At long last we are realising that there needs to be more for tourists to do here than clamber over funny-shaped rocks
Not standing up for the Ulster men
What a weekend of, um, foreign games we had last Saturday, eh? There was Blackpool vs West Ham
Writing on the wall for Co Tyrone Lenadoon paint unit
SAOR Uladh – or Soar Uladh as they were calling themselves on this wall in Lenadoon for a while – are inviting us to join our local unit. Squinter will come clean and say that he didn’t know Saor Uladh existed, much less that they had a unit in Lenadoon.
Shedload of old memories
THE garden shed is not long for this world. The plastic windows have slipped from their weather-warped frames and the wind and the rain whip in through the unguarded six inches or so. Not that that’s the main means of ingress for the elements – the felt on the roof is slowly disintegrating and the boards underneath are gappy and sagging.
A century on, tide of change is irresistible
A decision at last week’s top committee at City Hall means we are moving inexorably to a place where Belfast City Council will be compliant with the law by removing the union flag from the Dome. There should be two flags, no flags or a civic flag flying from City Hall, but sadly only one flag has dominated the skyline in the century-plus since that imposing building went up in 1906.
An opening, a step forward, a passing
THE NAME is awful and the artificial flowers and fish tank quite disconcerting, but fundamentally the E3 Belfast MET building at Springvale is a gamechanger for the city. Ducking the squalls this week, I joined Patricia Flanagan to view the spanking new facility on the Springfield Road peaceline. 20 years ago, there were promises – ultimately unfulfilled – to locate a university at this site in a dramatic move which would have turbo-charged the faltering economy of North/West Belfast