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Brian Feeney

Brian Feeney

The Irish News

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Unionism needs to know when to hold ‘em – and know when to fold ‘em

The present crisis in unionism offers the opportunity for a new beginning. You might say there’s only a crisis in the DUP, and the DUP isn’t...

latest 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Counting the cost of Britain’s delusions of grandeur

Last week UCL Policy Lab and Hertford College, Oxford published a report entitled ‘The World in 2040: Renewing the UK’s Approach to International...

19.04.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Fear and loathing of Sinn Féin driving Micheál Martin’s abandonment of north

Changed times. There was a Fianna Fáil ard fheis at the weekend. It didn’t feature in the north’s media, electronic or print. Time was the...

17.04.2024 20

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Stormont institutions are sustainable but not stable

After the North-South Ministerial Council meeting on Monday, Leo Varadkar’s last political event as taoiseach, he emerged and gave an interview in...

12.04.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Simon Harris’s waffle on Irish unity shows he couldn’t care less about north

Simon Harris, the new taoiseach, is from Greystones, County Wicklow. The town has expanded rapidly in the last 20-odd years and now has a population...

10.04.2024 6

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The main challenge for Simon Harris is to make Fine Gael electable again

Barring a thunderbolt striking the Dáil on Tuesday, 37-year old Simon Harris will become the youngest taoiseach since, well, Leo Varadkar. Currently...

05.04.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Sinn Féin is showing leadership – not that the media would tell you

Here’s one change that largely went unremarked by our unionist-dominated media. Though UTV did broadcast the scene, they didn’t mention its...

04.04.2024 6

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Britain is broke and we’re shackled to its decomposing corpse

Last September The Spectator, a right-of-centre magazine, published an article entitled ‘Broken Britain: what went wrong?’ It was an artful title...

29.03.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

By hook or crook, Britain will never reveal its role in the ‘dirty war’

Hardly a day goes by without a report in this newspaper about one or more inquests into the violent death of someone during the Troubles. Many of...

27.03.2024 20

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

For northern nationalists, Brexit was Leo Varadkar’s finest hour

In the south, Leo Varadkar will be remembered for the 2018 abortion referendum and for his handling of the Covid pandemic, as well as for the historic...

23.03.2024 7

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Contrived Stormont debate is just DUP arguing with itself

Alliance’s Sorcha Eastwood had it half right on Tuesday when she said the debate the DUP concocted over adopting a new EU law was “about internal...

23.03.2024 40

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Jim Allister’s act of madness could ensure no unionist seats in Belfast

“Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.” There are several versions of that saying but they are all based on the observation...

20.03.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Sinn Féin are right to go to Washington – a boycott would be crackers

We’ve been here before: to boycott or not to boycott? In April 2003 George W Bush flew in to meet Tony Blair at Hillsborough Castle. They were there...

15.03.2024 6

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Keep Michael Gove and his right-wing ideology away from us

As England’s Conservative party lurches rapidly to the right, regrettably followed by the Labour party, the person who has had most success in...

13.03.2024 6

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Kenova lays bare ‘Big Boys’ Rules’ at heart of Britain’s dirty war

In his book Big Boys’ Rules, which Jon Boutcher refers to in his interim Kenova report, Mark Urban portrayed “a maverick culture where agent...

09.03.2024 20

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Unionist political leaders are unable to plan for the future because they can’t contemplate a future different from the past

The last stanza of Maurice Craig’s ballad sums up the unionist worm’s eye view of the world. ‘The bricks they will bleed and the rain it will...

08.03.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Alliance Party’s anti-Brexit boost bodes ill for Donaldson and DUP

You have to admit the Alliance party is anything but secretive. The headlines of this week’s opinion poll may be the percentages for and against...

06.03.2024 8

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Not GAA’s job to act as recruiting sergeant for PSNI

Micheál Martin’s Irish News interview last week was wide of the mark about the north in a number of respects but his observations on policing were...

01.03.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

A top-class Casement Park is not a threat to unionists

Last week Micheál Martin told The Irish News he was “concerned that sport is becoming an issue of contention and it shouldn’t be”. He was...

28.02.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Return of North-South Ministerial Council will improve lives of all

During the Irish government’s announcements of funding for projects in the north and all-island developments, it went largely unnoticed that...

23.02.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

For the DUP, the Irish Sea border struggle isn’t over yet

Perhaps you’re one of those who thought that, in the famous line of the English 1966 World Cup commentator, “They think it’s all over”....

21.02.2024 9

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

No longer a Protestant parliament and Protestant state

“We are the people”, a unionist slogan you don’t hear these days, was the populist version of Craig’s infamous boast in April 1934: “We are...

16.02.2024 30

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Perfidious Albion and the trashing of the Good Friday Agreement

You’ve read this judgement by General de Gaulle here before but it’s worth reminding you of it again: “For England there is no alliance which...

14.02.2024 7

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The Sinn Féin-DUP divide is about more than a united Ireland

The most striking poll in recent times was the LucidTalk/Sunday Times one last October which found that 57% of 18-24 year olds would vote for a united...

09.02.2024 20

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The lie that there’s no all-island economy

As well as marking exactly two years since the DUP walked out of Stormont, last week also marked four years since Britain left the EU. Did you notice...

07.02.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Red, white and blue command paper seeks to restore unionist veto at Stormont

Command papers have been on the go since 1833. There have been thousands of them. Some are white, some are green. Wednesday’s was unique for,...

02.02.2024 7

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The real change for unionists will be a Sinn Féin First Minister

James Breslin, an American political commentator, coined the phrase ‘smoke and mirrors’ in 1975 writing about Watergate. He described politics as...

31.01.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The UK is broke and Stormont is not the answer

In 2010, when leaving office after Labour lost the British general election, Liam Byrne, chief secretary to the Treasury, notoriously left a note for...

26.01.2024 20

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

New Irish Sea checks make matters worse for dithering Donaldson

From January 31 Britain will require pre-notification of all imports from the EU and export health certificates issued by vets for live animals and...

24.01.2024 7

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

DUP attempt to subvert democracy again with Rwanda bil

Amid the chaos, fear and loathing displayed this week in the rotten Conservative government, few people here, or indeed anywhere else, noticed the DUP...

19.01.2024 8

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Blame for stand-off lies squarely with inept Heaton-Harris

The British government adopted the Windsor Framework on March 24 last year. Politically we’re exactly where we were then, but the newly-agreed,...

17.01.2024 20

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The Good Friday Agreement was not ‘Sunningdale for slow learners’ - there was a fundamental difference

It seems 50 years from the inauguration of the power-sharing executive is a time span which has set a lot of people looking at ‘what might have...

12.01.2024 9

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

'Normal politics’ can't work here

The Alliance Party’s demand last week for the British to take action to get the assembly up and running regardless of the DUP is just plain stupid....

11.01.2024 4

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Extreme unionist politicians always prevail

It’s now 59 years almost to the day since Taoiseach Seán Lemass arrived at Stormont on January 14 1965 to meet the north’s prime minister,...

05.01.2024 9

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Somersaulting Heaton-Harris should admit failure and resign – Brian Feeney

Columns appearing at the beginning of a new year normally anticipate change for the better and look forward to the resolution of problems which have...

03.01.2024 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

‘Genocide Joe’ Biden has got the Gaza crisis wrong in every way – Brian Feeney

In April 1945 US troops reached the Buchenwald concentration camp complex. What they found horrified them. A week later General Eisenhower, along with...

29.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

British bad faith belies season of goodwill

Christmas is certainly not the season of goodwill as far as the British government, or at least its most junior department, the NIO, is concerned....

28.12.2023 9

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

At least this time no head of government turned up to be jilted by the DUP – Brian Feeney

It’s an action replay of February 2018 when the DUP walked away from a deal they’d reached with the two governments and Sinn Féin to restore...

22.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The DUP is not a normal political party and its stance is crackers

Some people may have expected the DUP to fold and agree before Christmas to resurrect the Stormont administration. Those who held that expectation did...

20.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Believe nothing until it has been denied – Brian Feeney

In his 1956 autobiography, the famous left-wing journalist Claude Cockburn said that since becoming a journalist he had often heard the advice ‘to...

15.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Fresh approach to put paramilitaries out of business

In July 1972 the then UUP leader, Jim Molyneaux, was photographed in the Ulster Star inspecting an ‘honour guard’ of masked UDA men at the...

14.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Starmer's spending plans will be disastrous for the north – Brian Feeney

ONE of the many problems that arises from being resident in the remnant of England's first colony is that commenting on British politics is a...

08.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

Starmer's spending plans will be disastrous for the north – Brian Feeney

Due to the technical or legal reasons, readability mode is not available for this article. Thank you for your kind understanding.

08.12.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

For the Irish government it's a case of 'Don't mention the border poll' – Brian Feeney

THE second, extensive, detailed ARINS (Analysing and Researching Ireland North & South) poll findings are in the course of being published in The...

06.12.2023 6

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

For the Irish government it's a case of 'Don't mention the border poll' – Brian Feeney

Due to the technical or legal reasons, readability mode is not available for this article. Thank you for your kind understanding.

06.12.2023 6

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The DUP never wanted to share power with nationalists – Brian Feeney

NO, Alex, the fundamental point of your argument – “The reality, of course, is that the DUP and SF worked very closely together to make...

01.12.2023 5

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The DUP never wanted to share power with nationalists – Brian Feeney

NO, Alex, the fundamental point of your argument – “The reality, of course, is that the DUP and SF worked very closely together to make...

01.12.2023 9

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

With drug deaths spiralling, just what is our proconsul doing? – Brian Feeney

DRUG deaths in the north are shockingly high.

29.11.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

With drug deaths spiralling, just what is our proconsul doing? – Brian Feeney

DRUG deaths in the north are shockingly high.

29.11.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

The truth is the DUP is not going to get anything it wants – Brian Feeney

IN an uncanny way the DUP mirrors the Conservative party with which the DUP believed it had a close relationship since 2010.

24.11.2023 10

The Irish News

Brian Feeney

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