The Democratic Unionist Party has a positive vision for Northern Ireland. We want to see a prosperous Northern Ireland, one where people can be proud to live, work and bring up a family. After being marred for decades by terrorism and conflict, our country now has stable devolved institutions at Stormont, where local people are taking local decisions and all parties in the Executive are signed up in support of the police, courts and rule of law.
BY MARK WALLACE Continue reading
Change is not a word which is often associated with politics in Northern Ireland; we have been fighting the same issues and the same questions for at least the last 90 years. The same parties having the same tired arguments. But change is possible. At the last election, the Alliance Party vote grew right across Northern Ireland in almost every constituency, and Naomi Long created headlines when she was elected MP East Belfast. Many people right across Northern Ireland chose to vote for a positive, fair and shared future.
BY DAVID MURPHY
Hot on the heels of resounding Green Party victories last year in Westminster and Australia (and of breakthroughs this year in Germany and Canada), the Green movement is undergoing a global resurgence.
BY ADAM MCGIBBON Continue reading
Northern Ireland is 90 years old this week. It is worth remembering that the forefathers of Unionism stood for “defending, for ourselves and our children, our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom” as the Ulster Covenant, often referred to as the birthright of Northern Ireland, put it.
BY SAMMY MORRISON
In the upcoming election I am positive that it will be a very successful one for Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin are determined to keep making politics work, to keep defending the political institutions and keep delivering for ordinary people and demonstrating what true republicanism is about. The party’s successes in the last Dáil election showed that the Irish people responded to its calls for equality, fairness and national unity when 14 Sinn Féin TD’s and 3 Sinn Féin Senators were elected.
BY GRACE LYNCH
Over 300 students travelled to Stormont this afternoon to pressurise local politicians into keeping the cap on tuition fees. Despite pouring rain, students from Queen’s, University of Ulster, St. Mary’s and Stranmillis College turned out to make their voice heard. A petition with 10,000 signatures was presented to the local Assembly this afternoon by SDLP MLA Pat Ramsey and motion calling for the rejection of the Browne report is to be debated at 4.30pm.
BY BEN FINCH
On Friday 23rd of October The Gown met up with ‘Hanging in There,’ an internationally acclaimed act appearing at the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen’s. A number of journalists gathered to interview the pair of performers on the steps of Stormont. This was a symbolic location in many respects as the man-to-man dance duet, devised and performed by Nick Bryson and Damian Punch, see their act as a parody of the peace process in Northern Ireland.
BY JANE BROWN