If you are looking to rent an office building near Belfast City Centre and Queens University, you could do worse than this building.
The Old Library Building on Donegall Road. Excellent neighbours. Stratagem NI (friend of Slugger O’Toole) have their offices here. And so I believe does the Norn Iron Foundation (also known to Slugger). I often wonder if they have ever met.
On the other hand, maybe the space is available because one or both of these fine organisations is leaving.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
Whatever about the current inhabitants it is a lovely looking building. Is it an old Carnegie library?
Yes. Most if not all the old libraries are Carnegie.
Strange that so few people are even aware of Andrew Carnegie who, despite his flaws and controversies, gave so much,in the attempted betterment of Humanity. His belief in literacy as a tool to enable the weak to better themselves was correct. Today it would be internet and technology literacy, I suppose. He was certainly no Mitt Romney or those truly dreadful billionaire Koch bothers who believe in culling the weak and vulnerable through uber-capitalism.
There is a Carnegie just down the road from me but I have no idea if it is still part of any organisation or like most a “former” Carnegie library.
Trickle down economics I suppose…and the template for a particular kind of American philanthropy.
Bill Gates of a previous generation.
I suppose like we are saying about how sick this world is…it should not matter where the money to put things right comes from.
Carnegie did good things but had a side to him, which I cant like.
This is actually the key difference between USA and Western Europe.
How the Rich use Money.
As a socialist I believe in taxing them to they squeal.
But somehow we have nationalised Compassion. that Africia or Syria..We dont as individuals feel motivated.
Americans are quite different.
In Texas, I discovered that a homeless student with kids …newly arrived from another state was helped in a way that would be unthinkable here. Although that part of Texas is a liberal oasis in a conservative state, I was absolutely flabbergasted at the amount of (assumed) philanthropy and decency.
Obviously the philanthropists would be appalled at any suggestion that even half their generosity was taken from them in taxes.
It was a total eye opener to walk around the university and note the extent of gifts from alumni or read the programmes that the various chaplacies were working on….or walk around town and see the historic sites, veterans memorials, civic buildings which were built and maintained thru philantropy.
As a long time but so far non commenting admirer of your blog, I thought you might find this article of interest: http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/unionists-repeat-praise-for-poet-and-explain-absence-from-funeral-1-5452705. It’s certainly something that Horseman would have highlighted were he still with us. I can claim some credit for the article as I personally rang the editor of the Newsletter yesterday to register my incredulity and disgust at their editorial on Seamus. In so doing I suggested his paper investigate the conspicuous lack of unionist political representation at the funeral. To his credit, he was shocked when I pointed this out and said they would indeed look into it. And the very next day, the article appears. I myself contacted both Alliance and NI 21 this morning as well… They came out with the sane defensiveness, but admitted sending no one.
You might say, can you be surprised? Or even, who cares? The point for me is that after the Dup, Uup and Alliance all claiming Seamus for “Northern Ireland” and his “global significance” as a poet, that their collective non attendance shows what piffle all that is. They see him as in fact having nothing to do with them. In larger terms, it shows me that there is no shared “Northern Ireland”… It is just Unionists and… unionists. No recognition of Irishness at all. Zero. None…
thanks for this.
I was myself surprised that Alliance did not make an appearance. less surprised at UUP and DUP.
Alliance are rapidly being shown up to be only interested in themselves.
The bar has been set low for them. Eight seats in Belfast suburbia will guarantee them two seats in the Executive. At a stroke and with minimalist effort, the fifth biggest party becomes the third most inluential.
They can concentrate all their efforts in holding what they have and never going outside that physical and mental zone. It will be their undoing if NI21 ever gets a foothold.
Theres an arrogance about Alliance…entitlement trumps effort.
They did not have to be seen in Bellaghy. There was nothing there for them.
You are welcome.
I was surprised at the NI 21 no show as well. The girl I spoke to in their office said “we only have 2 members”…. Only 2 members? I said… Oh, only 2 representatives, I mean, she clarified. When I asked her could they not have sent one of their party officers, she sais “well you can’t just turn up at a funeral, can you?”… I thought that comment alone spoke volumes. They’re all just completely cut off from Irish Ireland, for want of a better phrase. When I say “they” I mean Unionists…
The Alliance press officer was particularly disdainful and snooty, you’ll be pleased to hear!!
To some extent, Id give NI21, the benefit of the doubt on this one.
In part I LIKE NI21 because it suits my agenda. A potential political party which can nibble at the liberal unionist flank of Alliance and maybe even appeal to the more traditional Alliance voter who is a bit concerned at the cosy relationship between Alliance and DUP-SF.
Two years ago, I was at an event where I spoke from the floor on my hobby horse….Alliance lack of principle.
A senior UUP person (with Alliance connexion) shook my hand and said that his Alliance relative would be turning in his grave.
I think thats an area that needs exploited.
The one thing that does worry me about NI21 is that there seems a lack of professionalism at its heart. Its the Basil and John Show. They want to banter their way thru Twitter, representing themselves as two nice guys caught up in something they dont totally understand. Self-deprication can only go so far.
Its something they need to sort out soon…and your experience talking to them probably illustrates a naive unprofessional attitude which is just about excusable at this point in their development.
I understand your liking them because they might expose and threaten Alliance.
They are more honest than Alliance, that is for sure, because they are clear that they are Unionists. And they are also clear in stating that for the Union to work, a new “Northern Irish” identity has to be formed. I personally find the idea of people being forced into a new identity repulsive.
I think they are every bit as hypocritical as the Alliance, though.
If they really believed in a new “Northen Irish” identity, which presumably would be a mish mash of Ulster Scots, Anglo Irish and Irish, surelly sending representatives to this funeral would be uppermost in their minds.
In truth it’s same old, same old. Their “new ” identity will contain everything bar nationalist Irishness.
Heaney’s great crime was that he was in fact a genuine “lets get a longerist”.. But encompassed in an overarching Irish nationalism.
The Wrong Sort, in short….
Even if NI21 become yet another “liberal unionist” failure, which cant get past the point of not fully accepting nationists and symbols of nationalism….they have the potential to damage Alliance in particular and letsgetalongerism in general.
Alloance are absolutely incapbable of moving “into the west”.
Alliance have absolutely limited themselves to their heartlands (not the right word).
Break it down…eight seats in just seven constituencies.
Room for expansion?
At a pinch Upper Bann is “possible” and maybe a second seat in South Belfast. Likely maximum 9 seats. Unlikely maximum 10 seats.
Vulnerability?
East Belfast second seat. Strangford.
Lowest potential 6 or 7.
Most likely outcome next time…7, 8 or 9.
And thats a crowded middle ground…NI21, Conservative and even Green who have their heartlands so to speak in the same constituencies…
And last year the number of Executive seats was sposed to be reduced. It didnt happen last time. How many MLAs will Alliance need in 2016 to get a Ministry (in their own right).
Interesting to say the least.
The well-known commentator Gerry Lynch IIRC once suggested that a second MLA seat in East Antrim was a definite “game on”, while there is room for a second in North Down.
And he was wrong wasnt he?
He was referring to the forthcoming elections, not the last ones.
would that be the last Westminster Elections that Gerry Lynch performed badly.
Or the last Assembly Elections where he wasnt the Alliance candidate?
Has he factored in that East Antrim might have Ian Parsley or Paula Bradshaw on the Alliance ticket? …
To be fair to NI21 they had a lot of comment on their facebook page and I think their main website, I believe it was John McCallister who led the tributes. Granted they should have been there, as they were able to get it together for Gay Pride and Sinn Fein summer school. However As FJH says they are in their infancy still in terms of gathering personnel and forming policy and I can see how attending the funeral might be overlooked when they are working on party structure, getting people to join etc, they are not yet a functioning party but are working on it. If Seamus had passed away 2 years from now I’d bet they would have had some one there.
Dub, I don’t see how NI21 are hypocritical – they have so far come out with consistent positions on the Maze, designated days, Parades Commissions, victims etc . They have stated their preferred constitutional position and are entitled to do so; therefore they can’t represent Irish nationalism and have made it plain they won’t do so as they don’t agree with a UI. However, they aim to give representation to those who may be culturally Irish (or NI, or British) or religiously Catholic, but pro-union. I don’t see hypocrisy there.
However, they should have attended the funeral and made a mistake in this respect.
Very sad indeed that no senior political representatives of the British Unionist minority in the north-east of the country attended Heaney’s funeral. Or indeed any representatives. As I have said before the objective of the DUP, UUP, TUV, PUP, BNP, APNI and NI1921 is a “Northern Irish” identity minus the “Irish” part. They are glorified “West Britons”.
If it is correct then the deliberate ignoring of Séamus Heaney’s funeral was due to his popular status as Ireland’s greatest English language poet since Yeats. There’s that terrible word again: “Ireland”!
FJH,
Not relevant to this thread so no need to publish but thought you might be interested in this:
Kev,
I will try and address it in a general blog.