progressing and we will keep moving forward to a better future. I have been in contact with local representatives to extend my solidarity and support to all those impacted.

⁉️💥NEW: “There is a crack in the union. The 'disunited Kingdom'. London has treated us like second-class citizens.” 🎤🎥Chief Reporter @jamesgould23 speaking to @sinnfeinireland Vice President @moneillsf. 🗳She believes that, when looking at Scotland and Wales, if elections go a certain way there could be 'huge changes' in the make-up of the United Kingdom, with a united Ireland following in the future. She says election wins for @theSNP in Scotland and @Plaid_Cymru in Wales would say a lot about where people are at, adding: “They want change.” On Westminster, Michelle O’Neill says London has never cared for this place and never will. It comes ahead of the party’s Ard Fheis in Belfast this weekend, with keynote addresses from Michelle O’Neill on Friday and party leader @MaryLouMcDonald on Saturday.

Sinn Féin welcomes today’s positive court judgement which has dismissed the challenge to Belfast City Council’s Irish language policy. The Irish language is thriving in communities right across Belfast, and attempts to block progress will not succeed. We will continue working to ensure Belfast City Council’s Irish language policy is fully implemented and delivers equality for the Irish language.

Keir Starmer is choosing to spend billions extra each year on weapons of war, while failing to support workers and families through a cost of living crisis. The British government has the power to cut tax on petrol, diesel and home heating oil, and to also deliver a real financial support package for people. Instead, they’re choosing to spend the money on weapons for war.

🚨NEW: REVEALED🚨 THE DUP & other Unionist Cllrs have been consistently rejecting valid dual language streets signs since 2015; where overwhelming majorities of respondents vote in favour & virtually zero opposition. DUP supremacy in action, 2026. Source: FOI @CausewayCouncil

Keir Starmer is choosing to spend billions extra each year on weapons of war instead of supporting workers, families, and businesses through this cost of living crisis. I will continue to challenge the British government on the need to urgently cut taxes on petrol, diesel, and heating oil, and to deliver a serious support package for people. I won’t rest. I won’t let up. I will keep working day and night to have people’s backs.

🏆⛳️ Massive congratulations to Rory McIlroy on an incredible victory at The Masters! Another remarkable achievement from a world-class athlete and ambassador for our home and all its people. His hometown of Holywood and people right across the island will be beaming with pride. Rory’s incredible career is an inspiration for our next generation of athletes, giving them belief that they too can achieve great things. Enjoy the celebrations, Rory, they are very much deserved! 👏🏻

“We now have, through the Good Friday Agreement, a peaceful & democratic route to a new Ireland. That needs a renewed focus, especially by the Irish government. An Ireland that is respectful of all of its people and that is based on equality, tolerance & respect.” - @GerryAdamsSF

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“As people from Ireland we know oppression colonialism famine & genocide. As people from the north of Ireland we know it even more. As people from West Belfast it still affects our communities & our families. Free Palestine, free the 6 counties. Tiocfaidh ár lá!.” - Mo Chara

The Kilrea Bridge will fully reopen to all vehicles at 5.00pm on Wednesday 18 February, following the successful completion of the main repair works. The bridge has been restricted to cars and light vehicles since early December, but these restrictions will now be lifted. More: infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/news/kilrea-br…

Mary Lou McDonald confirms she will not attend St. Patrick’s Day events in the White House "The situation in Gaza and the West Bank remains dire, and the reality is that for all of the talk of a ceasefire, Israeli attacks on Gaza have not ended." sinnfein.ie/news/mary-lou-…

“We don’t need Englishmen to rule us. We can do that for ourselves.” 👏🏻 Powerful words from Pat Cullen MP speaking in Westminster during a debate on the rising support for independence parties across Ireland, Scotland and Wales. @patcullen9

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.

🙌 Great news that Ulster GAA has confirmed the next stage of works will now begin at Casement Park. This marks an important step towards a new Casement.

I welcome the news that work will begin at Casement Park next week to prepare for its regeneration. I am a firm believer in the power of sport and the lasting impact it brings to people’s lives, our communities, and local economy. Building a new Casement Park stadium is a key Executive priority. We must work together to deliver on a transformative vision for sports.

🍀 Celtic 4-0 Dundee Utd 🍊 We’re back baby ✨

Casement Park: ⁦@UlsterGAA⁩ secretary predicts work will begin on redevelopment soon bbc.co.uk/sport/articles…

🇮🇪 / 𝙃𝙚’𝙨 𝘽𝙖𝙘𝙠 - 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙣 𝙊’𝙉𝙚𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙍𝙚𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙨 💚 Celtic have appointed Martin O’Neill as manager until the end of the 2025/26 season. He will be joined by Shaun Maloney, Mark Fotheringham, Stephen McManus, Gavin Strachan, Stevie Woods & Greg Wallace.