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What will it take to unite Ireland? Opinions are divided

There are those for whom Northern Ireland is a geographical fragment of the UK holding true to empire on its western flanks, and those for whom partition is a century-old wrong that must be overturned. Somewhere in the middle are the persuadables — people willing to accept either unity or union, so long as the justification is logical. One way or another, the unity conversation is in the air.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Secular society, Brexit and looser ties of identity point only one way for Northern Ireland

“Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be,” Ophelia says in Hamlet. Change is hard-wired into the human condition and is often invisible to the naked eye, but – unusually – the Northern Ireland census returns show it happening right before our gaze.

All The Broken Places by John Boyne: A sister’s lifetime in the shadow of the death camps

When he wrote The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas more than 15 years ago, John Boyne could never have imagined the novel’s impact on his life and career. It went on to sell 11 million copies and counting, delivered an international audience for his work and meant everything he wrote afterwards would attract attention.

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Martina Devlin Opinion When Charles chats with Sinn Féin and all but snubs loyal Jeffrey Donaldson, DUP should take the hint

Small moments can be as telling as large events. The Hillsborough Castle line-up showed Charles III relaxed and at ease with Sinn Féin, which wants to remove Northern Ireland from his kingdom, and somewhat irked by the DUP, which is desperate to remain in it. The incongruity of the new king rubbing along more comfortably with republicanism than unionism was an instructive start to his reign.

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Martina Devlin Opinion New Northern Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris may be singing off same hymn sheet as DUP but he will need to get Brexit done

Is it worth learning the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland’s name? The reason I ask is because Chris Heaton-Harris is the third incumbent inside three months – this has become the most capricious office in the British cabinet, with short-term occupancy built in.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Civil War executions policy left legacy of bitterness in politics that still exists today

What is forgotten and what is remembered in history are vexed questions. While “forgotten” is often reached for, perhaps “conveniently overlooked” is a more accurate description, especially when an event does nothing to burnish a nation’s self-image.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Blinded by optimism bias, Robert Troy wrongly believed that ‘it will never happen to me’

Optimism bias has a lot to answer for – the flawed logic of “it’ll never happen to me”. The law of averages indicates most of us get caught out eventually for doing something we shouldn’t, or not doing something we should. But people have a default belief in events falling their way.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Our record-breaking athletes Rhasidat and Israel do Ireland and their families proud

In March 2020, I shared a public platform with a smiling schoolgirl of 17 who was wearing a tracksuit, like any teenager – except this girl was said to run like the wind. We were part of an An Post discussion panel for International Women’s Day, and she spoke with humour and humility about her prodigious talent for speed.

The Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan: A celebration of love and loyalty among women

This is a female world, a household in which four generations of strong-willed Aylward women, “all wrapped up together in one bundle,” form a loving family unit. They battle each other, but also support one another, in sometimes hostile and often violent small-town Irish life — not only surviving but triumphing over it.

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Martina Devlin Opinion King Puck reprieved in heat of the moment, but they really shouldn’t be using a live goat

Excuse me while I check the calendar. Yes, just as I thought – it’s 2022. For a while there I imagined we’d looped back a few centuries to a time when animals were fair game to be treated any which way the human race judged fit.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Policy-makers pull plug on common sense by approving energy-hungry data centres

Last weekend, I met a family living in Ireland whose members dress like the Amish. They wear homespun, all-concealing clothes in plain, dark colours and engage only sparingly with modern technology.

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Martina Devlin Opinion David Trimble deserves praise as a peacemaker, but he made a serious mistake with Brexit

David Trimble was wearing the sash and talking about rights when I first encountered him. It was at Drumcree during the marching season, and Orangemen insisted on walking the Queen’s highway, as they put it, which included passing along the nationalist Garvaghy Road.

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Martina Devlin Opinion We must stop downplaying the reality of climate crisis and act before it gets worse

“Humankind cannot bear very much reality,” TS Eliot wrote, yet even all- owing for that, the reality of climate change can no longer be downplayed. Still need evidence? This week, all you had to do was open a window or go outside. Freak weather conditions are happening on our doorstep, with temperatures hitting record highs.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Faint tut-tuts over sexist, sectarian effigies of three women politicians on Twelfth bonfire just don’t cut it in 2022

“I don’t want to be a doll hung up on the Wall,” says Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale, the Wall being where the bodies of executed (“salvaged”) people are displayed as a warning. It’s a novel that has little in common with Northern Ireland. Or has it?

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Martina Devlin Opinion Irish have skin in the game as we await the identity of next 10 Downing Street resident

Civil War is always bloody, as we know to our cost in Ireland. In Westminster, civil war is raging among the Tories, and across the Irish Sea there’s the reek of a power struggle and the stench of belated virtue-signalling.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Dr Kathleen Lynn and her partner left a loving legacy – their names belong on the new national children’s hospital

The English poet Philip Larkin wrote: “What will survive of us is love.” It is a haunting line which seems particularly appropriate to the life of Dr Kathleen Lynn, whose name is a worthy one to attach to the new national children’s hospital in Dublin, due to open 2024.

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Martina Devlin Opinion We need to teach people that violence is always wrong and can never be excused

Often, it’s a hidden crime, under-reported because it happens in the home, and not enough stigma is attached to fists flying behind closed doors. Society has tended to look the other way when women walk around with black eyes – or worse – and the default position has been that domestic abuse is no one else’s business.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Britain will have to choose: either it has the North, or the kind of Brexit it wants

Here’s the reality reinforced by Boris Johnson’s rogueries this week. Brexit plus Northern Ireland’s place within the UK are conflicting facts – they cannot easily co-exist. Sooner or later, Britain must choose: either it has Northern Ireland, or the kind of Brexit it wants.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Johnson’s on borrowed time but with DUP backing he can still inflict serious damage

First, the good news. It’s only a matter of time before Boris Johnson is replaced. Inevitably, he will follow in the footsteps of David Cameron and Theresa May, to become the third consecutive prime minister to topple amid Britain’s flailing Brexit strategy.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Holiday plans up in the air as travellers left to pay the price of DAA’s penny-pinching

“Penny wise and pound foolish” is how my granny would have described Dalton Philips, chief executive of the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA).

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Martina Devlin Opinion Tory bill isn’t about reconciliation, it will simply help people get away with murder

“Withdraw the Bill of Shame”, urged the placards of people who lost loved ones in violent circumstances – a plea that went unheard. It is a measure of the perversity of current Tory policy that unionists and nationalists alike are against a new law on Troubles-related crimes, with every party in the North opposing its plan to offer amnesty in return for information.

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Dervla Murphy: freewheeling pioneer with a fierce wanderlust

‘If visas had been needed in 1492, America would never have been discovered,” Dervla Murphy once said, describing how she disregarded the need for official documentation whenever she couldn’t come by it on her travels to “far-flungery”.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Good Friday Agreement is being used as a poker chip in Britain’s battle with the EU

“At least governments led by Margaret Thatcher” are words I never dreamed I’d find myself writing, but here goes. At least governments led by Margaret Thatcher had ministers of a certain stature and ability – politicians such as her successor, John Major, and others including Geoffrey Howe, Nigel Lawson and Michael Heseltine.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Cynical brinkmanship over protocol serves only to weaken the bedrock of democracy

Barking can lead to biting – or getting bitten. The British government is growling and snarling about the Northern Ireland Protocol in a display of aggression more focused on domestic politics than any tensions in the North around post-Brexit trade rules.

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Somerville and Ross: the writing collaboration from ‘beyond the grave’

A century ago, one of Ireland’s most successful writers was engaged in something extraordinary. Edith Somerville convinced herself, and managed to persuade others, that she was collaborating beyond the grave with her dead writing partner to continue producing their popular Somerville and Ross novels.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Better safe than sorry – we must put new maternity hospital into public ownership

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” is the attitude – as though people who raise difficulties are fault-finding or being ungrateful. But the ownership and governance of the new national maternity hospital are too important, for current and future generations of women, to allow plans to pass without scrutiny.

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Martina Devlin Opinion On the brink of change: Voters in North are poised to turn status quo on its head

There’s a joke that does the rounds in Northern Ireland at election time that goes: “To heck with the future, let’s get on with the past.” While that has the ring of truth, the forthcoming election is in a league of its own because voters are poised to upend the status quo.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Taxpayers run risk of being pushed beyond their limits as public-sector pensions soar

Without knowing it, I once slept in a house where someone had been murdered. A sense of disquiet troubled me during the course of that night. I can’t pretend to have detected its cause – there was no flash of insight into what happened years earlier – but a general unease bothered me.

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Martina Devlin Opinion We shouldn’t get bogged down in a turf war when the planet’s future is at stake

The longest distance between two places in Ireland is the gap between urban and rural dwellers. This latest turf-cutting row has the hallmarks of that divide, but also highlights a trend in political life: concede ground to special interest groups, and never mind the long-term costs.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Our leaders must use their voice to press for a total economic blockade of Russia

How many more Mariupols before we decide saving lives is more important than saving energy supplies? How many more Buchas before our reliance on creature comforts begins to matter less than the Ukrainian people’s right to peace?