Round the blogs

Well three of them anyway.  I am particularly taken with Holks on the Hill, astute, historically grounded political commentary, sound taste in music and much else.  I was highly amused by his recent argument that the Provos aren't real republicans but merely used that ideology in an opportunistic way to cover up their modern origins as a catholic defence organisation and to lend an air of universalism to an essentially sectarian project. 

More recently, the Pastor of Muppets has supplied some interesting observations on the future of unionism.  I think his take on Trimble is correct.  He tried to take unionism out of the orange and conservative straitjacket and appeal to a wider political base.  His modernisation project failed but we're all the better off for his having made the effort.  Reading the Dean Godson biography, I was struck by how far Trimble had travelled from his rather constricted lower middle class protestant roots.  There's one point in the book where Daphne Trimble is chuckling away at how her husband now had communists, homosexuals and ex IRA men as close political confidants. 

Elsewhere, the Saint is having a good go at Pat Rabbitte, convinced that he's playing the race card and getting away with it.  Not a popular man down at Dossing Times.  Over at Where's me country?  Red Rover has a good critique of the FG-Lab proposals on Dáil reform. 

Comments

[the saint]

Thanks for the link.

[Pastor of Muppets]

Thanks for your kind comments Gerry, keep up the good work yourself.

I managed to pick up the Godson biography of Trimble a week or two ago, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it. I hear that not only is it a concise bio of Trimble, but it is a thorough guide to the wider peace process in the era of Trimble's watch.