Northern Ireland 2125?

• Sinn Féin: 22 councillors
• DUP (Democratic Unionist Party): 14 councillors
• Alliance Party: 11 councillors
• SDLP (Social Democratic & Labour Party): 5 councillors
• Green Party: 3 councillors
• UUP (Ulster Unionist Party): 2 councillors
• People Before Profit Alliance: 1 councillor
• TUV (Traditional Unionist Voice): 1 councillor
• Independent: 1 councillo

The vote to fly the flag was passed by 32 votes - 28 votes

Here we go again.
Don't do anything here that might annoy or offend bigots and belligerents and don't show your support for anyone because you might offend the supporters of genocide and colonisation (who happen to be the same bigots and belligerents in the first group)

Why would you be 'taunted' by a gesture of support for a people undergoing a recognised genocide????

Would you ever have a titter of wit?

This is nothing more than another display of 'it's our wee country' and we'll stamp our feet again because we have no veto anymore on what a democratic majority decide.

The population of Gaza has increased in the past few years,

This is like Holocaust denial.

Again, it's sink to whatever level is necessary to defend belligerent Unionism

The statue to him was erected by Republicans, specifically funded by the American Irish-American republican group Clann na Gael, with the original unveiled in 1951. Mary Lou McD has since spoke at a rally to commemorate Russell held at the memorial site. The same rally was also addressed by then Provisional IRA Army Council member Brian Keenan.

Have you a source for him being associated with anti-Jewish pogroms in the SC road in the 30s? No mention of that in the media anyway as far as I know.

His death on the submarine was mysterious because rumour has it he was poisoned. No autopsy was carried out, his body was dumped at sea in the middle of the night and no attempt made to deliver it the final 100 miles to its destination of Galway, if indeed it did reach within 100 miles of Galway. It is unlikely the Nazi Submarine would ever have arrived at the docks in Galway with Russell even if he was alive.

In June 2020, even the republican Leo Varadker said that the statue of Seán Russell may need to be removed because of his attempted collaboration with the Nazis.

I used to live in that area of the city - know people who knew his family. The nazi thing upsets them given that he arranged a crew to guard against pogtams.

The local story is that at the time the war started, he was raising funds in the US. Couldnt get home due to the German blockades, but he managed to get passage on a ship bound for Rotterdam. On the U-boat thing - one story is that he was ill when the German U-Boat blockade inspectied the ship mid-Atlantic and the Germans offerdd to get him to shore faster than the ship, but he didnt make it.

All the minority protections, are being abused. Alliance are spot on here:

Alliance Deputy Leader Eóin Tennyson has said the latest abuse of the petition of concern is a “perversion of democracy” and further evidence that urgent reform is essential.

He was speaking after the DUP, Ulster Unionist Party and TUV tabled a petition to block an Assembly motion seeking observer status for Northern Ireland in the European Parliament to ensure Northern Ireland has its voice heard more effectively and constructively.

“Alliance has always been a strongly pro-European party and warned from the outset that Brexit would mean new borders and barriers. Almost ten years since the referendum, the DUP still can’t point to a solitary benefit of the Brexit they championed alongside Nigel Farage and the previous UK Government," Mr Tennyson said.

“The Windsor Framework, whilst imperfect, has insulated Northern Ireland from the worst impacts of Brexit, and contributed to our economy outperforming the rest of the UK. Alliance is firmly focused on building on these protections and delivering pragmatic solutions, such as securing observer status for Northern Ireland to allow our voice to be heard more effectively and constructively.

“The use of a Petition of Concern in this context is a shameful perversion of democracy and a blatant abuse of process. Rather than protecting minority rights, it has been warped and wielded as a sectarian veto to protect party political interests, deny equality and frustrate the democratic process.

“Abuses of that veto power, and the displays of arrogance and disrespect which accompanied them, led to many of the issues which contributed to the collapse of the Assembly in previous years. We need urgent reform to get the petition of concern back to its original intent, and away from what it has become, which is used and abused to serve parties’ selfish interests.”

*bolding mine.

Not interested in your deflections.

Deal with the issues raised or be ignored by me anyhow.

Deflection? It was YOU who brought up that lad Tennyson out of the blue, and YOU said that he said " Almost ten years since the referendum, the DUP still can’t point to a solitary benefit of the Brexit they championed alongside Nigel Farage and the previous UK Government"

I pointed out to you Tennyson seemingly can not think of a "solitary benefit of Brexit" for N.I., (but instead he gets a dig in at the DUP), as he claims the DUP can not think of a solitary benefit of Brexit. He may not realise that N.I. is in the unique position , and has the advantage of, having free trade with both Britain and the EU. Not the brightest is Tennyson. Maybe the quote you took from him was yet another quote from him when he was drunk and he will again come back and claim he was drunk and did not know what he was saying?

In other news from the last few days, it is interesting that seemingly Russia continues to probe our defences (or lack of), same as it has many other European countries. If Zelenskys aircraft was not early, I wonder would one of the military style drone attempted to down his aircraft as it approached Dublin airport? One came very close to inspect one of our navy ships.

Zelenskyy is very appreciative of the hundreds of people making missiles for him in Belfast: I wonder if there was a U.I. would that employment still be there? Doubt it, I think the first minister would prefer he high technology to hit back at the Russians?

So if there was a U.I. in 2025 (the point of this thread), or earlier, it would have implications for NATO and the defence of Europe. Most of the population of Europe are in countries that are in NATO, with the alliance including major European powers like Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, and new members Finland and Sweden). We are the outlier.

Yes Fr. Ted, Gardai are appealing for eyewitnesses to try to find out who operated the drones. One of the military type drones came within a number of hundred meters of one of our navy ships but all our sailors did is look at it and we are no further on.

Good job Zelensky's plane was early and the drones did not hit the plane or we might not just be the laughing stock of the world but possibly have a major crash investigation on our hands.

Plenty of evidence there was military style drones in the air.

Do you not think it is the job of our defence forces or Gardai to protect visiting politicians?

Our lads in the navy waving hello at the drone good enough? They may as well have stayed in Cobh and gone home to their mammies for dinner every day if that is all they can do.

If Zelensky's plane was not early and was hit by a drone / brought down, it could at least have had implications for hundreds of jobs in Belfast, even if you do not care about Zelensky or those in Ukraine. Of course the party you follow does not really want those jobs there anyway.

Drone flights, mostly of unknown origin, have been disrupting Europe's airspace in the past few months - maybe our navy lads did not know that? Or maybe the lads on our navy ship thought that they were getting their lunch delivered, after all they are not used to be so long away from home port?

Sure Zelensky was safe while here, but was that just by luck and his flight being early?

On 9 September, 20 Russian drones overflew Ukraine and flew into Poland, forcing the closure of four airports. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called the incursions "hybrid warfare".

The french recently shot at the military style dones seeing hovering over one of their nuclear weapon bases.

If Russia identified our defences as the weak link in Europe ( no other country could surely be weaker? ), could or would they have brought Zelenskys airplane down over the Irish sea?

We do not even have radar to see the drones, but some of the lads on our navy ship happened to look out the window and see the drone.

Maybe it was belonging to someone on the ship who got an ealy Xmas present from Harvey Norman? Hard to tell if it was a little Harvey Norman at 50 meters or a big Russian one at 400 meters. As you say, no facts yet.

Those other countries at least have radar capable of detecting them and acting accordingly - diverting flights if necessary etc. And there are such things as anti drone defences. Google it, you seem to just dismiss them like our navy does.

Interesting you mention "our new President" - she is the one who was criticised for her claims that Ireland 'does not need an army' during a Dáil debate last year.

It is obvious Ireland does need an army / defence forces, despite what Connolly may think.

If we were in Nato at least we could see / have radar, and it would be some deterrent against Russian aggression.

In other news today, radio headlines have said it has been found there is “No evidence” of collusion between the British state and loyalist paramilitaries in connection with the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings. The latest report also found there was no specific intelligence that could have prevented the attacks, which claimed 33 lives.

Makes sense: if the British government wanted to use violence against Republicanism, it would have "taken out" the Republican leadership - of extremist Republicanism - in Belfast and elsewhere. It knew, through informers, MI5 etc, who the leaders were. I suppose it was above killing people in a pre-determined manner, and if it killed all the leadership it would have killed some of its own informers.

Some people would be of the opinion that as extremist Republicans had killed many British politicians - Neave, Bradford, Graham, Stronge etc - the British should have killed or taken out the pIRA leadership, who were well known, but it did not. Too soft for that they would say, so definitely would not have taken part in the murder of innocent people like in Dublin / Monaghan.