Protesters also call for UK to stop arms sales to Israel and end to Israeli occupation of Palestine
Hundreds of protesters in London have staged a sit-in on Westminster Bridge, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza in the first big demonstration of the year.
Elsewhere on Saturday, there were protests in Belfast and Dublin.
Continue reading...Then PM thought move ‘would be excellent’ but Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam was sceptical
Newly released state papers show that the former prime minister Tony Blair backed proposals for Wimbledon FC to move to Belfast but his Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam was more sceptical.
Previously confidential state papers include a note from 1997 described as “following up earlier informal discussions about the possibility of an English Premier League football club relocating to Belfast”.
Continue reading...President expected to emphasise US’s commitment to ensuring peace in Northern Ireland as he begins visit to island of Ireland
Joe Biden will hold a meeting with Rishi Sunak in Belfast on Wednesday before a keynote speech in which he is expected to emphasise the US’s commitment to ensuring lasting peace and prosperity for Northern Ireland.
US officials said the president would be “underscoring the readiness of the United States to support Northern Ireland’s vast economic potential to the benefit of all communities” with the prospect of major investments if power-sharing is restored in Stormont.
Continue reading...US president said he intended to visit Northern Ireland and Irish Republic in meeting with Rishi Sunak
Joe Biden has confirmed he plans to visit Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement.
He was told by Rishi Sunak “we’d love to have you” when the pair held a face-to-face bilateral meeting on the fringes of the Aukus summit.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak announces £1.6bn contract led by shipyard Harland and Wolff that will create 900 jobs in Belfast
Shipbuilding is to be revived in Belfast after 20 years as part of a £1.6bn Ministry of Defence contract for three new naval vessels, Rishi Sunak has announced.
A consortium led by the shipyard Harland and Wolff has secured the preferred bidder status which will create 1,200 jobs across three companies, 900 of which will be in Belfast.
Continue reading...As director’s movie is nominated for seven Oscars, residents of Mountcollyer Street recall when the Troubles started
Little remains of the street where Kenneth Branagh was raised.
It is the day after the Oscar nominations and Branagh has professed he is “dazed and delighted” and in a “beautiful state of shock” over the seven Oscar nominations his film Belfast has received.
Continue reading...Jane Campion’s repressed western up for 12 prizes at 94th Academy Awards, with Dune scoring 10 nominations and Belfast and West Side Story both bagging seven
The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion’s Montana-set drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a threatening rancher, has swept the board at the Oscar nominations.
The film is up for a dozen prizes, including best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, best actor for Cumberbatch, best supporting actress for Kirsten Dunst and best supporting actor for both Kodi Smit-McPhee and Jesse Plemons.
Continue reading...The director’s first cousin Martin Hamilton tells of family and the Troubles that went on to inspire an acclaimed memoir
There is one man with very personal reasons for finding the scenes of sectarian intimidation in Sir Kenneth Branagh’s film homage to his home city particularly haunting – his first cousin, Martin Hamilton.
Hamilton, who grew up with Branagh and his family in inner-city north Belfast, says the images of Catholic families being forced out of the mainly Protestant district brought back painful memories of his own fractured friendships that were lost in the Troubles.
Continue reading...After a year of criticism over diversity, the Golden Globes have come up with a decent slate of nominees, with Gaga surely the favourite for best actress
• Full list of 2020 nominations
The Golden Globes nomination list has been announced with a solemn introduction from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s president Helen Hoehne, to the effect that the Globes’ much-criticised controlling body was “trying to be better” and that its constituent membership was more diverse than at any other time in its history. Which is better, I suppose, than being less diverse than at any time in its history.
At any rate, leading the pack are Belfast, Kenneth Branagh’s unashamed heartwarmer about the home town of his early childhood, with seven nominations and Jane Campion’s stark, twisty western-Gothic psychodrama The Power of the Dog, set in 1920s Montana with Benedict Cumberbatch as the troubled, angry cattleman who begins a toxic duel with his new sister-in-law played by Kirsten Dunst and her sensitive teenage son, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Continue reading...Incident near Rathcoole in Newtownabbey sparks fresh fears of Brexit-related violence in region
A bus has been set on fire after it was hijacked by four masked men on the outskirts of Belfast.
The men boarded the double-decker bus in Church Road near Rathcoole in Newtownabbey, County Antrim, at about 7.45pm on Sunday, ordered passengers to get off and set it alight.
Continue reading...Nightmarishness meets nostalgia as Jamie Dornan and Judi Dench star in a scintillating Troubles-era coming-of-age tale
There is a terrific warmth and tenderness to Kenneth Branagh’s elegiac, autobiographical movie about the Belfast of his childhood: spryly written, beautifully acted and shot in a lustrous monochrome, with set pieces, madeleines and epiphanies that feel like a more emollient version of Terence Davies. Some may feel that the film is sentimental or that it does not sufficiently conform to the template of political anger and despair considered appropriate for dramas about Northern Ireland and the Troubles. And yes, there is certainly a spoonful of sugar (or two) in the mix, with some mandatory Van Morrison on the soundtrack. There’s a key climactic scene about how you disarm a gunman in the middle of a riot if you have no gun yourself, which has to be charitably indulged.
But this film has such emotional generosity and wit and it tackles a dilemma of the times not often understood: when, and if, to pack up and leave Belfast? Is it an understandable matter of survival or an abandonment of your beloved home town to the extremists? (Full disclosure: my own dad left Belfast for England, though well before the era of this film.)
Continue reading...Reviewers in the US have lauded the film, but complain it is too difficult to understand and needs subtitles
Kenneth Branagh’s new autobiographical film, Belfast, is tipped for Oscar glory, but his home town will not be happy if it’s in the foreign language category.
Hollywood reviewers who have lauded the film’s storytelling and acting complain the Northern Ireland accents are difficult to understand and require subtitles.
Continue reading...In the face of scorn and contempt from former IRA members, a small number of dissident groups remain committed to armed action. What do they think they can achieve?
In the early hours of 19 April 2019, Belfast-born Irish republican Anthony McIntyre was awakened by his wife, Carrie, in their home in Drogheda, just south of the border in Ireland. “It’s not true, it can’t be true,” she was saying. “Lyra has been shot dead.”
Drowsy, confused and not quite believing what he had just been told, McIntyre fell back asleep. He awoke the following morning thinking, “What did she tell me?” McIntyre looked online, and saw that it was true: their good friend, the 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee, had been observing a riot in Derry the previous night when she was shot by a republican gunman.
Continue reading...Even by the violent standards of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, the events of August 1971 were particularly shocking
Even by the standards of Northern Ireland’s Troubles it was a tumultuous, violent couple of days.
The British army swept into nationalist neighbourhoods across the region on the morning of 9 August 1971 as part of Operation Demetrius, rounding up hundreds of suspects without trial in the hope of snuffing out the IRA’s campaign.
Continue reading...Two army veterans acquitted of Joe McCann’s murder after judge ruled some evidence inadmissible
Two former British army paratroopers accused of murdering an Official IRA commander during the Troubles have been acquitted after their trial in Northern Ireland collapsed.
The two veterans, known as soldiers A and C, had been accused of murdering Joe McCann on 15 April 1972, in a closely watched trial with political ramifications.
Continue reading...Rioters have been blasted with water cannon by police on the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland, as unrest continued into a seventh day.
Stones and fireworks were thrown at police by gangs of youths gathered on the nationalist Springfield Road, close to where riots took place on Wednesday night
After calls for calm this week, there was a heavy security presence, with water cannon and riot officers at the scene as police charged the youths with dogs
Continue reading...Gangs of youths gathered near the scene of Wednesday night’s violence and hurled stones and fireworks at police
Rioters have been blasted with a water cannon by police as unrest stirred on the streets of Northern Ireland once again.
After calls for calm this week, violence again flared up on the streets of west Belfast on Thursday. Stones and fireworks were thrown at police by gangs of youths gathered on the nationalist Springfield Road, close to where riots took place on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...Chief constable briefs party leaders after political crisis intensified by another night of riots in Belfast
Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive is holding an emergency meeting in Stormont after another night of riots scarred parts of Belfast and ratcheted up a political crisis.
Simon Byrne, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, briefed party leaders on the security situation on Thursday before a debate at the assembly, which has been recalled from its Easter break.
Continue reading...My friend, Roddy Evans, who has died aged 97, was a skilled surgeon and a remarkable man, whose commitment to his worldwide community was highly significant.
A Christian, he was drawn to the Moral Re-Armament movement (MRA, now Initiatives of Change) because it was based on practical Christianity: putting your own life in order first so that you can help others. Roddy lived a simple life and he believed that God would provide for him.
Continue reading...Acts of state violence, and repeated official denials, drove some Northern Irish Catholics to armed resistance. But not everyone in west Belfast supported the IRA’s methods
When Johnston Brown, a 27-year-old detective with the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) – the overwhelmingly protestant police force of Northern Ireland – volunteered in late 1977 to serve at Andersonstown police barracks in Catholic west Belfast, he was given a few pieces of very clear advice. He should never stop at a red light in west Belfast if it was safe to drive on. He should assume that any pedestrians who wanted to cross the road may be part of a trap – members of the security forces had lost their lives this way. Nor should Brown ever indicate that he was turning into a police barracks. He should approach with the flow of the traffic and then swerve suddenly in through the gates, to reduce the risk of being shot, and to make it harder for anyone to make a note of his registration number. And if he were unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of gunmen, he must attempt to shoot his way out – never try to talk himself out of trouble.
“I remember clearly,” Brown wrote in 2005, “one older detective sergeant, a man in his late 40s, telling me sternly: ‘Here you have at most between five and eight minutes at the door of any house you may call at on an enquiry. You have that much time to conduct the enquiry and get the hell out of those areas, because five to eight minutes is all the time it takes for the Provos [the Provisional IRA] to get hold of a weapon and a volunteer who will be only too keen to kill you before you conduct your enquiry and leave.’”
Continue reading...