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Posts Tagged ‘northern ireland’

The Glorious 12th: Metro tabloid creates contender for worst front-page headline of all time

There’s been rioting in Northern Ireland. But not to worry because you can get some noodles in a cafe on Monday. It’s the ‘Glorious 12th’ in The Metro. Yeah, really. Who writes The Metro’s front page? Who edits the thing? Mind blowing. Surely it’s time to let the paper’s staff have access to the Internet.

For anyone not au fait with what The Glorious 12th is – especially if you hang those words beneath a picture of violence in Northern Ireland – here goes. Wikipedia:

A contender, then, for the worst front-page headline of all time.

PS: If only there were some sort of library open 24 hours a day 7 days a week, where hapless journalists could find stuff out.

Posted: 8th, April 2021 | In: Key Posts, News | Comment


A movement towards free abortions on the NHS for Northern Irish women

Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP Scottish government will look at providing free abortions for Northern Ireland women on the NHS. Sturgeon, Scotland’s First Minister, is reported in the Belfast Telegraph as having discussed the plan with the country’s Chief Medical Officer, Catherine Calderwood.

Abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland under the terms of the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act. A woman is a criminal for having an abortion unless the State decides her physical or mental health is at serious risk. Anyone carrying out an abortion in Northern Ireland faces being jailed for life.

Who owns your body? The Northern Irish government exerts more control over women’s reproductive organs than women themselves do. And it’s the same in the Irish republic.

The choice for women seeking an abortion in Ireland is stark: an illegal abortion and prison – and if something goes wrong with the abortion, where do you turn for help if those pills you bought online turn out to be dangerous?; or a flight to Great Britain and lies.

Here’s one example of how woman suffer. In 2016, a Belfast woman was given a suspended one-year sentence for a self-induced abortion. She told her housemates that she tried to travel to England for an abortion but could not afford it. So she bought some pills over the web to induce a miscarriage. Her housemates were “taken back by the seemingly blase attitude” and called the police. Police raided her home and discovered a male foetus inside a black bag in a household bin. They arrested the woman. She was 19.

Figures from the Department of Health in England revealed last week that 724 women from Northern Ireland made the journey to England or Wales for abortions…

The Sunday Times reported yesterday that some Northern Ireland women were already gaining free abortions in Scotland by naming the address of a Scottish friend as their home.

Medics are alleged to turn a blind eye to the fact the women are not living in Scotland.

It’s awful. Abortion should be removed from the criminal law. The State has no business ruling over what a woman can do with her womb.

 

Posted: 20th, June 2017 | In: News | Comment


Ashers To Ashers: Northern Ireland cakes shop makes muppets for Christians

 

gay cake

 

Ashers Baking Company didn’t want to bake a cake decorated with slogans supporting gay marriage. The Northern Ireland bakery doesn’t want to make a statement about gay marriage, which remains illegal in the country.  It also goes againt their religious convictions as Christians. So. Thanks for your enquiry but no thanks.

The shop named after one of the 12 tribes of Israel thanks you for your interest.

That would be the end of it. But Ashers, based in Newtownabbey, upset / annoyed / triggered LGBT activist Gareth Lee. He wanted a cake with Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie, the slogan “support gay marriage” and the logo of campaigning group QueerSpace. And he complained that he had “suffered unlawful religious, political and sexual orientation discrimination”.

But was he really treated less favourably by Ashers than they would treat heterosexuals asking for the same cake? Was he refused because he was gay? No. He wasn’t. The shop will serve gays.

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Posted: 19th, March 2015 | In: Reviews | Comment


Photos of the 2013 Belfast Battle of the Boyne Bonfire season

THE summer is here. The heat is high. Time, then, to build a gigantic bonfire at New Mossley on the outskirts of Belfast. At midnight tonight hundreds of fires will be set alight as loyalists celebrate the 12th July, remembering the defeat of the Catholic King James, by the Protestant William of Orange in 1690.

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Posted: 11th, July 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment


The best 44 photos from the G8 Summit and golf tour 2013

THE G8 summit in Northern Ireland was a success. Hunger was ended. Bono, Mr G9, talked about fairness. Locals were unable to walk down roads and post letters. And The Obamas had another terrific family holiday.

Highlights of the Enniskillen Golf Club ladies day (they let Angela Merkel in so long as wore a blue tie) below:

Puppets of (from left to right) US President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, Prime Minister David Cameron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an IF campaign to highlight world hunger during the G8 Summit at Enniskillen Golf Club, Northern Ireland.

Puppets of (from left to right) US President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, Prime Minister David Cameron, and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an IF campaign to highlight world hunger during the G8 Summit at Enniskillen Golf Club, Northern Ireland.

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Posted: 19th, June 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment


Nine years for bank robber who took empty cash box

IDIOT of the day is  Joseph O’Callaghan, 31, of Gleann Si, Rostrevor, County Down, Northern Ireland. He’s been sentenced at Belfast Crown Court to nine years choky.

On 8 April 2011, O’Callaghan held up a GS4 security van making a delivery to the Northern Bank on Belfast’s Lisburn Road. He “brandished” a large knife in the security guard’s face. He demanded that the guard hand over the cash box. The guard complied. O’Callaghan then got into a car and sped off.

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Posted: 10th, November 2012 | In: Strange But True | Comment


In Photos: The Orange Order march in Clifton Street, Belfast

FACES of the day: Women dressed in the Union flag colours near Orange Hall in Clifton Street, Belfast, ahead of the start of a massive loyal order parade to mark the centenary of the signing of the pro-Union Ulster Covenant. An estimated 30,000 marchers will take part in the Orange Order event which will see a huge cultural festival staged in the grounds of the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont in east Belfast, held to commemorate the 1912 proclamation against plans for Home Rule in Ireland.

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Posted: 29th, September 2012 | In: Reviews | Comment


Fish cover Northern Ireland Farm

TO Northern Ireland, where farmer Gordon Flinn spots his field covered in fish. His daughter Louise tells the Belfast Telegraph:

“It was like a catastrophe, as though the fish had fallen out of the sky. We really couldn’t believe it until we saw it. It really was like something out of the Bible.” 

Repent! Release the Jews from the stables! And get some bread!

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Posted: 29th, January 2012 | In: Strange But True | Comment


Islamists Riot Over Absolute Faith In Allah, Iraqi Children Play And A Protestant Northern Irish Car-B-Que

PHOTOS Of The Day: Every days images and news of world events drop into Anorak’s news box. You won’t seem them on the mainstream news. The BBC’s 10 o’clock bulletin, for example, is obsessed with Israel, Rupert Murdoch, film premiere, murder and itself. You are less likely to see:

Children play with cattle in the Tigris river in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, July 10, 2011. The animals are bathed daily to help keep them healthy and to protect them from the heat. Yeah, no bombs, gurning madmen with sabres and gung-ho yanks cuddling dogs.

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Posted: 10th, July 2011 | In: Reviews | Comment


The Apprentice Boys Relief of Derry Parade In SFW Pictures

NO sniggering at the Apprentice Boys Relief of Derry parade in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. This is serious stuff and must not be tinged you’re your sticky fingered adolescent sense of humour.

The Apprentice Boys parade passed peacefully on the Ardoyne Road in North Belfast this morning.

The parade commemorates the thirteen young Apprentices who closed the gates of the walled city, a Protestant stronghold, to halt Catholic King James’ army in 1688. A siege endured. It lasted 105 days.

(No paedo priests were involved…)

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The Apprentice Boys march through Derry City this afternoon.

Posted: 14th, August 2010 | In: Reviews | Comment


Northern Ireland Riots In Pictures: Orangemen, Men In Green And Red Blood

IN Northern Ireland, the Orangemen are marching, as they do every July 12th. The Orangemen are guarded by the police (black) from attack by Nationalist protesters (green) in the Ardoyne Road area of north Belfast.

The nationalist protesters have staged a sit-down demonstration ahead of the Orange Order march. They are cleared and the marchers march. The police fire 70 baton rounds. A policewoman suffers head injuries when she was hit by a lump of masonry. A further 81 officers had been injured. Three police officers have been shot in separate incident in north Belfast.

A few views:

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Posted: 13th, July 2010 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)


Bloody Sunday In Pictures: Lord Saville, Lord Widgery, Facts Or Truth?

BLOODY Sunday. It took Lord Saville 12-years to inquire as to what went on in Northern Ireland. In 1972 British Paratroopers killed 13 civilians on a civil rights march in Derry City. How can it take so long? The inquiry has cot the taxpayer just under £200million. Thirteen dead. And the lawyers get the money.

Lord Widgery investigated in the immediate aftermath; an inquiry set up by then Home Secretary, Reginald Maudling. Irish nationalists dismissed it as a whitewash. Widgery’s report spoke of some of the victims being armed. But there was no proof that they were.

Father Edward Daly worked at St Eugene’s Cathedral in Derry. He gave testimony:

“They call themselves an army, it was utterly disgraceful. There was nothing fired at them, I can say that with absolute certainty because I was there.”

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Posted: 14th, June 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)


Northen Ireland’s Little People Host World Dwarf Games

world-dwarf-gamesWHAT more fitting place then Northern Ireland to stage the World Dwarf Games, it being a place where little people with little minds and little ways command respect.

The event will feature more than 200 little people from 15 countries being shouted at by local little people.

Lord Mayor Naomi Long commends the Dwarf Athletic Association of Northern Ireland:

Through their hard work and dedication, DAANI gives people with restricted growth conditions the opportunity to get more involved in mainstream sports and outdoor activity.”

Of course, Northern Ireland is not just home to little people but is the residence of giants which patrol the coastal areas looking for Romanians in their caves…

Posted: 26th, June 2009 | In: Strange But True | Comments (3)


Support Suzanne Breen

SUZANNE Breen is northern editor of the Sunday Tribune in Northern Ireland.

She does not want to give the police her notes linked to stories about the Real IRA.

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Posted: 11th, June 2009 | In: Reviews | Comment