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Martina Devlin Opinion Don’t be a waster – it’s not an option if we want to be serious about saving the planet

One scorching summer, when the tar melted across the seat of every pair of shorts I owned – my mother tried to remove it with butter, and issued a ban (ignored) against sitting on the ground – I dipped my toe into entrepreneurship.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Sea may separate Scotland and the North, but they are united by the waves of change

The Ulster Hall is a landmark building opened in 1862 in the centre of industrial powerhouse Belfast at a time when the British empire appeared unstoppable. It is weighty with its own iconography – the site of notable loyalist rallies, including Edward Carson firing up unionism against Home Rule.

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Martina Devlin Opinion After years of silence, the victims of abuse at Blackrock College finally have a voice

“It wasn’t just a Blackrock College thing, definitely not. This was society – a societal issue. We gave them [the clergy] reverence. We gave them a free hand to do what they wanted because they were so respected. They were part of the establishment. There are similar stories from other fee-paying schools and from state schools. It went on in every school in Ireland.”

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Martina Devlin Opinion Jeffrey Donaldson’s hardline protocol strategy is destined to fail and leave the DUP divided

There must be quite a few DUP members and supporters scratching their heads over Jeffrey Donaldson’s strategy. He is a 21st century Grand Old Duke of York, having marched his people up to the top of the hill, only to leave them standing about with nowhere to go.

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Martina Devlin Opinion DUP is playing with fire by refusing to end engagement with loyalists following threats

As the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement appears on the horizon, isn’t it high time paramilitaries were removed from influence in political decision-making in Northern Ireland? They were essential to deliver the peace treaty, but their role should have faded by now.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Weary voters worried about paying winter bills may not forgive the DUP if election Part II is called

Which of the following statements from Jeffrey Donaldson is true: “I’m not afraid to have an election every Thursday for the next six months” or “I’m not afraid to make a nuisance of my party” or “I’m not afraid of political reality although can someone check behind the sofa for me” or “I’m not afraid to take my case to the people”?

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Martina Devlin Opinion An unshakable resolve persists in Ukraine, says Kyiv writer Victoria Amelina as she shares horrific war truths

A constant state of terror is what onlookers might expect from civilians in a war zone. Instead, from Ukraine comes a strengthened resolve to continue with life as normal. A playground hit by a rocket blast? Repair the damage and reopen the climbing frame and swings. A crater in a busy road from another missile strike? Fill it in. Keep schools, shops and restaurants open, go to concerts and poetry readings – defy the madness.

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Martina Devlin Opinion How the mother of Ciara Pugsley, who died by suicide at 15, used nature to help her on journey through grief

“The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough,” wrote the Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, who was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature for his poetry. Nature in general, and butterflies in particular, have helped Aggie Flanagan cope with the unfathomable loss of her daughter.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Creeslough: The community mourns deeply – I saw that happen in my hometown of Omagh, it’s happening again

An intake of breath born of shock, a hope we misheard or misread the news, a sense of “there but for the grace of God goes any one of us” – it is impossible not to feel orphaned, in some shape of form, by the Creeslough disaster.

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Martina Devlin Opinion A new Stormont election looms large – and it seems as though a united Ireland could too

An election is a way of telling whether the powers that be are the powers they ought to be, because how they react to the message from voters is instructive.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Maeve Binchy’s homespun wisdom and brilliance as a storyteller will echo through the ages

It was such a deceptively simple, Maeve-like way of explaining something. We were talking about manuscripts being turned down by publishers and how writers had to believe in their work and persevere. “It’s like if you don’t go to a dance you can never be rejected, but you won’t get to dance either,” Maeve Binchy told me.

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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.