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.
- “Failure of people to feck off and emigrate is destabilizing the status quo,” Fintan O’Toole wrote in The Irish Times. This column explains much about “modern Ireland.”
- Cliff Taylor exclaimed: “The Irish jobs market is hot,” driven by the information and communications technologies sector.
- “Ireland,” a large-screen, 3D documentary by filmmaker Greg MacGillivray and narrated by Liam Neeson, made its U.S. debut Feb. 18 in Pittsburgh. Here’s the official trailer:
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.”