So congratulations to Sian Mulholland, Stormont’s newest MLA. co-opted by Alliance to replace Patricia O’Lynn in North Antrim.
Ms Mulholland has had and is having an interesting career.
Previously Sian O’Neill, she is a former caseworker for Naomi Long. She is from Crumlin and stood once for election to Antrim-Newtownabbey Council.
In 2015 she was co-opted to replace Laura McNamee for Ormiston DEA in Belfast City Council. Ms McNamee suffered abuse as a result of the “Flegs” Dispute in 2012. I think she had to leave her home.
In November 2018, Sian O’Neill married Kieran Mulholland who is a councillor in the Causeway and Glens Council….for Sinn Féin. According to the Irish News, they already had a child. There is no obligation to live in the DEA that a councillor represents, merely an obligation to be accessible. There are travel expenses. I do not know where the couple lived in 2019 when Sian O’Neill defended the Ormiston seat
The Wikipedia entry for Ms Mulholland indicates she now has two children. Maternity Leave and a second child would understandably account for an attendance record in Belfast that was often below 100%. Apologies have been recorded for some absences.
After the election of David Honeyford for Alliance in Lagan Valley last year, Ms Mulholland was co-opted for his newly vacated seat on Lisburn-Castlereagh council. The Kiluntagh DEA is bordering on her hometown of Crumlin so she would be very familiar with the area. Kiluntagh is centred on Glenavy, which is less than five kilometres from Crumlin.
But last month on the resignation of Patricia O’Lynn MLA, the vacant Stormont seat went to co-opted Sian Mulholland. The resignation of O’Lynn was announced in February and in April Ms Mulholland was reported on BelfastLive as the replacement and reported as living in Glenavy in the KIltunagh DEA/Lagan Valley constituency..
So …will Mulholland move into North Antrim or are the Alliance members, staff and more importantly the voters happy about this?
Sadly Dr Patricia O’Lynn is the first member of the Stormont Assembly elected in twelve months ago to resign. I wish her well.
Dr O;Lynn has served the people of North Antrim for ten months. She is taking up an academic post at Queens University. Presumably she applied for the QUB post weeks or before she knew she was to be appointed.
Some thought Dr O’Lynn was a surprise success last year. Maybe she surprised herself by winning.
Interesting that I have seen this story spun as a “young, gifted, woman” leaving Politics because of frustration at Stormont being closed.
That may be the case. Some would see it as “something better coming along”
Of course this means that Alliance can nominate a successor to be co-opted. It will be Sian Mulholland. On other websites and message boards like Slugger O’Toole, much is made about the abuse of the “co-option” system. I have always maintained that while sometimes…indeed often abused, it is a genuine protection to minority parties in some constituencies. If a by-election was held in North Antrim, DUP would likely win.
There are of course legitimate reasons for co-option…the death or illness of an elected person. Disenchantment with the political stagnation and getting a better job…nobody will be criticised by me.
Spare a thought today for two Alliance Party members who will not be on a ballot paper next week.
Mimi Unamoyo was nominated for the Balmoral DEA. She is a refugee from Democratic Republic of Congo. I wish her well.
Due to a “paperwork issue” Ms Unamoyo cannot proceed and has been replaced at the last minute by another party member.
Alliance Party has stated this demonstrates the “barriers put in the way” of asylum seekers and refugees. Absolutely correct. But does it not illustrate a degree of incompetence at Alliance Party HQ that they did not notice a potential candidate was not eleigible to stand.
Turning to Kate Livingstone, nominated for Holywood-Clandeboye DEA. She is “in the process of moving to London”. I wish her well. She has left her job, working for an Alliance MLA and been replaced on the ballot paper.
Questions should be asked. They were asked by Belfast Live. Alliance Party say this is “harassment”
One of my nerdy hobbies is buying unpainted plastic figures and painting them. Sometimes I make dioramas.
This is a little diorama …the Execution of Charles I in 1649. The figures are made by an English company called Replicants.
The central figure is Charles I. The others are Executioner with axe and with one foot on the block, a Parliamentary Officer, Oliver Cromwell and a Clergyman.
I bought and painted these figures about fifteen years ago. I thought at the time that the King’s clothes should be purple but later discovered that he was wearing mostly black on the day of his execution.
Some other discrepancies. The Executioner is unmasked. But in reality, the Executioner and his assistant were both masked and never publicly named. At the time, a number of suspects were named…some claimed to be the masked man and others denied it.
The actual Block was not standard. Charles did not kneel at the block. Rather he lay down.
The name of the Bishop who gave Charles the Last Rites and accompanied the condemned man to the scaffold was William Juxon who became Archbishop of Canterbury at the Restoration of the Monarchy.
Perhaps the biggest news of 2022 was the death of Elizabeth Windsor, Queen of England. A sad event for her family and of course many English people.
Her father George (“George VI”) died in February 1952, a few months before I was born. Elizabeth was crowned just over a year after I was born. So in my lifetime, I have only known one English monarch.
Back in 1968 when the Queen was a relative novice, I started studying Economics and Political Studies for A level. The first essay was titled “Is the Monarchy a God or Bad Thing?”
The basics about Monarchy is that it operates best when nobody looks at it closely. And its apologists would say that it brings consistency and stability to a troubled political world. And….er it is good for Tourism.
Of course Mickey Mouse is good for tourism in Florida but he is not the Governor of the State.
I have some sympathy for the view that the monarchy is consistent. But there is something about Elizabeth Windsor and her children that roots her reign in 1952/53. Stamps and Banknotes and portraits suggest that rather than being constant, the Monarchy is actually stagnant.
It is a stretch to believe that the Royal Family is politically neutral. They are too close to the tweedy cousinage of aristocracy for that to be convincing.
Of coursem Mrs Windsors hubby, an economic migrant from Greece …..Philip…..an unconvincing Duke of Edinburgh did attempt in the 1960s with the connivance of the BBC to portray the family as just another family. It had limited success. Likewise the Silver Jubilee in 1977 was undermined by public apathy and ridicule…cue the Sex Pistols version of God Save The King.
Arguably the institution was saved by Lady Di, the only eligible virgin in England that Charles could marry. Arguably rocked by royal divorce (including Andrew and Anne) and redeemed by William and Kate, rocked by Andy and those allegations and redeemed by the noble service of seventy years…and rocked again by Harry and Meghan.
Later this year, in May, Charlie will be crowned. At 74, he is unconvincing as a Prince Charming. It is as if the world stood still from 1953 to 2023. All those English folks who bought a TV set and invited the neighbours in to see the Coronation…does that really work in 2023?
Of course the Royal Family has a longevity gene and it could well be that Charlie lives and reigns as long as his mother. So he could still be King of England in another twentyyears.
More likely he will sit on a throne for ten years before abdicating. He is a curious relic of the 1950s and deference.
I wrote on Tuesday about how the 2022 Assembly Election and the SDLP performance left me grief-stricken.
Time is a great healer so I am trying here to look at what actually happened.
First of all the facts. There are 90 sears at Stormont.
Sinn Féin took 27 seats (no change from 2017) with a slight upturn in percentage vote (29%). A nationalist party winning more seats than any other party is seismic.
DUP took 25 seats (a loss of 3 from 2017) and the vote share dropped 6.7% to 21.3%, almost 8% less than SF. They were actually lucky. They gained a lot of transfers from TUV.
Alliance took 17 seats (up from just 8 in 2017) and with a vote share of 13.5% (up 4.5%). Always a transfer-friendly party, their “seat share” is better than their “vote share”. Alliance hailed it as a break thru for the party.
Ulster Unionist Party -UUP took 9 seats (a loss of 1 from 2017). Vote share of 11.1% was down 1.7%.
SDLP took 8 seats (down from 12 in 2017) and the big losers. Vote share fell to 9.1% from 12%.
Independent Unionists took 2 seats…one close to the thinking of UUP and other close to the thinking of DUP.
TUV retained its single seat (party leader Jim Allister) but could not capitalise on increasing its vote share to 7.6%. Simply put the “traditional unionists can not pick up transfers and rather than eating into the DUP seats they actually helped DUP as TUV voters transferred to them.
People Before Profit -PBP held its only seat.
The Green Party lost both its seats.
The overall effect was that despite SF being the biggest party, the nationalist designated seats (SF and SDLP) fell from 39 to 35 and unionist designated seats fell from 40 to 37 and “Other” designated seats rose from 11 to 18.
But it was a strange election because it had no consequence. Whether motivated by Brexit Protocol (official) or unwillingness to see a Sinn Féin First Minister (more likely), the DUP did not allow the Assembly or Executive to be formed.
Had an Executive been formed, the First Minister would be from SF and Deputy First Minister from DUP and Alliance (neutral) would get the Justice portfolio.
The other seven Executive seats would go to SF (2), DUP (2), Alliance (1) UUP (1). SDLP would be entitled to 1 seat but as they had signalled they wanted no part in the Executive, it would have gone to SF.
From a nationalist/republican perspective, a 10 seat Executive where SF has 4 seats, DUP 3, Alliance 2 and UUP 1 looks kinda ok.
From an Alliance perspective taking two Executive seats from 17 MLAs is really no improvement on their two Executive seats from 8 MLAs. They do of course have staff in constituency offices but really thats no substitute for wielding the kinda power they thought they would have for five years.
The Assembly elected in May 2022 is now eight months into its mandate. Will it ever actually sit? Will an Executive be formed?…the condition seems to be a Brexit Protocol deal acceptable to DUP. Will the Secretary of State call for a new election and if thats the case then the results will not be the same as in May 2022.
The fact is that the results of the 2022 Election are null and void…unless of course there is a “Protocol Agreement”. This means that Alliance’s greatest triumph could actually mean that they are at their most impotent.
Alliance…all dressed up and nowhere to go.
But what has this to do with the 1993 Grand National?
Well if you are old enough to recall, this is the Grand National that never actually happened.
Around 40 horses went to the line at Aintree. And they started. It was a false start. Some of the jockeys realised right away and others ran up to the first fence and turned back.
And they started again. Another false start but nine horses were left at the starting line. The others jumped the first fence. And despite frantic efforts by officials, the horses and jockeys ran on. Some thought that the officials waving and signalling to them were actually animal rights activists (the Grand National being a very dangerous race for horses). And they jumped for two miles and most started the second circuit.
Commentators were calling it the race that never was.
And seven horses and riders actually finished the four and a half miles around Aintree. The “winner” was outsider Esha Ness and the winning rider was John White, a jobbing jockey having his eighth ride in the big race.
But the real point is that the 1993 Grand National never actually happened.
Energy levels are low. And blogging monthly on the Deaths during the Troubles (Decade of Half Centenaries) was depressing …at times at a very personal level.
Also the Stormont Election in May was so depressing that it felt like a bereavement, especially the SDLP falling from 12 seats to 8 seats and basically also rans. It was the death of an old and much loved friend.
This Blog has been running since 2011. I will never re-capture the glory days of 2013-2016. But I am surprisingly optimistic.
It will be as much a journal as a Blog….at times about History or Travel as much as narrow Politics. I have done quite a lot of writing for other platforms, notably in United States but many reading this will be familiar with comments made on Slugger O’Toole. Often I have written anecdotes from my life from pre-school in the 1950s.
When I started “Keeping An Eye on the Czar of Russia” in 2011, I was 59 years old. I am now 70 so the next decade is quite probably my last active decade before I shuffle off to the great Blogosphere in the Sky.
There were maybe 20 Troubles-related deaths in April 1972.
British Army: Seven. Two were killed by the (Provisional) IRA and five (including four in Derry) were killed by the Official IRA.
Ulster Defence Regiment. One man was found murdered at side of the road in County Armagh. The murderers were Provisional IRA.
Republicans: Three IRA men died in a garage in Bawnmore North Belfast when a bomb they were making exploded prematurely. Joe McCann aleader in the Official IRA was shot dead by the British Army in the Markets area of Belfast.
Civilians: One man was “executed” as an informer by IRA in West Belfast. An 8 year old girl was killed “accidently” by IRA during a gun battle in North Belfast and an elderly Protestant was killed in an IRA bomb in Ballymoney, County Antrim.
An elderly man (86) was killed by the British Army as he looked out his window in Divis Tower and an 11 year old boy was killed by a rubber bullet fired by the British Army. Another Catholic civilian was killed by the British Army in West Belfast.
The other civilian deaths (a Catholic walking on Falls area and a Catholic taxi driver) were both killed by loyalists.
Derry Girls (and the Finale) was brilliant. What makes it good is that the jokes that occasionally misfire “three Catholics in the RUC” are compensated by the Politics that always works. A harmless wee comedy? No. It is Subversion. I have never believed in Shared History. I still dont believe in a Shared Future. But one sided comedy is clearly better than shared comedy…the Blame Game and Give My Head Peace. You may think that Derry Girls is YOUR story. It is …apart from the Derry bit and the Girls bit…MY story. It is not OUR story. If half the people in your life are called Geraldine, Eamonn, Deirdre, Orla, Fionnuala….then it could be your story. But if half the people in your life are called Trevor, Jeffrey,Victoria, Keith, Douglas, Arlene, Iris, Violet……well thats not my story.
Yes it was specific to Derry and specific to teen girls. But I guess Clonard Girls, Twinbrook Girls, Newry Girls, Strabane Girls would not be a lot different.
Some might say I am missing the whole Feminism thing…but again its a very precise form…as taught by Sr Michael who believes GOD is a woman. And those four girls and the wee English fella are shaped by each other, loving families and an educator who cared. Good luck with Integrated Education now.
You might have been outraged in an earlier season when Sr Michael told the Chernobyl teens not to worry about the whole Civil War thing that the only thing they needed to know is that “we are the goodies”. You might have long suspected that this is the kinda thing themmuns were taught at Catholic schools and the reason we had all the Troubles. Or you might have thought it was an outrageous joke. But if you just smiled knowingly then it might be your story.
But if you think Derry Girls was a shared experience, then I will lead you in singing “The Town I Loved So Well.”
And the Finale.
There was music there in the Derry air…
Orla dancing with those “wee steps and stairs” was a foretelling that each Derry Girl generation is an update of the previous one. A conveyor belt. But Orla ended her wee dance by confronting the British soldier and telling him she was going thru the gate. And she did pass thru the gate. Wee innocent Orla.
Of course it was emotional. The plot hole seemed to be Michelle’s murderer brother of whom we heard nothing before. But there is no hiding. Whoever he murdered was an innocent man. There was no ambiguity that he killed a British soldier or RUC man. And part of the Good Friday Agreement Referendum was about releasing the paramilitaries.
But Derry Girls is not just about four girls and a wee English fella.
It is a generational thing. In 1972 (Bloody Sunday), Joe, Colm, Eamonn (hooray for the pioneer pin) and Jim across the road were already adult men. Gerry was still a child in Navan. They voted in 1998. Mary, Deirdre, Sarah and Geraldine were children in 1972. They voted in 1998. The Derry Girls and the wee English fella were still to be born. They voted in 1998. Áine the toddler in 1998 was at the polling station, hand in hand with Joe, her granda. They all agonised in the run-up to the Referendum but the expressions on the faces of the older folks an were an indication of how they voted.
We saw how the first time voters voted…….YES Does a smiley emoji count? Or is it a spoiled vote? And I am now telling myself that I will eat my next ballot paper. If it is good enough for Tommy Duddy…that requires some planning (a blank sheet of paper folded multiple times and taken into the polling station)….but only if SDLP has not folded multiple times.
See I was 19 in 1972. My (not yet met) wife was 13. My mother was 59. My father was 54. And three of us voted in 1998. Except for my father who like Geraldines hubby did not live to see it.
And the police inspector….Liam Neesons wordless cameo. Did he vote for change? Or was he too troubled, understandably by the thought of dead friends and paramilitaries released. For the Referendum was not really a shared experience. Optimism on one side…..and Fear and/or Resignation the other side.
The biggest flaw in the Finale was that an English audience or American audience might think our two tribes voted equally for the promises of the Good Friday Agreement. Best estimates suggest 95% of Catholics and 55% of Protestants voted YES.
We were too optimistic. We did get 24 years of acceptable peace. But Seamas Mallon said it was Sunningdale for Slow Learners. He was arrogant. He did not anticipate it would fall apart and that another generation would have to sort it out again ……..Sunningdale AND Good Friday Agreement for Even Slower Learners. David Cameron did the right thing….made things a little better. Do you trust Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Michael Gove, Jacob Rees Mogg?
We taped Derry Girls last night so we could fast forward thru the commercials. As it ended, I switched over to BBC and saw Stephen Nolan and Jamie Bryson. Jamie Bryson was 8 in 1998. Stephen Nolan was 24.
Of course I only watched Nolan for ten seconds. But long enough to hear Mr Bryson say “principle of consent”.
I am a very blessed person. I was born into a great family. I helped to create a great family.
The family I was born into are all dead.
I was actually born in the City Hospital…the “Jubilee” building. Almost three years later, my sister was born in the Gardner-Robb building at City Hospital.
As Auntie Sheila always said…and as I often repeated…baby boys are born in the Jube Jube and baby girls are born in Gardner Robb. Eventualy when I was in my late 40s, I worked out that this is probably not true.
So my programme for today.
A trip to Belfast City Hospital to see if the Jube Jube is still there. And whether there is a plaque stating I was born there.
Then Milltown Cemetry……Granda/Granny, Uncle Jackie/Auntie Mary and Auntie Sheila/Uncle Charlie.
Then home for a while with the new family.
Then a visit to my granddaughters grave.
Then at 7.30pm tonight I will be at my parents grave. I was born at 7.30pm and my mother still had her hat on. So as a tribute, I will wear my hat.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 