Belfast Blogs.com

... and all I got was this lousy power-sharing executive.Well, I wasn't, but a lot of people I'm aware of, have met, have socialised with, were part of the militant Republican movement.The war was declared over some years back. Now the British overlords have confirmed that the transition to mainstream political activity is complete.I suppose there wasn't much time left for Martin McGuinness (see pic, far right) to be holding IRA council meetings since his day job as Deputy First Minister to Ian Paisley and Mr Iris Robinson (who himself was a terrorist in his day, as the people of Clontibret can testify, see pic below) takes up so many hours.But today's final nail in the Provo coffin must be hard to bear for some of the ground level volunteers - the people who took a guerilla war to what...

Northern Ireland’s political parties today demonstrated the new, mature attitude we all have to politics here by revealing how the 10 government departments will be divided up between them in May. The DUP got first pick, and it was no surprise that they took the Department for Stopping Money Getting to Nationalist Areas as the lead off.  The rest of the party’s picks were a little surprising, as they opted for the Department for Giving Grants to Unionist Businessmen, the Department for Making Sure Protestant Farmers Can Flog Land For Big Prices, and the tiny Department for the Destruction of the Irish Language and GAA (Northern Ireland). Sinn Fein got three departments.  They surprised no one by once again going for the Department for the Abolition of the 11 plus and...

Concern is beginning to spread that the DUP may not hold together following the historic decision to share power with Sinn Fein. The first major sign of dissent came with Jim Allister, the party’s MEP and a major player in the fantasy look-a-like community, resigning from the party.  At a press conference to announce his decision, Allister seemed, barely able to control his anger.  “Thieves, they’ve stolen our preciousssss union, nasty rude hobbitses, we hates them forever, gollum!” A flurry of councillors in liberal Ballymena have also since resigned, worried that the party have been rushing to embrace Sinn Fein too quickly.    Deputy DUP leader and potential finance Minister Peadair Mhic Róibín has insisted, however, that events aren’t...