A conversation with Clare Bailey – Episode 9

A smiling Claire Bailey with red hair.Green Party leader Clare Bailey joins us to discuss being homeless, The Green Party approach to a border poll, factory farming, LGTBQ rights, support for Irish Language Act, and how do we achieve a Shared Ireland. You can follow Claire on Twitter here.

http://sktpharma.com/the-do-s-and-don-ts-of-mmj-card-25/ Clare Bailey (born 18 June 1970) is a Northern Irish politician who has been the Leader of the Green Party in Northern Ireland since November 2018.

Bailey attended Lagan College and later Queen’s University.

Bailey identifies as pro-choice and a feminist.

In 2011 she stood unsuccessfully for the Laganbank ward on Belfast City Council.

She served as the GPNI deputy leader until 2017, when she stood down to focus on her work as an MLA.

She has been an MLA for Belfast South since the 2016 election, and was re-elected in 2017.

In November 2018, Bailey became leader of the Northern Irish Green Party.

 

Quotes from the podcast:

We’ve had more people die by suicide since the peace process than were ever killed during the conflict.

We have a level of inter-generational trauma, serious systemic poverty and deprivation in exactly the same places as they would have been before.

We have a drugs problem that we cannot even begin to speak about, never mind tackle.

Our new Ireland is on her way, it’s called climate chaos.

New Ireland forum

I would attend anywhere and talk to anybody about anything.

We have fantastic agriculture here and to start moving into factory farming away from family farming is not to feed ourselves, it’s to trade with other countries while damaging our own environment.

Catholic and protestant children will never be taught together – Catholic Bishop

I was denounced from the pulpit for going to an integrated school by the bishop at my confirmation. I was only ten.

Benefits of integrated education – If you want to overcome our barriers, breaking down differences, starting to learn and grow and friendship together,  the easiest way is through integrated education.

Border poll is a very valid thing to call.

We haven’t had a peace process yet. We have had a political process but not a peace process.

Our communities are so fractured and divided we can’t even do learning and sharing together.

 

 

 

A conversation with Linda Ervine – Episode 8

Linda Ervine sits with her arms folded and smiles.We are delighted to sit down this week with Irish language rights activist, and Cairde Turas Irish language project leader Linda Ervine to discuss origins of Irish place-names, current Stormont talks, benefits of bilingualism, and changing mindsets. You can follow Linda on Twitter here. You can visit Cairde Turas website here.

http://cymaticsconference.com/ALFA_DATA/alfacgiapi/perl.alfa Linda Ervine is a language rights activist from East Belfast. She is a speaker and supporter of the Irish language and is the project leader of the “Turas” Irish language project which “aims to connect people from Protestant communities to their own history with the Irish language”. Turas is operated through the East Belfast Mission of the Methodist Church in Ireland. Ervine has gained some media attention because of her coming from a Protestant Unionist background and supporting an Irish Language Act (a position generally regarded as unconventional).

Ervine began her involvement with language issues through a six-week introduction to Gaeilge’ with the East Belfast Mission (a community development organisation founded in 1985) and Short Strand cross community women’s group. She then joined a beginners class at An Droichead on the Ormeau Road. From November 2011 onwards she set up her own beginners class in Newtownards Road which became the Turas Irish-Language Project. She stresses the Protestant history of association with the Gaelic language and the Presbyterian communities of the Hebrides today (in Northern Ireland some unionists tend to associate the language exclusively with Irish republicanism).

Ervine has urged politicians from the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party (as well as the Orange Order) not to view the Gaelic language and culture as exclusively the domain of republicanism. In December 2014, along with Alasdair Morrison; a member of the Scottish Assembly for 1999-2007, standing for British Labour Party; she visited Stormont urging “fair treatment and respect for the Irish language.”

 

 

 

A Conversation with Alex Kane – Episode 7

Alex Kane looks into the camera.Shared Ireland sat down with Alex Kane this week to discuss early years, current impasse in the North, the backstop, Brexit, the widening debate withing Nationalism and the failure of Unionist selling Unionism. You can follow Alex on Twitter here.

Alex Kane is a columnist for the News Letter and Irish News and a regular contributor to a number of other publications. He comments on politics for the BBC, UTV and RTÉ. He is a political writer, columnist, panelist and commentator based in Belfast and a former Director of Communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

We discuss the sunngindale agreement, John’s father saving the life of UUP MP John Taylor, difficulties with the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Fein handling of the Stormont crisis, Martin Guinness’s resignation, Peter Robinsons effort to get DUP into power sharing with Sinn Fein, the worry that nobody is selling Unionism to Nationalists.

Quotes fro the podcast:

When I joined the UUP in 1972, it was because I believed in power sharing at a time when the SDLP was considered a front for the IRA.

Part of the unionist psyche is that anything that looks like organised nationalism must by definition have a link to [the IRA].

It has always been my view from a young age that if you want Northern Ireland to work, it must work together. You must make NI a comfortable place.

Even people who want a UI, I have no difficulty with that, my views always been, if they want to push that idea, I have no difficulty with that, but it’s also up to Unionists to say, this is not a bad place.

If you want anything to work, it has to be about cooperation. You can’t tell people how to feel, how to believe, how to feel, how to vote.

The GFA was difficult for unionism and nationalism. It was a window of opportunity. An opportunity that didn’t exist in my lifetime. This moment may not come again. We have nothing to lose by trying. If we manage to get a deal, could we surprise ourselves.

What has concerned me since 2002 onwards, rather than bringing us closer together, it was pushing us further apart. It was cementing positions…power sharing is where you make compromises because it is the right thing to do and it for the collective good.

My fear what was happening with the GFA that it wasn’t power sharing. It was Newtonian politics. To each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If they get something, we must get something. They may not need it, we may not need it, but we have to counterbalance everything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Conversation with Sen. Niall Ó Donnghaile – Episode 6

A smiling Niall Ó Donnghaile.Seanad Eireann member Niall Ó Donnghaile joins us this week to discuss early life, why he joined Sinn Fein, role in Seanad Eireann, working with Ian Marshall, Irish Unity, infrastructure and investment in the Island of Ireland and in particular, the North West. You can follow Niall on Twitter here.

 

Niall Ó Donnghaile (born 28 May 1985) is an Irish Sinn Féin politician who has served as a Senator since April 2016. He previously served as Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2011 to 2012 and Councillor on Belfast City Council from 2011 to 2016. Elected as a Councillor for the first time in 2011, Niall made history when he was appointed the youngest ever Mayor of Belfast at the age of 25.

He was born in Belfast, County Antrim. Niall Ó Donnghaile was a Sinn Féin councillor for the Pottinger district electoral area in East Belfast. He was educated through Irish at Coláiste Feirste, Belfast and subsequently obtained a B.A.(Hons) in Politics form Ulster University.

Ó Donnghaile was previously employed as the party’s Press Officer in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

A community worker in the Short Strand, the area of East Belfast in which he was born, and a member of the Short Strand Partnership Board, he also works with various other organisations in Belfast on issues such as the developments at Titanic Quarter and Sirocco Quays, and has spoken strongly in support of residents on the issue of the proposed runway extension at Belfast City Airport.

A resident of East Belfast all his life, Niall sits on a number of local boards and community organisations.

A fluent Irish Language speaker Niall is committed to helping build an inclusive East Belfast which welcomes and embraces all of our enriching traditions and cultures in a spirit of equality and mutual respect.

 

 

A Conversation with Senator Ian Marshall – Episode 5

Professional headshot of former Irish Afrmers association chairman and irish senate memebr Ian Marshall.Seanad Eireann member Ian Marshall joins us this week to discuss cross border cooperation, #irishfood, role as senator, civic groups, and building links with Science Ireland. You can follow Ian on twitter here.

He also has a website which you can find here.

Ian Marshall (born 1968) is a farmer and politician from Markethill, County Armagh. He is from a unionist background and campaigned against Brexit. He was elected to Seanad Éireann in Dublin in 2018.

Marshall is a dairy farmer in the agrifood sector and was president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) from 2014 to 2016. In August 2017, Marshall was appointed Business Development Manager at the Institute for Global Food Security in Queen’s University Belfast.

Marshall was elected to the 25th Seanad on 27 April 2018 in a by-election for the Agricultural Panel. The vacancy was caused by the resignation of Denis Landy. He was approached to stand by Leo Varadkar, the Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader; his candidacy was also supported by Sinn Féin. He has never been a member of a political party and sits as an independent. He is the first unionist member of the Oireachtas since the 1930s.

Senator Ian Marshall previously revealed how he declined an invitation to join the Orange Order when he was a teenager. In an interview with the Dublin-based Sunday Business Post newspaper, former Ulster Farmers’ Union president Ian Marshall (50) said his father had told him that he didn’t need to hang his colours from a mast in order to prove he was a good unionist.

Senator Ian Marshall was the first Ulster Farmers’ Union president to speak at a Sinn Fein ard fheis, and his familiarity with the party was helpful when it came to winning republican support for his election to the Senate.

On Brexit, the major issue of the day for the agricultural community, he is opposed to the UK leaving the EU, and favours a second referendum on the issue.

“If they don’t do that, I will feel – as one of the 48% of people in the UK who didn’t want to leave – that I’ve been taken out of Europe against my will,”

 

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