Martina Devlin

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Martina Devlin Opinion Time for new perspective that acknowledges Irish and British loyalties are not mutually exclusive

‘Irish heart, Coventry home” is how barrister Caoilfhionn Gallagher evoked identity for her clients, the Keane family, during a landmark case in Britain this week about the Irish language.

Family of Margaret Keane, above, who died in 2018, have won their fight to have on her gravestone the Irish phrase “In ar gcroithe go deo”, which translates as “in our hearts forever”

Is féidir linn: Family win right to Irish inscription on mum’s English gravestone

A family in Britain is celebrating victory in the battle to have an Irish-language inscription on their mother’s headstone.

Ulster Bank will close down its Republic business over the next few years

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Martina Devlin Opinion Blood-sucking vulture funds set to prey on Ulster Bank during Covid and credit crunch

Consequences are inevitable when the bank you do business with pulls out of your home market, as Ulster Bank has announced. You’ll end up feeling squeezed – even if you’ve been a model customer.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood. Photo: Getty

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SDLP leader Colum Eastwood throws his support behind family’s fight to get Irish inscription on gravestone in Britain

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has swung his support behind a campaign to allow a family the right to use an Irish phrase on a headstone in Britain.

British Labour Party backs family’s battle to have Irish grave inscription

Members of Britain’s Labour Party are backing a campaign by a family which is fighting a court ban against five words of Irish being used on their mother’s headstone.

Respect: Sgt Fergus Gaughan watches the online funeral of Nora NÍ Mháille in Carraroe, Co Galway. Photo: Mark Condren

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Martina Devlin Opinion Rituals at a remove are counter-cultural to the Irish tradition and are leaving a scar

Once again this week I sat at my desk, switched on the laptop, turned off the mobile phone and attended an online funeral. Afterwards, I signed an online book of condolences. This is the only way most of us can pay our respects in the face of death, that great leveller.

Radical language: First Minister Arlene Foster with Finance Minister Conor Murphy in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, on Thursday. Photo: Kelvin Boyes/Press Eye/PA

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Martina Devlin Opinion Forget the paint pots and the paramilitary masks, the protocol is here to stay

And so we are forced to watch paleo-loyalism in action: vile graffiti, threats against customs staff, and a hooded show of strength in the wake of tensions around new post-Brexit inspection rules at Belfast and Larne ports. Violence and politics have long intermeshed in the North, a cycle broken by herculean efforts which led to the Good Friday Agreement. Unfortunately, that link has repaired itself with disconcerting ease.

Danielle McLaughlin caused a stir with her magnificent 2016 short story collection Dinosaurs on Other Planets. Photo: Claire O’Rorke

The Art of Falling: Danielle McLaughlin gets under the surface of love and lies

‘To be, rather than to seem” are the opening words — a school motto that catches the protagonist’s eye — and the author uses them to signal the novel’s core theme. This is a story about deception, both in life and art, and people’s capacity to lie not just to others but themselves.

Vaccine spat: The European Union is at loggerheads with AstraZeneca over supply

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Martina Devlin Opinion Inflamed AstraZeneca row casts a shadow on what should have been a day of promise

It’s enough to give you mental indigestion. The Covid virus has a striking capacity to outfox us – every time we think it’s been suppressed we are outmanoeuvred, with new mutations springing up to thwart us.

Missing class: Many special needs children struggle when they cannot go to school. Photo: Andy Dean

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Martina Devlin Opinion Special needs children and their parents must be shown a path back to school

They are at their wits’ end. Worn out, exasperated and disappointed. Expectations raised only to be dashed. Parents of children with special educational needs have been squeezed through the wringer in recent days.

Catherine Corless stands beside the list of childrens names at the Tuam mother and babies site

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Martina Devlin Opinion Cruel solution suited Church, State and society – everyone but mothers and babies

Echoes from the past are sounding, reverberations from a socially conservative Ireland we thought was boxed up and dumped in history’s underground cellars. This week we came face to face with the State’s system for dealing with unmarried mothers – arrangements that are easier to explain than forgive.

President Donald Trump has been able to peddle his conspiracy theories unopposed on social media

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Martina Devlin Opinion Liberty given to social media giants needs to be revoked to avoid feeding more beasts

‘Every once in a while there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong. But those days almost always include body counts.” The words are a US president’s.

Northern Ireland's First Minister Arlene Foster walks to her car following a television interview outside the Stormont Parliament building in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters/Phil Noble

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Martina Devlin Opinion Shifting tides of UK politics flow towards Irish acceptance we’re stronger together

‘Unity is no longer a thing I can influence. Look out the window: the Rhine flows by there. You can’t stop it. I can’t stop it. It will reach the sea no matter what we do. That is the flow towards unity.”

Pope Francis had canonised almost 900 new saints by the end of 2019. Photo: Reuters

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Martina Devlin Opinion Good deeds deserve recognition but the fantastical acts of saints belong in great works of fiction

St Nicholas is among the better-known saints, if only because of his reinvention as Santa Claus. He was reputed to be extremely generous, which aligns with the Santy tradition, although stories that he ate only on Wednesdays and Fridays are at odds with the pot-bellied imagery.

Stormont by night. Photo: Kelvin Boyes / Press Eye

Time to open the debate on a united Ireland, urges Stormont politician Trevor Lunn

A sitting politician in Stormont outside nationalist groupings has opened the door to a discussion on a united Ireland.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Antipathy to an all-island Covid response is illogical and will cost lives in the North

Some people have had enough of being told how to lead their lives by doctors, either speaking to us directly or using politicians as mouthpieces. But doctors have earned this right during a pandemic.

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Martina Devlin Opinion After years of bluster and hyperbole, Brexit is finally meeting harsh reality

Everyone has some inclination towards that consoling condition known as Having It Both Ways but Brexiteers have made an art form of it.

US President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a more compassionate approach to undocumented people in the US than Donald Trump. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President-elect Biden to take ‘more humane approach’ to undocumented Irish, Congressman insists

THE undocumented Irish in the US can hope for good news soon under Joe Biden’s presidency.

EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in London on Thursday for negotiations. Photo: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Martina Devlin Opinion Deal or no deal, whatever Brexit we get at this stage will be an economic nightmare

Gleaming smiles, confident body language, “sunlit uplands”-style phrases. Some details still to be ironed out but you can trust us – that’s going to be the message. Best possible deal was struck under the circumstances, etc.

Martina Devlin Opinion Deal or no deal, whatever Brexit we get at this stage will be an economic nightmare

Gleaming smiles, confident body language, “sunlit uplands”-style phrases. Some details still to be ironed out but you can trust us – that’s going to be the message. Best possible deal was struck under the circumstances, etc.

New look: Paschal Donohoe needs to scrutinise Covid business support. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

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Martina Devlin Opinion Covid subsidies scheme needs a tweak – too many people are making a profit

Looking for logic during a once-in-a-century pandemic? Send out a search party. All sorts of contradictory behaviour has been highlighted, from some public resistance to mask-wearing to mixed messaging from the Government. Still, we expect logic from one direction at least.

Margaret Keane, originally from Co Meath, who died in July 2018. Her family wanted to put the words “in ár gcroíthe go deo” (in our hearts forever) on her headstone but were blocked by a court ruling. Photo: Chris Egan

Family’s long battle for Irish inscription on mother’s gravestone is raised in UK parliament

The plight of a family battling to use five words of the Irish language on their mother’s headstone has been raised in the House of Commons in London.

Members of the public wearing face masks at the site of the Clerys department store in Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney/Collins

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Martina Devlin Opinion Ho-ho-ho is a no-no-no – but we deserve to meet with loved ones this Christmas

“The bubble, blown too thin, Seems nigh on bursting,” says Robert Browning. Our social solidarity bubble is feeling the strain, not least because of uncertainty over Christmas – it will surely pop if the Government’s arrangements prove too restrictive.

Margaret Keane, who died in 2018. Her family have been banned from inscribing a message in Gaelic on her gravestone without an English translation

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‘We’re fighting for right to display our heritage’ – family’s legal battle in UK for Gaeilge on mother’s gravestone without English translation

The Keane family are in the midst of a legal battle over five words they hoped would be used to remember their mother.

Mr Justice Séamus Woulfe. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins

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Martina Devlin Opinion Insensitivity is not a sacking offence – far bigger challenges than ‘Golfgate’ lie ahead

It seems a lot of people are keen to see Séamus Woulfe’s head on a platter but few want to wield the axe. In any case, some of those pushing for his decapitation don’t have access to a cleaver.

President Donald Trump speaks at the White House, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

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Martina Devlin Opinion Drain the swamp? Even as he sinks, Trump is muddying the waters with his smears

Pennsylvania is no stranger to momentous decisions. In its historic city of Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, while 11 years later delegates deliberated on whether the US should be governed as a republic or monarchy.

President Donald Trump accompanied by first lady Melania Trump reacts to early results in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Photo: Reuters/Carlos Barria

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Martina Devlin Opinion Casting doubt on poll validity is a step too far, even for the Trumpeter

STOP that counting. I’m behind but I’m in front. I’m still the President. Me, me. Stop that counting. Only I can make America great again. If I lose it’s because they cheated. But I won’t lose because I’m a winner. Stop that counting.

Our built heritage matters for its own sake, as part of the fabric of our environment, but also as a tourism draw. We pay lip service to the idea of historic architecture. Yet cultural vandalism is allowed to have its way. Stock image

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Martina Devlin Opinion We treasure our writers - but throw away the ghostly remains of buildings they left behind

Today is the time of year when we like to surrender ourselves to the Halloween tradition of dimming the lights and frightening ourselves with ghost stories.

Grand plan: “Micheál Martin has no right to rule out such a plebiscite. It is the people’s right.” Photo: PA

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Martina Devlin Opinion Border poll deniers - like the Taoiseach - are no friends to the democratic process

'Border poll deniers" were cited by a prominent political figure yesterday, who suggested a referendum on Irish unity was inevitable and preparations should be made to argue one's case. Was it Micheál Martin, leader of Fianna Fáil - 'the Republican Party'? Not a chance of that in 2020's topsy-turvy world.

Experiment: Sweden has tried ‘herd immunity’ but it is seen by many health experts as dangerous

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Martina Devlin Opinion Herd immunity keeps resurfacing but it's dangerous and flawed and distracts from need to cooperate with public health measures

Let it rip, says the herd-immunity brigade. Hive off those inconvenient old people and allow the rest of society to resume their rightful role at the economic coalface.