Tag Archives: Northern Ireland Assembly

N.I. Assembly reopens after two years; led by Sinn Fein

UPDATES:

Feb. 7: The death of former taoiseach John Burton, King Charles’ cancer, other news in Ireland and the rest of world have pushed the Northern Ireland Assembly off the home pages of Irish media. This post is now closed.

Michelle O’Neill

Feb. 4: Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have arrived in Belfast for bilateral talks impacting Northern Ireland and other issues between the two island neighbors. …  See “How the world reported Michelle O’Neill’s election as First Minister of Northern Ireland.”

Feb. 3: Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill has been named first minister of the restored Northern Ireland Assembly after a two-year boycott by unionists. O’Neill, 47, the nationalist party’s vice president, emphasized that she would be “a first minister for all” — including unionists and republicans, Protestants and Catholics, those who want a “United Ireland” and those who want to remain “British Forever” (alongside a growing number in the middle ground), The Washington Post reported. “To all of you who are British and unionist: Your national identity, culture and traditions are important to me. None of us are being asked or expected to surrender who we are. Our allegiances are equally legitimate. Let’s walk this two-way street and meet one another halfway.”

O’Neill has waited for the job since Sinn Féin topped May 2022 elections in the North, three months after the DUP walked out of the Assembly. The DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly, 44, will serve as deputy first minister, giving the power-sharing government its first all-female co-executives. Though technically equals, this is the first time a nationalist has been first minister.

The growth of nationalist political representation is unsurprising, The New York Times noted:

Demographics have shifted significantly in Northern Ireland, with the Protestant majority’s slow erosion there first attributed to the Catholic Church’s opposition to birth control and then to economic factors like the decline in industrial jobs, which were held predominantly by Protestants.

Catholics outnumbered Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time in 2022, according to census figures. And Northern Ireland is not the binary society it once was. Decades of peace drew newcomers in, and like much of the world, the island has grown increasingly secular. The labels of Catholic and Protestant have been left as a clumsy shorthand for the cultural and political divide.A large percentage of the population identifies as neither religion. And when it comes to political attitudes, the largest single group — 38 percent — regards itself as neither nationalist nor unionist, according to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey.

Feb. 1: Britain’s parliament approved revamped rules governing Northern Ireland trade that were negotiated between the government and the DUP. This prompted the DUP to formally requested the reconstitution of the power-sharing government. Opposition to the trade deal has been minimal, Reuters reported.

ORIGINAL POST:

Jan. 30: The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has agreed to return to the Northern Ireland Assembly after a two-year walkout arising from its disagreements about Brexit trade protocols. The decision by the North’s main unionist party means nationalist Sinn Féin could lead the Assembly for the first time in the nearly 26 years since the Good Friday Agreement.

“This is obviously good news, but this is only one step and there are about 10 things that could still go wrong,” an unnamed U.K. official told reporter Shawn Pogatchnik at Politico.eu. Or, as former Ulster Unionist Party communications director Alex Kane wrote in The Irish Times: “I’ve seen far too many ‘breakthroughs’ come and go in Northern Ireland to abandon my usual pessimism just yet.”

This story is developing. Today (Feb. 1) the U.K. Parliament is set to vote on special legislation designed to allay DUP concerns about how Northern Ireland is treated under Brexit. Then there is the matter of making Sinn Féin‘s Michelle O’Neill the Assembly’s first minister, a position the party earned by topping May 2022 elections in the six counties.

I’ll curate this post over the next week or so. Email subscribers are reminded to visit the website directly for the latest updates. MH

Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly building, outside Belfast.

Catching up with modern Ireland

As we begin the final quarter of 2023, here’s another of my periodic roundups of external stories about contemporary Ireland and Northern Ireland. Enjoy:

  • The DUP is expected to publish its response to new British/E.U. rules intended to smooth the impact of Brexit in Northern Ireland. This is just ahead of the party’s Oct. 13-14 annual conference. That makes October a make-or-break month for reviving the collapsed Northern Ireland Assembly, veteran correspondent Shawn Pogatchnik writes at Politico.eu. The DUP walked out of the North’s power-sharing executive 18 months ago.
  • The British Parliament passed the Legacy and Reconciliation Bill, which will stop most prosecutions for killings by militant groups and British soldiers during the Troubles. The move has united opposition from Northern Ireland’s major political parties, Catholic and Protestant churches, human rights organizations and the United Nations, the Associated Press reports.
  • The Republic of Ireland has a massive budget surplus, thanks to a boom in tax revenue from multinational companies. Whatever Dublin lawmakers decide to do with the money, “someone will be unhappy,” says The New York Times.
  • About 200 right-wing protestors harassed and threatened politicians, government staff, and journalists outside Leinster House, the country’s legislative home. “The crowd was apparently united not so much by a cause – their messages included Covid conspiracy theories, anti-immigration messages and attacks on transgender rights – as by a willingness to use aggression in a bid to shut down the heart of Ireland’s democracy,” The Guardian reported.
  • It remains unclear whether a referendum on general equality in the republic will take place in November, as promised. The government has not released the ballot language and suggested the vote might be delayed. A citizens assembly has recommended replacing existing language in the Irish constitution that states a woman’s “life within the home.”
  • U.S. Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs Joseph P. Kennedy, III, will host an Oct. 24-26 business conference. A U.S. delegation will join Northern Irish business leaders who have “started or grown” operations during the 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement.
  • Luke Gibbons, one of Ireland’s most profound if idiosyncratic cultural critics, seeks to bring Ireland’s early 20th century political and cultural revolutions into the same framework in an important new book, James Joyce and the Irish Revolution: The Easter Rising as Modern Event, Adam Coleman writes at Jocobin magazine.
  • The Notre Dame University “Fighting Irish” football team defeated the U.S. Naval Academy team 42-3 in late August at the Aer Lingus College Football Classic. The sold-out game at Aviva Stadium included nearly 40,000 fans who traveled directly from the U.S., according to media reports.
  • A group of 10 American travel professionals visited Ireland in late September to develop new luxury travel itineraries for their clients, according to Irish tourism officials.
  • The Central Statistics Office continues to release detailed data profiles from the republic’s April 2022 census. Here are some of the latest highlights:CSO graphic.

UK’s Johnson resigns; Northern Ireland impacts developing

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned after months of political scandal. He will remain on the job until the ruling Tories select a new leader. That decision will have enormous impact in Northern Ireland, where the Assembly government remains in limbo two months after elections and Brexit continues to cause friction between pro-British unionists and Irish nationalists. It also will impact relations with Ireland and the European Union. This post will evolve over several days from July 7. Email subscribers should check the website for updates. MH

Boris Johnson

UPDATES:

Johnson’s resignation has left Northern Ireland in a “precarious situation” and could delay the restoration of the Assembly at Stormont, the grand secretary of the Orange Order has warned at July Twelfth commemorations. The Irish Times quotes Rev. Mervyn Gibson as saying that while the Brexit trade protocol remains in place “there’ll be no Northern Ireland Executive and we want to get government back in Northern Ireland as quickly as possible.”

Unionists oppose the protocol, which avoided a hard border on the island of Ireland by placing an economic border in the Irish Sea.

Annual Orange Order parades to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne, this year marking its 332nd anniversary, are returning to normal footing following two years of COVID disruptions. Police estimate that 250 bonfires were lit the night of July 11, with nearly 600 parades to take place on July 12. The BBC NI ditched its live broadcast coverage after two year of pandemic layoff. 

***

Shailesh Vara has replaced Brandon Lewis as Northern Ireland secretary. Lewis was among the once-loyal cabinet members who stepped down to force out Johnson. Vara was a minister in the Northern Ireland Office for five months before quitting in November 2018 to protest former prime minister Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal with the EU.

See Vera’s official statement.

ORIGINAL POST:

“The downfall of Boris Johnson comes as a huge relief to the government in Dublin, which has been locked in a long running conflict with him over the Northern Ireland Protocol,” Stephen Collins writes in The Irish Times. “However, it would be foolish to assume that things will necessarily improve under his successor as Conservative Party leader, or even under a Labour government … The lesson from the entire Brexit saga is that the two big parties in the UK are so focused on narrow party political advantage that they are prepared to ignore the long term interests of the British people, never mind the consequences of their actions for the island of Ireland.”

Sounds like Republicans and Democrats in the USA.

“It has been an utter absurdity that the people here have been subjected to Boris Johnson for any length of time,” Northern Assembly First Minister (Designate) Michell O’Neill of Sinn Féin tweeted. “He is a figure of absolute disrepute. Anyone who tries to sabotage our peace agreements, a quarter century of progress and our shared future is truly no friend of ours.”

The BBC has more reactions from other Northern Irish and Irish leaders.

Northern Ireland readies for Assembly elections

Northern Ireland could turn nationalist for the first time since the island’s 1921 partition as voters May 5 select 90 representatives to the Northern Ireland Assembly. The six-county appendage of Great Britain has historically been governed by its pro-union, predominantly Protestant majority, with Catholics generally favoring the island’s political reunification. Now, a potent mix of economic and social issues and changing demographics rival the “perennial preoccupation with orange versus green,” The Irish Times has said, while also conceding that “unionism versus nationalism retains its drama.”

One potential outcome: the nationalist Sinn Féin party win the most seats, as polling indicates, but a bloc of multiple unionist parties block it from taking the first minister leadership post. That could cause a stalemate that prevents a new Assembly from being seated.

Below are links to some pre-election guides and background sources. I’ll aggregate coverage as the results become clear by the May 7-8 weekend and beyond. MH

Stormont, the Northern Ireland Assembly building in Belfast.

Catching up with modern Ireland

A periodic post of curated content …

Northern Ireland Assembly election are scheduled for May 5. The DUP’s Paul Givan resigned in early February as the power-sharing Executive’s first minister to protest the Northern Ireland Protocol, the Brexit-driven trade rules that separate the region from the rest of Britain. Givan’s move resulted in Sinn Féin‘s Michelle O’Neill losing her role as deputy first minister and cast doubt on whether the Executive, or the Assembly, could return after the election … if it takes place. The New York Times featured Upheaval in Northern Ireland, With Brexit at Its Center.

  • Ireland is repealing nearly all of its COVID-19 restrictions as the pandemic reaches its second anniversary. Overall, Ireland did pretty well dealing with the pandemic when compared with how other countries responded, Irish Times Public Affairs Editor Simon Carswell told the Feb. 27 In The News podcast.
  • U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to Ireland this summer, according to media reports that surfaced before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He visited his ancestral County Mayo homeland as vice president in 2016 and 2017.
  • Claire D. Cronin presented her credentials as United States Ambassador to Ireland to President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins on Feb. 10. Cronin is 25th U.S. ambassador to Ireland and third woman in the role, following Margaret Heckler and Jean Kennedy Smith.

Higgins, left, and Cronin.

History notes:

  • Two former nuns created a “Coastal Camino” that is bringing travelers to an otherwise neglected part of Northern Ireland, reports BBC’s Travel section.
  • Seventh century Irish monks who were largely responsible for transforming this sacrament into the version with which we’re familiar, John Rodden writes in Commonweal.
  • My story on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday for History News Network at George Washington University.

See previous “Catching up with modern Ireland” columns and annual “Best of the Blog.”

Catching up with modern Ireland: January

The new year got off to a fast start with the restoration of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly, successful U.K. and E.U. Brexit votes, and announced Feb. 8 elections in the Republic of Ireland.

In the North, the Assembly’s three-year dormancy has laid bare “a state of deep crisis across the territory’s neglected public and political institutions,” The New York Times reported Jan. 22. Residents “wonder whether and how the regional government will be able to overhaul public services like health and education that have declined to the point of near collapse.”

Brexit Day is Jan. 31. Britain and the E.U. approved the separation and now begin negotiating a trade deal. Prospect, a U.K. publication, speculates on How Northern Ireland could use Brexit to its advantage.

With less than 10 days before elections in the Republic, polls show that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s Fine Gael party has fallen 7 percentage points to 23 percent since November, while rival Fianna Fail is up 2 points to 26 percent, according to a Jan. 26 roundup by Reuters. Sinn Fein was up 8 points to 19 percent and may play a role in deciding the eventual coalition government. Visit The Irish Times‘ “Inside Politics” podcast.

I’ll have more election posts in February. Now, other January news:

  • In America, the Jesuit Review, Ciara Murphy writes Ireland is fine with fracking—as long as it happens in Pennsylvania. Her piece hits close to home for me: the project site on the River Shannon estuary in North Kerry is near where my maternal grandparents lived before they emigrated to … Western Pennsylvania, center of the U.S. fracking industry and my birthplace. “For the Irish government to continue with the L.N.G. terminal on the basis of energy security for Irish people is to disregard the harm caused to people in Pennsylvania,” Murphy writes.

North Kerry LNG site.

  • Maps comparing Ireland’s island-wide rail networks in 1920 to 2020–the former being more robust–went viral on social media. The images came from a report by Irish and U.K. business interests to highlight the value of a shared all-island economy between the Republic and Northern Ireland.
  • There were 67 victims of paramilitary-style assaults in Northern Ireland in 2019, up from 51 in 2018, Foreign Policy reported, citing Police Service of Northern Ireland data, in a story speculating about a post-Brexit return to sectarian violence.
  • Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who might have revving her 2020 reelection campaign, has been appointed chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast, a largely ceremonial role. She is expected to hold the post through early 2025.
  • Marian Finucane, a longtime RTÉ radio journalist, died Jan. 2, age 69. She was “one of a small number of people instantly recognized in Ireland by their first name only … [a] testament to the intimacy of her relationship with listeners,” The Irish Times obituary said.
  • Former Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon, one of the architects of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, died Jan. 24, age 83.

Deal Announced to Restore Northern Ireland Assembly

UPDATES (Newest at top)

  • Reports indicate all parties are now on board. The government appears ready to reopen midday Jan. 11. [I’ll have a new post as details–and opinions–become more clear.]
  • Sinn Féin has announced it will accept the deal and rejoin the power-sharing government at Stormont. The DUP has given tentative support. The Northern Assembly’s smaller parties – the SDLP, Ulster Unionists and Alliance – are still holding internal discussions, the BBC reports.
  • The Police Service of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, trade union and industry groups are urging Northern politicians to accept the deal.
  • Northern Ireland is facing a fierce story amid the political drama.

ORIGINAL POST

The Irish and British governments late Jan. 9 announced a deal to restore the three-year-dormant Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly. Northern political parties are expected to meet Friday, Jan. 10, to approval the proposal, called “New Decade, New Approach.”

Irish Tánaiste and British Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and Northern Secretary Julian Smith said the framework will transform public services and restore public confidence in the devolved government, with gives Northern Ireland a measure of autonomy from London, and also provides cross-border initiatives with Dublin.

The two government officials said reforms to the health service, education and justice will be prioritized, along with improvements in transparency and accountability, and in how civil servants, ministers, and special advisers conduct themselves. Their statements and key elements of the draft agreement can be found in this Irish government release.

The Assembly was shuttered in January 2017 after Sinn Féin‘s Martin McGuinness resigned as Deputy First Minister to protest the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) handling of a botched renewable energy scheme. Then, citing health problems, Martin announced he would not run in the elections triggered by the closure. He died two months later. Sinn Féin and DUP have been at loggerheads ever since.

Catching up with modern Ireland: November

November began with more than 1,000 people from the academic, arts, business, community, education, health, labor, law, media, and sports sectors; on both sides of the Irish border, and the diaspora in America, Canada, and Australia; signing an open letter calling for a “new conversation” about the constitutional future of the island of Ireland. The “Ireland’s Future” group urged Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to establish a citizens’ assembly to pave the way for a united Ireland. By the month’s end, Varadkar and opposition party leader Micheál Martin had rebuffed the request.

“In recent decades Irish nationalism has moved beyond slogans like ‘England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity’ into an appreciation that co-operation rather than conflict is a far better route to an agreed Ireland. Attempting to take advantage of the Brexit confusion to pursue a united Ireland is little more than a reworking of that tired old cliché,” Irish Times columnist Stephen Collins wrote.

Other News 

  • A new round of talks to reopen the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly, dormant since January 2017, is scheduled for Dec. 16, four days after U.K. elections that will impact the fate of Brexit.
  • Results of four by-elections in the Republic of Ireland were still being determined as I publish. Turnout was low. A national election is expected before May.
  • The Republic launched a Rural Broadband Plan to address the lack of digital coverage in black spots that cover 80 percent of its land mass. Varadkar hailed the project as the “most important since rural electrification.”
  • U.S. President Donald Trump’s Doonbeg golf course reported a $1.7 million loss for 2018, the fifth-straight year the County Clare club has failed to make a profit, The Washington Post reported, citing Irish government filings. In October, the Clare County Council approved the Trump Organization’s request to build 53 homes on the site; but a request to build a rock barrier to shield the seaside resort from erosion remains pending with Ireland’s national planning board. 
  • Irish and U.K. media outlets have reported more anti-immigrant, alt-right activity in the Republic, which previously prided (or fooled) itself that it avoided the racism and xenophobia that plagues Europe and America.

Book News

  • Laying it on the Line – The Border and Brexit, a collection of 26 essays by “informed voices” (Only one woman!) from the Republic, Northern Ireland, the U.K., and the USA was released late in the month.
  • Caitríona Perry, RTÉ’s former Washington correspondent, published, The Tribe: The Inside Story of Irish Power and Influence in US Politics. My friend Felix M. Larkin’s review in The Irish Catholic.
  • Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland was selected for The Washington Post‘s “10 Best Books of 2019,” and The New York Times’ “100 Notable Books of 2019.” It was not included in The Irish Times‘ “What Irish Writers are Reading” list.

NOTE: I’ll publish my seventh annual “Best of the Blog” near the end of December. The monthly roundup will resume in the new year. MH

From my morning walk through the Belfast Botanic Gardens in early November.

Two found books about Northern Ireland

Since the current troubles in Northern Ireland began in 1968, there has been an explosion of research on the area. Hundreds of books and an even larger number of articles have been published. … It is quite possible that, in proportion to size, Northern Ireland is the most heavily researched area on earth.
–John Whyte, in the Preface of Interpreting Northern Ireland, January 1990

It’s now two years since the Northern Ireland Assembly collapsed in a feud between Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party, an unfortunate anniversary overshadowed by concerns about how the impending Brexit will impact the north’s border with the Republic of Ireland.

My neighborhood book kiosk.

By coincidence, two books about Northern Ireland just arrived at my reading chair, both published before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. My wife plucked them from the “Little Free Library” outside the Episcopal church near our apartment building.

Maybe you’ve seen one of these literary kiosks, typically emblazoned with the motto: “Take a book. Leave a book.” We’ve done both.

In addition to Whyte’s 1990 Interpreting Northern Ireland is The Committee: Political Assassination in Northern Ireland by Sean McPhilemy, which was published in February 1998, two months before the historic peace accord.

Both books are among over 18,800 reference materials relevant to the Northern Ireland “Troubles” listed in the CAIN (Conflict Archive on the INternet) Bibliography, last updated in April 2016. Entries mainly refer to books, but also include journal and newspaper articles, pamphlets, and dissertations. (Allow me to link to my own 2001 piece for the Mobile (Ala.) Register, written as part of a German Marshall Fund journalism grant.)

At 21 and nearly 30 years old, the books are dated, though not rare or antiquarian. As should be the aim of any good journalism (McPhilemy) and scholarship (Whyte), each attempted to provide the fullest picture of reality with the best information available at the time. 

Whyte’s bibliography stretches 27 pages. His concluding chapter includes a subtitle: “Has Research on the Northern Ireland Problem Been Worth While?” He notes there was not nearly as much academic attention to revolutionary Ireland in the period 1916-1923.

Yet the people muddled through to some kind of settlement. From Irish experience one might deduce that research actually does harm: that the more work is done on a problem, the longer it takes to solve it. I do not put that forward altogether seriously–there were other reasons besides a mere absence of academics why the last round of troubles proved easier to bring to an end. But it could be argued from Irish experience that research does not seem to do much good.

Whyte died in May 1990, just a few months after his book was published; felled by a heart attack at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on his way to a conference in Virginia. He was traveling with Garret FitzGerald, the former Fine Gael Taoiseach, who two months later wrote the Forward of Interpreting Northern Ireland:

It is a tribute to the comprehensive and objective character of this work that one can say with assurance that no one is likely to be able to write intelligently about the Northern Ireland conflict in future without having first taken account of John Whyte’s last book.

McPhilemy’s 1998 book is based on his 1991 “sensation documentary” for British television. Both alleged to reveal that Unionist members of the Northern Ireland business community, Protestant clergy, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and British security forces colluded with Loyalist terrorists to murder Irish Republicans and other Irish nationalists.

Irish America magazine publisher Niall O’Dowd and U.S. Congressman Peter King each qualified their promotional blurbs on the dust jacket with “If McPhilemy is right…”, and “If McPhilemy’s allegations are true…” , respectively. 

As it turned out, the book has spent more time under the noses of judges and juries than regular readers. Its post-publication history is a long docket of libel cases based on its central allegations and due to complexities that emerged in the then new “age of the Internet and global book publishing,” as The New York Times reported in 1999. 

Former Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble, alleged to have assisted the secret loyalist committee, was the most high-profile plaintiff. He won two judgements against online retailer Amazon.com for distributing The Committee via its online platform. The book was published in America by Roberts Rinehart Publishers, which also was sued and settled.

It probably didn’t hurt Trimble’s case(s) that he co-won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the Good Friday Agreement. He also became the first “first minister” of the Northern Ireland Assembly, 1998-2002.

Online sales of The Committee were supposed to have stopped, but the book is still available from Amazon. The full text can be viewed on the Internet Archive. Here in Washington, D.C., the Library of Congress has a copy; as does the Ralph J. Bunche Library at the U.S. Department of State; and most university libraries. Digital and print versions are also available at Queen’s University Belfast, and at the National Library of Ireland, Dublin.

I understand that reputations can be damaged by shoddy or malicious reporting or scholarship. I respect libel laws, but suspect they too often are used as a cudgel to suppress information. I am encouraged that it is difficult to disappear books; whether recently created or a little aged; whether posted online; sold in a store; shelved at a library; or placed in the neighborhood book kiosk.

Catching up with modern Ireland: August

Pope Francis’ visit dominated the news from and about Ireland in August, but there were other developments. Here’s my regular monthly roundup:

  • Northern Ireland set a new world record on 29 August for the longest peacetime period without a government, 590 days and counting, the Associated Press reported. The Catholic-Protestant power-sharing administration at Stormont collapsed in January 2017. People gathered across the North to protest that “Stormont is Dormant.”

  • The number of Irish people returning to live in the Republic of Ireland has overtaken those leaving the country for the first time since 2009. See full details from the Central Statistics Office.
  • The Drinks Industry Group of Ireland reported there are nearly 1,500 fewer pubs in the country than in 2005, a 17.1 percent decrease. Off licenses increased by 11.6 percent, and wine-only establishments increased by 3.1 percent.
  • A statue of former U.S. President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama was unveiled at Barack Obama Plaza, a fast-food and petrol station on the outskirts of Moneygall, County Offaly.
  • Kirsten Mate Maher of Waterford was crowned the 2018 Rose of Tralee. She is the first African-Irish “Rose,” and the third mixed-race woman to win the title, according to The Irish Times.
  • Wild fires revealed a giant EIRE sign carved into the ground at Bray Head, County Wicklow. The World War II relic was created to warn Allied and Axis pilots of Ireland’s neutral status. In July, a previously undiscovered henge, or circular enclosure, close to the neolithic passage tomb Newgrange, emerged as the result of exceptionally dry weather.
  • A major fire gutted the 233-year-old Primark building in Belfast city centre. It was not immediately clear whether the remaining sandstone facade of the historic five-story building could be saved.

Flames billow from the Primark store in the Bank Buildings on Castle Street, in Belfast city centre. Image from BBC.