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Martina Devlin Opinion Face facts, Frost – protocol is working and unionist rhetoric will leave UK out in cold

Problems are being caused by the Northern Ireland Protocol, apparently. Who for? Not for the bulk of Northern Irish businesses, which support it. Not for the majority of Northern Irish politicians, who back it. Not for most of the North’s population, who are in favour of it. Not for the Irish Government, which defends it. And not for the US administration, which speaks up for it.

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Martina Devlin Opinion It’s going to take more than scare tactics to convince the vaccine resisters among us

The media campaign in the Czech Republic to convince vaccine resisters to reconsider their stance is raw, brutal and contentious. Its defenders insist desperate times call for desperate measures. Dead bodies are shown being placed in coffins with captions such as “He thought he had time enough” or “She doesn’t believe in vaccines”.

The Last Irish Question: Will Six Into ­Twenty-Six Ever Go? Northerner’s tour shows unity is not a simple equation

In a Bundoran shop, Glenn Patterson spies a green and orange bumper sticker — “26 + 6 = 1” — and decides to buy one. Not because he agrees necessarily with the sentiment, but because it interests him. There, in a nutshell, is the premise for his approach to this book. He is open to thinking about whether reunification could work.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Most vulnerable left to burn the candle at both ends as energy price hikes hit home

Will candlelight be making a comeback this winter? I don’t mean those fancy scented candles used to create atmosphere, but the functional version bought in bulk that people once relied on to see.

Punters by Aaron Rogan: how Paddy Power hit the global jackpot

A gambler with an addiction problem finally manages an act of self-preservation by closing down his Paddy Power online account. For a time, he is just about coping. Then, out of the blue, a text message pings on his mobile phone. “It’s been too long. So here’s a £5 FREE BET! Just go along to a PP shop and login (sic) with your rewards card.”

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Martina Devlin Opinion Tories as defenders of the peace agreement? Now, that is dishonesty on an epic scale

A famous dictum about how to win at gambling goes as follows: lay off it for a few weeks, then quit for good. If only Boris Johnson and his wingman David Frost would heed that advice. Instead, they continue to gamble with an indifferent hand, convinced that sooner or later they’ll score.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Let’s keep talking about climate change – preferably over a meat-free lentil burger

All over Ireland, people are eco-congratulating themselves because they dropped their empties off at the bottle bank, walked or cycled to work instead of driving and bought takeaway coffee with a reusable cup. They feel a warm glow at saving the planet for future generations, then go home for a steak dinner.

Lear’s queen gets a tale of her own

King Lear’s queen, mother to one of the most famous triumvirate of sisters in drama, is mentioned just twice in Shakespeare’s tragedy. A talented debut novelist has rectified this omission, giving Lear’s wife a towering presence where once there was an absence.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Fisk’s courage to challenge the narrative is missed, but he left the blueprint in his wake

Sniper fire whistles around him, a grenade thunders its explosion, oil depots blaze nearby. Breathless, ducking down while moving as fast as he dares, a reporter looks for an escape route so he can share his story with the outside world.

Small Things Like These: Tender tale faces up to the shame of our recent past

How do you make a stand against the wilful blindness of your community? Or to put it another way: “Was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry on along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there?”

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Martina Devlin Opinion Amid prayers and platitudes, brazen Boris Johnson’s message to the North is clear: I’ll use and abuse you for as long as it suits me

Churches welcome saints and sinners alike. Even so, it was a jolt to see Boris Johnson kneeling before an altar in Armagh – a man whose word is written on water, who negotiates in bad faith, decides international agreements can be signed one day and broken the next, denies the reality of the dirty war in Northern Ireland, and believes playing fast and loose with our peace is shrewd political manoeuvring.

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Martina Devlin Opinion The threat of violence against women is not a problem they can solve on their own

All day, you’ve been working indoors in a stuffy office. In the evening, you decide to take some exercise and fresh air. Darkness is starting to fall, but it’s not particularly late. You’re strolling along, mind elsewhere, when suddenly your antennae start to twitch. Footsteps behind. Heavy. Walking quickly.

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Life Without Children: Roddy Doyle strikes a chord with tales of death, fear, loss and grief

Negative capability, a term first used by the English poet John Keats, is a writer’s ability to accept “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts” without explaining them away using fact and reason. Keats first showcased the term in a letter dated 1817, suggesting those with the creative impulse needed to experience the world as an uncertain place.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Ireland has lost its golden-calf tax rate, but we must still be able to make our own way

Ireland is about to hand over its gigantic golden calf to be melted down and redistributed. We couldn’t hold on to it indefinitely, but a 24-hour guard was maintained on that prized possession to make sure we kept it for as long as possible.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Blinded by ideology, unionist leaders want to prove their Britishness by making the North share in Brexit misery

As queues stretch outside petrol stations in Britain, and empty shelves yawn in supermarkets, political unionism has formed an Us Too Society. They want fuel and food shortages in solidarity with their mainland brethren – proof of their common Britishness.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Today’s politicians could learn much from the independent-minded Anna Parnell

The world is divided into haves and have-nots, but in Ireland that gulf is distilled more specifically into have-homes and have-not-homes, and the misery caused has less to do with hard luck and more to do with hard public policy. People are starting to recognise this, and politicians should gloss over it at their peril.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Why President Higgins should not attend service in Armagh marking 100 years of partition

Centenaries are in the air, and Northern Ireland is no exception. Political unionism is gung-ho about marking 100 years of partition, but the prevailing weather isn’t fours-quare behind it – Sinn Féin and the SDLP aren’t circling key dates on the calendar and dropping their best clothes off at the dry cleaner.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Fianna Fáil faces an identity crisis – the question is whether Micheál Martin can fix that

If life is composed of more wrestling than dancing, as philosophers observe, then Fianna Fáil has been put in a choke-slam and is lying face down on the mat. With the country now emerging from the worst of the pandemic, the party ought to be leading a ­victory conga. Instead, it is flunking the relevance test.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Varadkar and Coveney have given rise to suspicion – they must own their mistakes

Caesar’s wife is the shadow presence overhanging all high officeholders. They ignore her at their peril. Her name was Pompeia, second or third wife of Julius Caesar, accused of dallying with another man and divorced by the Roman emperor.

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Martina Devlin Opinion With most adults now vaccinated, there’s no compelling reason to cancel concerts

‘Believing takes practice,” notes Madeleine L’Engle in her classic young adult novel, A Wrinkle In Time. If we’re not careful, we’ll lose the knack of believing live concerts will happen again. Prospects are dangled, prospects are snatched away. Barriers are lowered, barriers are raised again.

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Martina Devlin Opinion William was one of many who lost their lives in Afghanistan. What was it all for?

I’ve been rummaging through old photos for images of a man I once knew. Not exactly a relative of mine, but we’d meet at family events. There he is in top hat and tails, a groomsman at my sister’s wedding when she married his brother. And here he is grinning in a T-shirt, shortly before deployment to Afghanistan as part of something called the Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Task Force.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Sports betting adverts should get the red card before fans lose more than their shirts

The names can appear innocuous: Fun88, for example. That’s an international gambling company, in case you didn’t know. The name doesn’t immediately identify how it generates income.

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Martina Devlin Opinion So it’s clear: parties with VIP guests? Good. Marking your child’s communion? Too risky

Listen: can you hear that sound? It’s the clunk of millions of jaws hitting the ground simultaneously. Talk about wasted opportunities. Apparently, we could have been kicking up our heels since early last month, enjoying outdoor events for up to 200 people. The Government just neglected to share the secret. It might never have emerged if not for Leo Varadkar’s attendance at a gathering for 50 hosted by Katherine Zappone.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Crippling social cost of pandemic has yet to be calculated, but we need to start now

Children forced to witness domestic violence and alcoholism in the home is not a new phenomenon. James Joyce’s brother, Stanislaus, kept a diary in which he noted their father’s excesses and recorded his mother’s fear of being left alone with the man by whom she had nine living children.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Testing times lie ahead for EU in Johnson’s despicable game of sign now, back out later

There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to playing games. Among exhibits at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art is an ancient Egyptian board game called Hounds and Jackals, found by the archaeologist Howard Carter in a pharaoh’s tomb in 1910.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Johnson’s amnesty on Troubles murders is not about healing, it’s about hiding

Students of the brutalist school of statecraft now have a textbook example to consult, courtesy of Boris ‘Bulldozer’ Johnson’s style of government.

The Pages: Hugo Hamilton’s novel narrated by another novel shows literature’s staying power

“Here I am, stored inside a piece of hand luggage, being carried through the departure lounge at JFK airport.” Hugo Hamilton’s inventive novel about a novel opens with a book’s voice as narrator — it is simultaneously symbol, object and character.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Josepha Madigan’s honesty on sexual assault was admirable, but change in Ireland comes about slowly

When women speak honestly about their lives, the community is horrified. Amazement is expressed that such things could happen. Inevitably, change is promised – just as, inevitably, change is incremental.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Letting our guard down must not be on the menu when it comes to hospitality

The paintings of Jackson Pollock are “like the idea of having an idea, instead of having an idea”, says an art-loving character in Keith Ridgway’s novel Hawthorn & Child. It’s surprisingly popular, that idea of being seen to have an idea, without considering whether it’s actually a good one worth pursuing.

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Martina Devlin Opinion Dangers of Delta mean we need to take a deep breath and agree a short, strategic delay to reopening

Recently, I had the pleasure of travelling by barge between counties Cavan and Fermanagh, and disembarked for a few hours to dine in a hotel and marina overlooking Lough Erne. Indoor restaurant and bar service had just reopened in the North, which meant we could choose whether to eat outdoors or in.