SOBAH

Proud resident of Northern Ireland. Retired. Enjoying life in our great wee country.

[Arlene O' Neill @arleneseesit]

What Unionist support for Fleadh has done is to blow the cover of Nationalist commentators Ferguson, Morris, Donnelly who can't tolerate Unionists and Nationalists enjoying the same things.

[SOBAH @SOSBAH]

@SageDespatches She blocked me and I've never engaged with her.

[wee kels @KellyMatshall]

Chris Donnelly trying his hardest to make the fleadh and feile the similar, they couldn't be more different , one is full of love of music and tradition dated 100s of years back that have a deep history and the other is full of Jew hating Brit hating IRA loving festival , makes himself sound ridiculous, the fleadh was a success because it wasn't political .

[Ben Archibald @benarchibald]

Who wore those balaclavas in the Northern Ireland conflict?

The murderers. The maimers. The widow and orphan makers. The bombers. The putrid blood-and-soil nationalist wretches whose true delight was the tearing apart of human bodies. Loyalist, republican: equally evil.

The colour of the wool doesn’t make it cute, and there’s no room for a sense of humour here. There’s little more vile than putting these on a kid.

[Jon Burrows MLA @JonBurrowsMLA]

At the next election we need to be spared from this cycle of dysfunction. Collapsing our devolved government (as imperfect as it is) for political benefit is utterly cynical & self interested. The next election must be a vote for real change.

[Melissa Ciummei @KSCUBKEE]

Michelle O’Neill never misses an opportunity to label people who live here racist, misogynist or sectarian.

I’m sick to the back teeth of it.

Caring about Northern Ireland doesn’t make me racist.

Wanting to see a GP.
Wanting decent housing.
Wanting our children to have a future here instead of being forced to leave.
Wanting schools to focus on reading, writing and maths.
Wanting immigration to be controlled, properly vetted and at a level our infrastructure can cope with.
Wanting local people put first when public services are already stretched.

None of that is hatred.

The people trying to shame us into silence don’t get to define who we are.

We need to stand up for local people, common sense and a Northern Ireland our children can afford to live in.

[Ards Brexit @ArdsBrexit]

The excellent Dr @HJoyceGender’s op-ed in reply to @AllisonMorris1’s article on the cancellation of the @ni_wrn event by @feilebelfast. As the @BelTel wouldn’t publish it, please circulate it freely.

[Ann Travers @AnnTravers6]

I'm so upset this morning. Our president, Catherine Connolly, standing grinning beside Mary McArdle who was the only person convicted for the murder of my 23 year old sister Mary as she walked home from mass in 1984. Some womens centre, who don’t care about women.

[Marley @FightHypocrisy1]

This is going to backfire on Sinn Fein. Everyone’s enjoying the Fleadh and they still have to fall back on made up sleights and sectarian politics. They’ve cried wolf too many times. Even nationalists are getting sick of it.

[Capt Terence O’Neill @BaronoftheMaine]

Great piece @dmcbfs,

But your headline could be simplified to the following.

“Sinn Fein throw hissy fit - because their incompetence is exposed.”

It is clear that Sinn Fein are engineering a collapse of the institutions, in order to mask their incompetence and stupidity.

[Richard Garland @richardtgarland]

Sinn Fein making threats to collapse the Assembly if the Agreement is not changed in the way that they want it to be.

Republican “unbiased” commentators rallying round to support this position.

This place would depress you.

[ARDS DISPATCHES @rabgee101]

The Fleadh has shown Belfast at its best this week, a celebration of music, culture and community that welcomes everyone.
Féile an Phobail is nothing like that, It's an Irish Republican festival, political at its core and can not be compared in any way. with the Fleadh.

[Jon Burrows MLA @JonBurrowsMLA]

There was never any justification for murdering men, women or children. By claiming terrorism was justified because of the “context”, Sinn Féin continue to fuel the mindset that violence can be legitimate. That is part of the dissident problem. https://t.co/VFXFzWt9y9

[Helen Joyce @HJoyceGender]

I wrote an op-ed for @BelTel Belfast Telegraph in response to a godawful column written by Allison Morris. The paper ghosted me for days, and then rejected it. So I've published it myself. https://t.co/BxRrFAvqzz

[Sage Despatches @SageDespatches]

A snapshot of the state of Northern Ireland journalism this week.

Well, when I say "journalism"...🙄

[Cllr Gary Hynds @GaryHynds]

𝑨𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒏 𝒑𝒖𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒄 𝒐𝒑𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒏, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒕'𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒆.

They built much of their support by presenting themselves as a centrist alternative. But that has changed long ago. They have increasingly moved to the far left on a range of issues, and @Stormont_watch analysis confirms that by showing their majority voting position has aligned with Sinn Fein. This helps explain why many former supporters no longer see Alliance as the centrist party it once claimed to be and are now looking elsewhere.

[wee kels @KellyMatshall]

Hi Amanda I can assure you the majority of people are not fuming , we all know your being devisive and want this to be a taigy festival , well sorry to disappoint you sweetie but many unionists including myself and the Ulster band's forum are participating in this year's fleadh , suck it up sweetheart us unionists are more than happy to get involved and enjoy all the Irish music and dance and wonderful culture, you speak only for yourself when it comes to unionists! Ps you have me blocked and I've never interacted with you 😁😜

[The Sentinel @sentinel_watch1]

Something is broken …

[Jon Burrows MLA @JonBurrowsMLA]

Except I’m attending an event at Queen’s later today to mark the beginning of the event. I’ll take no lessons on mutual respect from someone who murdered an innocent man in cold blood and, as far as I am aware, still believes that the evil murder was justified.

[Cllr Gary Hynds @GaryHynds]

What is the point of Stormont? It's a question more and more people are asking.

Once again, it has failed to do one of its most basic jobs: agree a Budget.

Too often, Stormont feels less like a government and more like a student debating society. Plenty of speeches. Plenty of grandstanding. Far too little delivery.

Where are the reforms? Where's the legislation needed to transform our public services? Instead, all we hear are demands for more taxpayers' money, while money is wasted, unspent funding is handed back, and MLAs happily accept huge pay rises. And even for some, that's not enough, so they dip into the public's pockets in other ways.

Even if Stormont genuinely believes it is underfunded, that's no excuse. Families, businesses and workers across Northern Ireland face financial pressures every day. They don't get to stop doing their jobs because money is tight. They adapt, they prioritise, and they get on with it. Stormont should do the same.

Northern Ireland is being failed by too many politicians who are either incapable of doing the job they're elected to do, or whose priorities lie elsewhere than making Northern Ireland work.

Stormont costs taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds every year. The very least the public should expect is a government that can actually govern.

Far too many MLAs have become comfortable with failure. In the real world, if you repeatedly failed to do the most basic parts of your job, you wouldn't get a pay rise. You'd be looking for a new job.