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TPQ
Gary Robertson ⚽ It’s been some time since I’ve written a column and felt this happy.
 
Don’t get me wrong - I love putting virtual pen to virtual paper but it’s been a rough few weeks in Robertson Towers.
 
Defeats in Europe hurt but defeats at the hands of the enemy in Glasgow derbies cut deeper and it takes some time to shake off that injury and feel good about football again.
 
So with the SPL returning at the weekend there was some trepidation regarding an upcoming fixture at Motherwell.
 
Particularly as this was the Sunday lunchtime match on Sky.
 
With Rangers and Hearts both playing Saturday it meant that come kick off Celtic could have found themselves deposed at the top of the league, and the Jambos closing the gap.
 
A thoroughly professional performance in the first half against Kilmarnock at Ibrox gave McInnes’ men a comfortable and ultimately unassailable 3-0 lead against beleaguered Kilmarnock who find themselves rooted to the foot of the table and struggling for any sort of consistent form. Whilst the boys in blue seemed to take their foot off the gas in the second half and Kilmarnock did manage to find the back of the net a comeback never looked likely, and so it proved. 

By 5pm on Saturday Rangers were top of the league and in impartial honesty quite rightly so. They look like a team that have gotten their act together after an inauspicious start to the season, and look a formidable force. Young German Striker Naderi scoring twice more for the light blues he seems to have hit a rich vein of form.
 
Hearts were similarly impressive with a 5-0 thrashing of St Mirren. In front of a crowd of almost 19000 and two penalties expertly slotted away by Scottish winger Calvin Miller, who also assisted in Braga's goal in the 54th minute, Hearts are starting to show some badly needed form after a defeat to Falkirk and a draw with Kilmarnock. Is this the turning point for the men from Tynecastle? We can watch with interest, particularly given, Europe aside, Hearts are Celtic's next opponents (Sunday Oct 18th 3pm kick off) and given the events of last season I suspect this will have given Vrancken's boys a much needed lift ahead of what will be for some a grudge match. No titles on the line, three points only, but revenge is sweet whenever gained.
 
Hibs under new manager Reedijik travelled to Tannadice in Dundee to face United. Both sides finding form difficult to come by, a solitary goal from Dundee United's Bennie in the 35th minute kept the three points at home and sent Hibs back down the A90/M90 to Edinburgh empty handed and languishing in 10th in the league. It’s not spectacular but it’s functional football and kudos to United who find themselves - granted it’s early days - in the top 6.
 
Falkirk managed to lose a 1-0 lead over Dundee and a fightback from the visitors sealed with a 91st minute winner from Dundee's Hay, a bad day at the office for Falkirk and a further three points for the men from Dens who now find themselves in fourth.
 
So to Sunday. The wait was over and to be honest I just wanted it over with.
 
Granted Motherwell aren’t the team of last season but Celtic have been far from convincing and after two defeats at the hands of Rangers confidence wasn’t high.
 
Once again though Celtic proved why I write about football rather than manage a team.
 
I don’t want to go overboard but it was hard not to be impressed with the performance the Bhoys showed on the Fir Park turf. From Sinisalo (the birthday boy) in goal to Høgh up front everyone played their part in this victory. Even the often hung out to dry Tounekti had a game to remember for the right reasons.
 
Celtic never in the 90+ mins looked threatened, unbalanced or scared. There was a grit that has been woefully missing, a determination to get on the ball, the passing was lovely to watch and the finishing exquisite.
 
I am once again in love with football.
 
Sure we will suffer defeats, all fans do, but it’s days like Sunday that make it all worthwhile.
 
Granted Høgh appears to be laden with the £11m price tag and is struggling to score goals however he played his part in setting up Nygren for the second in 58 mins. I’m sure the rewards will come for the Dane and we need to be patient. Remember this is a man who’s scored against some of the best in the Champions League. You don’t suddenly become a bad player overnight. It rather goes without saying but with the right service he could easily be a 20 plus a season player.
 
Sundays highlight wasn’t so much the result though but the return of Portuguese winger Jota. Having spent 18 months with injury and recovery, some of us wondering if he’d ever play in the hoops again, he made his seasonal debut coming on in the 74th minute to rapturous applause and cheering from the Celtic fans in attendance a smile across the faces of all Celtic fans around the world. The biggest smile however was on the face of the player himself and who can blame him? It truly made for a beautiful Sunday.
 
The Celtic fans of course were in good voice showing their solidarity with those on the Garvaghy Road along with a tifo in support of legendary Celtic captain (and only player I can tenuously claim to be related to through my son (look it’s distant ok but I’ll take it)) Danny McGrain in his battle against Alzheimer’s disease. We of course, I’m sure, send our best wishes to him and his wife Laraine along with his three daughters, Vicki, Dawn and Carly.
 
The protest against Celtic owner Dermot Desmond continues unabated and the fans at Fir Park continued to show their ire toward the board and the man himself.
 
The other game of the weekend featured Aberdeen at home to Premiership new boys St Johnstone.
This was one I truly didn’t expect. Not the fixture but the result. A 1-0 victory to the visitors from Perth again, a single goal being all the difference between the two, a penalty scored by Saints' Fowler in the 14th minute enough for three points. Aberdeen find themselves in 8th while St Johnstone are riding high in 5th. For the Dons the 15th of September when they put four past Motherwell must seem a very distant memory.
 
So that’s pretty much it really, no drama beyond the obvious and some wonderful highlights.
This week European football returns so I may not be as cheery in next week’s column but right now I’m smiling and I hope you are too.
 
Have a great week and whatever you do be safe be happy and do it well.

Til next time …… 🐼 

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Oh Happy Day

Barry Gilheany ✍ Where alternative medicine and proponents of cuddly “disciplines” such as naturopathy nutrition make their presence felt; dollar, pound and euro signs are never far away . . . 
. . .  flashing as they do in front of those desperate for a cure or explanation of chronic health issues or those gullible enough or so set in their distrust and hostility to the medical “establishment” and supposed cronies in the “mainstream media” that they become willing victims to the 21st century reincarnation of that most ancient of archetypal figures – the confidence trickster. 

In this vein, I give you Barbara O’Neill, a self-styled naturopath and nutritionist who lectures internationally on “natural self-healing” but who has been banned from providing any health services in her native Australia. However this prohibition is not preventing her from embarking along with her husband[1] Michael on a series of events in the UK and Ireland despite criticism from scientists, health charities and academic bodies.[2]

Ms O’ Neill has previously claimed that cancer is a fungus that can be treated with bicarbonate of soda, that vaccines have caused an epidemic of conditions including autism and cot death, and that pregnant women with group B streptococcus do not have to take antibiotics. For these and other such pearls of wisdom, in 2019, our Babs earned a permanent ban from the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC), enforceable across all of Australia,  from providing any health services either voluntarily or in a paid capacity after it concluded an investigation into her.[3]

Among the HCCC findings were that she:

does not recognise that she is misleading vulnerable people … by providing very selective information. The misinformation has real potential to have a detrimental effect on the health of individuals because Mrs O’Neill also discourages mainstream treatment for cancer, antibiotics and vaccinations.[4]

Barbara O’Neill has promoted herself as a naturopath, nutritionist and health educator since at least 2004, despite having no relevant qualifications or training. She presents her claims at alternative medicine conferences, wellness retreats and Seventh Day Adventist Churches. She is married to Michael O’Neill, the founder of the Informed Medical Optics Party, now the Health, Environment, Accountability, Rights, Transparency (HEART) Party - an anti-vaccine and anti-fluoridisation political group. [5] His reaction to the HCCC investigation against his wife is classic persecution complex of conspiracists and quack medics alike, asserting that the HCCC has "serious legal flaws” that are under investigation, and that “there are political moves to place the HCCC organisation under investigation for their bias against natural wellness practitioners”.[6] Regulation by recognised professional bodies with the appropriate codes of ethics (such as the British Council for Counselling and Psychotherapy [BACP] might help such practitioners prove such discrimination.

But where there is a market for wellness woo, do follow the lucre. As of 2019, she ran the Misty Mountain Health Retreat near Kemply, NSW with her husband charging clients as much as AS$2,450 for a one-week stay for one person; and AS$8,800 for two people for two weeks. According to O’Neill’s website, she provided detox services claiming to aid recovery from heart disease, hormonal imbalance and chronic fatigue.[7]

After her ban from working in health services in Australia, Barbara O’Neill continued to dispense her alternative health wares internationally including in the USA, New Zealand and Fiji. She continues to deliver programmes aimed at cancer patients in the US as of July 2023 as at a cost of almost US$ 6,000. In October 2025, O’Neill was awarded the satirical Bent Spoon Award by the Australian Skeptics for her unfounded medical claims such as her promotion of cayenne pepper for curing ulcers; placing sliced garlic on a baby’s front was stronger than any antibiotic and using chopped onions to cure pneumonia. She has recommended that parents unable to breastfeed their infant use substitute formula including unpasteurised goat milk and a mix of almond milk and dates or bananas. When provided with National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) infant feeding guidelines for health practitioners, O’Neill said that she had never read then and that she would refuse to read them. In August 2026, the online newspaper Egypt Independent reported that Egypt’s Council for Media Regulation (SCMR) prohibited her from appearing across Egyptian media outlets.[8]

Another one of her egregiously false claims was made in Part One of her lectures on TikTok when in attempting to dissuade women from having Pap Smear tests and mammograms she said that they cause cancer; contrary to all expert advice on cervical cancer detection.[9]

Never shy of protesting faith in the power of a deity and of victimhood at the hands of perpetual evil, our Babs in her online petition calling for the HCCC to reverse its 2019 decision proclaimed:

It looks a bit dark but the Great God of the Universe will not let this wonderful health truth to be eliminated regardless of how men and women may try. 

 She also claimed to the press that she was a victim of a Nazi style propaganda campaign.[10]

And now the O’Neill roadshow has come to the British Isles. Among the venues that the pair have given seminars in are Donald Trump’s luxury Turnberry golf course. A five-day retreat, a Taste of Mist Mountain, is scheduled for the De Vere Cranage Estate in Cheshire with tickets priced at £700. The programme includes lectures by Barbara O’Neill: “What Really Causes Disease”, “The Science of Breath” and “The Immune System” plus a session by Michael on “Barbara’s Under Attack”. The couple are also scheduled to appear at the Founders and Future at Glasgow University Union (GUU). According to the Union President, events held in the building by external organisations in no way reflected affiliation to or endorsement by the GUU Board of Management. Likewise, the Cranage Estate take no responsibility for “content or opinions expressed at privately organised events.”[11]

Across the Irish Sea, the Christian health group Balm of Gilead (with all the creepy connotations associated with the totalitarian, misogynist theocracy of that name described by Margaret Attwood in her classic works The Handmaids Tale and The Testaments) has organised from 13th to 15th October a multi-day event at the City North Hotel and Conference Centre in Gormanston, County Meath in which the O’Neills have starring roles. Later this week, she is hosted by the “holistic”, “spiritual” and “inspirational” organisation Positive Life at a sold out one-day event in Jackson’s Hotel, Ballybofey, County Donegal with Front Row tickets retailing at €85 and General Admission at
€75; not quite the outrageous outlay in terms of client fees cited earlier.[12]

Predicably so and justifiably so, medical and scientific experts have sounded the alarm about somebody in the words of Dr Robert Grimes, a biomedical science expert and author of a book on medical misinformation, who is “a leading vector of medical misinformation”. A letter organised by Dr Grimes asserts that:

her repeated misguided medical assertions, unqualified advice, and abject demonisation of conventional medical treatment have directly led to harm.

The letter addresses the venues staging O’Neill’s events in these admonitory terms:

she will spread dangerous health fictions to a susceptible audience, leeching off an illusion of legitimacy afforded to her by the surrounds of your respectable establishment.[13]

Among the signatories to the letter are Orla Dolan, Chief Executive of Breakthrough Cancer Research; Prof Colin Doherty, Head of Trinity College Dublin School of Medicine; David Colquhoun, fellow of the Royal Society, University College London, and a science communicator; and Sander van der Linden, professor of psychology at the University of Cambridge. [14]

The warnings in and the tenor of the letter just cited raise crucial issues around how to safeguard vulnerable people from the spread of dangerous health fictions vis-a-viz free inquiry concerns that potentially arise from the regulation or even civil or criminal sanctioning of such misinformation. 

References

[1]

[2] Nicola Davis Lectures spreading ‘dangerous heath fictions’, scientists warn. The Guardian 2 October 2026.

[3] Ibid

[4] Ibid

[5] Wikipedia

[6] The Guardian, op cit

[7] Wikipedia

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid

[11] The Guardian, op cit.

[12] Wikipedia

[13] The Guardian, op. cit

[14] Ibid

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.

Wellness Woorier 🪶 Barbara O’Neill And Her Caravan Of Health Misinformation Coming To A Place Near You

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand One Hundred And Twenty One

 

A Morning Thought @ 3292

Andrew Quinn ☭ Writing in Red Network.

The late great actor Robin Williams said it best: “Politicians should wear sponsor jackets like Nascar drivers so the public can see who is funding and owning them!”

That quote shines through for me now more then ever as governments worldwide are bought, paid for and controlled by Big Pharma, the tech companies, multinational corporations as well as the billionaire class.

Ireland is no different unfortunately, as we’ve seen in this week’s budget. When inflation is taken into account workers like myself are worse off after this budget.

Yet another Budget delivered to serve the people that the Irish government truly answer to. If they wore sponsor jackets you’d see the names of vulture funds, bond holders, landlords, data centre companies, and a few would be wearing shirts with billionaire Denis O Brien’s name across them!

The Irish government don’t have working class people’s interests at heart hence this is why we are facing into the biggest people power action since the water charges movement and the biggest strike action since the 2009 public sector strike!

People power beat the water charges then, and it can win again as long as the working class stick together and deliver a clear message to the government and that is: “We Deserve Better”.

We are the people who keep this country running. This Budget was delivered by establishment politicians whose income is six figures and yet their message is always the same, that the money isn’t their to pay us workers a better wage?

Working class people can see through these governments' lies and we are sick and tired of their hypocritical statements. Enough is enough, so many budgets delivered by this government and the working class are still struggling to get by and not being able to afford the everyday necessities of life.

Who could blame people for leaving the country to find a better life? But people should have the opportunity to make a good living in Ireland and the only way to do that is to take this government to the cleaners and shut our workplaces down, in turn shut the streets down and ultimately shut the country down.

This has been recently demonstrated by the French and Dutch as well as by the Spanish people so the same must be done here in Ireland!

We need to get a better deal for public sector workers. This is the only way to get this Government to listen to the needs of working class people and their families. Our pay must keep up with the rate of inflation as TDs pay does, why shouldn’t public workers’ pay be the same?

Ahead of the October 14th strike here are some tips in order for other workers to be prepared as best they can:

  • First of all, get unionised! You can’t join the pickets if you’re not in a union. Talk to your workmates and get signed up before Wednesday.
  • Secondly, follow The news and follow all union based social media accounts to stay on top of all the latest developments. That’s how we keep the pressure on our union heads to keep up the fight. We have to be in the loop on every bit of news.
  • Thirdly, email your union representative outlining your thoughts and what you want to see happen in negotiations between unions and government officials. Let them know we want a determined fight that carries through to the end.
  • Most importantly, call meetings in your workplace, elect a strike committee and hold talks with your work colleagues so you all stand united, as there is always strength in numbers. Make your workplace stronger after this strike.

As the old saying goes “the more things change the more they stay the same.”

That’s certainly true with this government, it’s the same old story not meeting the needs of working class people. That must change and it will as long as the working class stick together, strike together and fight together.

Unionise, mobilise, win! I’ll see you on the picket lines!

⏩Andrew Quinn is a public sector worker. 

Council Worker Explains Why He’s Striking On Oct 14th

Dixie Elliot ✊On Sunday Politics the vilest of Unionists, Jim Allister, revealed the reason why the people of Garvaghy Road were so determined not to let the Orange Order walk down that road.

Allister said that the Chief Constable could have sanitised the Garvaghy Road and escorted the thirty-five Orange Men down it.

This morning, two weeks ago, before the mob were organised he (the Chief Constable) could have sanitised the Garvaghy Road and escorted those thirty-five men, who were a threat to no one, down that road . . .  - Jim Allister.
 
What he meant was that the Chief Constable should have ordered the removal of those people from their own streets as though they were dirt or vermin that needed cleaned up.
 
Well there you go, Jim Allister just reminded all right-minded people why the Orange Order insists on marching through areas where the people don't want them.
 
They see the people in those Nationalist areas as dirt and vermin who need to be cleaned off their own streets so that they can show those people up close that they can parade their culture of hate wherever and whenever they want.
 
Don't forget that this same cretin Allister described the rapist Davy Tweed as being "larger than life" after he died.

This is why the Orange Order should not be allowed to parade through any Nationalist area ever again and the finger should be pointed at Jim Allister for stopping them.

Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman.
Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie

Allister For Sanitising Garvaghy Road

Dr John Coulter ✍ The shock cancelling of hit BBC NI TV series The Blame Game, Give My Head Peace, and The Long and the Short Of It has brought back memories of 28 years ago when my own book, The Orange Card, was cancelled a matter of days before publication by The Ulster Society. 

Indeed, it was on Monday 12th October 1998 - exactly 28 years ago today - that the then Ulster Society chairman, the recently deceased Gordon Lucy, informed me that following a complaint from the Independent Orange Order’s Grand Master George Dawson - now also dead - that The Orange Card was being pulled.

The full title of the book was The Orange Card: Orangeism’s links with Unionism and Loyalism 1968-1998. It was to be my first solo book as I’d previously co-authored a book on the media with publisher Longman in 1996.

The project was based on my Master of Philosophy (MPhil) thesis by research on Orangeism, which I had completed a few months earlier at Queen’s University’s School of Politics. My internal examiner for the thesis, Professor Paul Bew, now Lord Bew, had agreed to write the foreword for the book.

In 1998, I was living in Maghaberry village, so I simply approached the nearest geographical publisher at that time, The Ulster Society, which was then based in Lurgan’s Brownlow House.

My thesis, running to some 50,000 words, was to be the basis of the book so much of it would have to be rewritten as a commercial book, not an academic thesis.

Naturally, any book on Orangeism would not only look at the main Orange Order, but also consider the role of the much smaller Independent Orange Order, which in 1998 at the time of writing ‘The Orange Card’ had a membership of around 1,000 with about two dozen lodges.

I decided to interview Dawson about the role of the Independent Institution, which he kindly did. However, my journalistic sources within the Independents told me the real ‘mover and shaker’ of influence within that Order was a Pentecostal cleric, David McConaghie, then Pastor of Maghaberry Elim Tabernacle in my then home village!

I faced a dilemma. Should I approach McConaghie for a face to face interview for my book given that he was to the fore in opposing the Evangelical Prayer Breakfast Movement, of which my late dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, was co-chairman?

To my surprise, McConaghie gave me an interview. Such was the quality and quantity of the information he provided, I was able to write a separate chapter on the Independents rather than simply ‘tag on’ references to the Order at the end of a chapter on Rev Ian Paisley’s influence on Orangeism.

During that summer of 1998, Dawson and McConaghie made mention of a new pressure group which was being formed, to be known as The Caleb Foundation, and to be formally launched that October.

Dawson specifically outlined the role of the Independent Institution in the background to bring together a number of Protestant denominations and organisations to campaign for the historic evangelical Protestant faith.

As far as I was concerned, it was my conclusion that The Caleb Foundation - named after the Biblical Old Testament spy - was simply a recruiting agent for the Independent Institution.

Initially, I could not have asked for better support and professionalism from the Ulster Society and especially from Gordon Lucy and Dr Steven King, the latter later becoming one of UUP First Minister David Trimble’s speech writers.

The attitude of the Ulster Society as an organisation towards me cooled following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 when it emerged I would be supporting the Yes campaign and that editorially, The Orange Card, would be very positive in favour of the Belfast Agreement.

The book was scheduled to be launched in early October. The first of the pre-launch publicity was published in the Sunday World on October 11th 1998 by my journalistic colleague, the late Martin O’Hagan, who was murdered in 2001 by a loyalist terror group.

Martin focused on the establishment of The Caleb Foundation under the headline: ‘Hardline Anti-Catholic Pressure Group Set Up.’ His article mentioned that I had interviewed both Dawson and McConaghie for The Orange Card.

Within hours of the article appearing, a very angry Dawson was on the phone to me. He was furious that the article - and hence my book - was drawing a link between the soon to be formally unveiled Caleb Foundation and the Independent Institution. He also took exception to the phrase ‘Anti-Catholic’ in the headline.

That formal launch of the Caleb Foundation was scheduled for Friday 16th October in Belfast’s Park Avenue Hotel. Was Dawson really angry that my book would upstage the launch of Caleb? An advert highlighting the Caleb launch named the members of the Foundation’s ruling Council of Reference - all were Protestants! Not a Catholic cleric in sight!

During the tetchy phone call with Dawson, I said he could have access to the manuscript before it was published and he could read my evaluation of the link between Caleb and the Independent Institution in full. His response was to put the phone down on me. I was never to speak to Dawson again before he died in 2007.

Within hours, Dawson had contacted the Ulster Society, and Lucy then informed me that as a result of Dawson’s complaint, the entire book was being cancelled. I offered to rewrite the sections relating at Caleb, even give more space in the book to Dawson’s views, but the decision was final - The Orange Card was dead in the water!

But was there a political motivation behind the cancelling of The Orange Card? Why axe an entire 18-chapter book over references to one fringe fundamentalist pressure group?

Yes, The Orange Card was broadly pro-Agreement in direction, but it did contain interviews with anti-Agreement Unionists and Loyalists, such as Dawson, McConaghie, Jeffrey Donaldson, Bob McCartney and Joel Patton of Spirit of Drumcree.

Getting The Orange Card cancelled provided Dawson with some kudos within the Unionist No camp. Claims that the book was cancelled for political reasons were investigated by the late journalist and author Henry McDonald, prompting Lucy to issue a letter to the Belfast News Letter denying that the Ulster Society had a political stance on the Agreement.

My dad had got elected as a UUP MLA for North Antrim in 1998. I asked him if he could set up a meeting with Dawson to see if there could be a way forward for The Orange Card.

What I assumed was Dawson’s response came in July 2000 when in his role as Independent Grand Master, he named dad in a press release along with seven other UUP MLAs stating:

These men should be hounded and harried out of the ranks on parade next Wednesday 12th July. They should be removed from platforms and consigned to the wilderness of infamy.

I just had to face the bitter medicine as an author that The Orange Card project was a no-go. So I simply co-wrote another book with another publisher and The Orange Card manuscript sat in a box for decades.

But this October 2026 is a different scenario. Dawson and Lucy are dead. McConaghie, who for a time was the very public media face of The Caleb Foundation, was convicted by a court of filming a colleague for sexual gratification and jailed in 2015.

The Ulster Society no longer exists and The Caleb Foundation has a much lower profile since the McConaghie conviction. And after 28 years, Drumcree is back on the news agenda in a very significant manner.

Whilst the manuscript is a snap shot of Orangeism, Unionism and Loyalism during a 30-year period from 1968 to 1998, perhaps the time is now right for me to play The Orange Card once again?

 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
Dr Coulter has been a journalist since 1978 and is currently a political commentator with GB News.

How Did Caleb Get Coulter’s Orange Card Cancelled?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand One Hundred And Twenty

 

A Morning Thought @ 3291

Muiris Ó Súilleabháin ✍ In a display of political choreography that would have merited a perfect ten on Strictly Come Dancing, the establishment has once again saved itself by arriving at the only decision that could reasonably have brought the Drumcree madness of 2026 to an end.

The political compromise reached between Sinn Féin, the DUP, the PSNI and the British may well have been a lose-lose arrangement for all those involved, but it was undoubtedly a victory for the nationalist and republican community of the Garvaghy Road, once again ably led by the socialist stalwart, Breandán Mac Cionnaith. The people of the Garvaghy Road achieved the victory they deserved: the right to live in peace, free from sectarian intimidation

I haven't seen or spoken to Breandán since 2006, when he, Pat Doherty and I sat in Stormont Castle at a meeting with the then British Secretary of State about considerably more mundane matters. We were to part ways amicably soon afterwards, our lives taking different trajectories, and our paths have not crossed since. Judging by the events of recent weeks, he has lost none of his bite, his wit or his negotiating skills.

What happened at Drumcree over the past fortnight transported those of us old enough to remember back to darker times. Marching, counterprotesting, murder and mayhem. The terrible atmosphere of impending confrontation, the uncertainty, the sense that something dreadful might happen and that nobody was quite sure how to prevent it.

An air of doom and gloom descended over the North that is almost impossible to explain to those who did not experience the 1990s.

Those I spoke to, republicans, nationalists, unionists, loyalists and people who identify with none of those traditions, struggled to comprehend what was developing on a road in Portadown. In workplaces, tensions rose. Conversations were once again conducted in whispers. Parents found themselves trying to explain to their children why people were preparing to confront one another over the right to march through a community that did not want them there.

And then there was social media, a platform seemingly designed to give every maniac and extremist an audience, whipping up a frenzy on a scale that thankfully wasn't possible during the Drumcree confrontations of the 1990s.

There was one common denominator in almost every conversation I had over those two weeks. Nobody could adequately explain how we had arrived at a point where both the peace and the Stormont institutions appeared to be teetering on the edge of collapse.

The eventual intervention of the PSNI Chief Constable and the British Secretary of State probably saved both.

My own thoughts remain confused and contradictory. I am immensely relieved that the march did not proceed and that nobody was injured or killed. I am relieved for the people of the Garvaghy Road, who have endured more than enough, and for the wider community, which has no appetite for another descent into sectarianism.

But I am also conflicted and I make no apology for that. I have learned through experience that contradictory positions can coexist.

These are my thoughts, sometimes disjointed and occasionally at odds with one another, about what I think happened, why it happened and what it might tell us about the political settlement agreed in 1998.

I argued recently about the price republicans might have to pay to achieve a new Ireland. In doing so, I deliberately posed an uncomfortable question. Would we, for example, be prepared to concede an Orange march down the Garvaghy Road as part of the price of constitutional change?

It was not a rhetorical question. I genuinely believe that those of us advocating Irish unity must be prepared to confront the difficult compromises that any new constitutional arrangement will inevitably demand.

The answer to that particular question, however, is now a resolute no.

Not because I oppose the right of the Loyal Institutions to exist, to march or to celebrate their traditions. Nor because I believe Orange culture should have no place in the republic to which I aspire. Quite the opposite. Any new Ireland worthy of the name must provide space for British identity, unionist traditions and the cultural expressions of those who may never share my constitutional aspirations.

But there is a fundamental difference between accommodating a cultural tradition and allowing that tradition to be weaponised against another community.

Portadown Orange and elements of the DUP, in my view, deliberately utilised the Drumcree dispute to weaken the peace, which I wholeheartedly support, and threaten the collapse of Stormont, about which I couldn't care tuppence.

I fundamentally disagree with Pádraic Mac Coitir's analysis of Drumcree 2026 as the Orange State once again flexing its muscles. I found that interpretation inherently sectarian, not least because it reduces what ought to be a republican analysis to the very British analysis of an immutable struggle between two divided communities. Whatever the nature of those divisions, they were, are and will continue to be, in the words of the 1916 Proclamation, "carefully fostered by an alien Government."

Irrespective of one's view of the peace process, the progress achieved since 1998 cannot be denied. The Orange State is gone. It died in Garvaghy, Ormeau, Derry and Ardoyne etc. And despite the protestations of people like Carla and Jamie, it is not coming back. The PSNI is not the RUC, and in Jon Boutcher it has a straight-talking Chief Constable who, in my view, has demonstrated a willingness to resist political pressure and insist that policing decisions are made on operational rather than political grounds.

What we witnessed this year was not the Orange State reasserting its authority but recalcitrant elements of loyalism attempting to destabilise a political settlement they have never accepted.

It was the British state and the PSNI that intervened to impose the solution, frustrating the demands of Portadown Orange while simultaneously getting both the DUP and Sinn Féin off the hook. That is hardly the behaviour of the Orange State of old.

That does not make the British state a benign actor. Nor does it absolve it of its historical responsibilities. But it does require us to recognise that the political structures, relationships and balance of power have shifted in the North. To pretend otherwise is not radical analysis. It is political nostalgia masquerading as republicanism.

But that leads me to what I believe is the real lesson of Drumcree 2026. The peace process, as I understand it and refer to it, has ultimately failed.

By the peace process, I do not mean what Sinn Féin or the British government generally refer to when they invoke the term, which is largely synonymous with the ending of the armed conflict and the preservation of the political institutions established in 1998.

Nor do I mean that Stormont is synonymous with peace. The institutions are a political arrangement, a means of managing competing constitutional aspirations within a deeply divided society.

When I speak of peace, I mean something considerably more ambitious, the creation of a genuinely pluralist, a-sectarian society in which political allegiance, religious background and cultural identity no longer determine how people relate to one another, where difference is neither feared nor merely tolerated, but accepted as an ordinary and unremarkable feature of our shared existence.

Yet almost three decades later, we remain a society in which those divisions can be exploited to mobilise with frightening ease. The speed with which Sinn Féin reverted to its 1990s form was particularly disturbing. Almost instinctively, the familiar mobilisation, rhetoric and political choreography re-emerged, as though the party bore no responsibility for, or ownership of, the very institutions that had helped create this mess.

I have my own suspicions that Sinn Féin's mobilisation was motivated by something other than simply defending the rights of the Garvaghy Road community. Drumcree presented non-constitutional republicans with a gilt-edged opportunity to reclaim political ground, an opportunity Sinn Féin could hardly afford to surrender. Those who reject its constitutional strategy appeared, for perhaps the first time in years, to coalesce around a common cause.

In that context, Sinn Féin's mobilisation served a dual purpose, the public appearance of the defence of the Garvaghy Road community, while simultaneously ensuring that any republican response remained firmly within the boundaries of the constitutional political settlement in which Sinn Féin has invested so heavily.

Sinn Féin mobilised to police the peace and defend Stormont.

One figure who, in my view, emerged from Drumcree 2026 with her political credibility considerably enhanced was Claire Hanna. At a time when Sinn Féin was shamelessly invoking the spirit of John Hume to justify its own actions, Hanna demonstrated the qualities I would expect from someone leading constitutional nationalism in the North. Intelligent, articulate and measured, she resisted the temptation to escalate the confrontation for political advantage, choosing instead an approach more consistent with the politics of dialogue and reconciliation that Hume himself championed. For me, Hanna emerged as a leading voice of constitutional nationalism, irrespective of her party's electoral fortunes.

If we are to rebuild and repair the relationships that Breandán Mac Cionnaith humbly spoke of following the British decision to ban the parade, then it is people like Claire Hanna who should be at the centre of that conversation. Genuine reconciliation cannot be achieved by continually retreating into the communal divisions we claim to want to overcome. Nor can it be achieved by simply managing the antagonisms that have divided us for generations. It requires real political leadership that is prepared to move beyond the sectarian trenches.

Perhaps that is what Drumcree 2026 has exposed more clearly than anything else. We have become so accustomed to measuring the success of the peace process by the survival of Stormont that we have neglected to ask whether those institutions have delivered any change.

The people of the Garvaghy Road have secured their right to live in peace. That is something to celebrate without reservation. But the crisis that engulfed them should leave the rest of us considerably less comfortable because for all the political choreography, the peace remains unfinished.
 
⏩Muiris Ó Súilleabháin was a member of the Republican Movement until he retired in 2006 after 20 years of service. Fiche bhliain ag fás.

The Unmistakable Choreography Of The Peace Process

Green Shoot Productions ✎ Dublin 🪶 A Remarkable Story Of Conflict, Change And Peace. 

The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary comes to the historic Smock Alley Theatre,Dublin, this October!

When ex president Mary McAleese saw this play in Belfast she said this marvellous play must be seen by Dublin audience!

From loyalist paramilitary to one of the most respected voices in Northern Ireland’s Peace Process, David Ervine’s life was anything but ordinary.

A former UVF member who served time in prison, Ervine went on to become a leading figure in the Progressive Unionist Party and a passionate advocate for dialogue, reconciliation and a peaceful future.

Known for his sharp wit, extraordinary command of language and ability to reach across political divides, Ervine became one of the most compelling and unlikely voices for peace during some of the most turbulent years in Irish history.

The Man Who Swallowed a Dictionary brings his fascinating story to the stage in a powerful new play by Robert Niblock, Martin Lynch and Matthew McElhinney.

Starring Paul Garrett and directed by Matthew McElhinney, this is a story of transformation, conviction and the courage to challenge the past.

Date: 13–24 October 2026

Time: 7:30pm performances

A fascinating piece of our shared history, brought to life on stage. Don’t miss it!
#TheManWhoSwallowedADictionary

The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary

Atheist Ireland ★ Pope Leo XIV said last year that education “forms the very fabric of evangelisation,” and in Catholic schools “the Christian vision permeates every discipline and every interaction.”

2-September-2026

He said educators must be open to “spiritual and religious formation” and that “faith is not an added ‘subject’, but a breath that oxygenates every other subject.”

And he told educators this year that “Catholic institutions are called to be a ‘living environment in which the Christian vision permeates every discipline and every interaction’,” and that “It is my hope that students will always be able to find in your institutions the sound doctrine entrusted to the Church.”

This confirms again what Atheist Ireland has been saying for years: that most of our publicly funded National school system is part of the evangelising mission of the Catholic Church. As is often the case, the Catholic Church is open about this, and Atheist Ireland keeps highlighting this, while the Department of Education and other State bodies look the other way.




This church-state coalition must stop the Catholic evangelisation of children, in publicly funded National schools where children of other belief backgrounds have no option other than to attend.

Article 42.3.1 of the Constitution says that the state shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience to send their children to schools established by the state or to any particular type of schools designated by the State. Publicly funded National Schools with a Catholic ethos are against our conscience because the state has failed to protect our rights in these schools, they are places of evangelisation.

Atheist Ireland continues to lobby for a secular state that respects equally everybody’s right to freedom of religion or belief.

An essential part of this is state-funded schools where children have access to an objective, critical, and pluralist education and that provide effective non-discriminatory exemptions from any content that is delivered through a religious ethos.

Pope Leo: Education forms the very fabric of evangelisation

Pope Leo published an Apostolic Letter ‘Drawing New Maps of Hope’ in 2025. In that, he wrote:

Education is not an ancillary activity, but forms the very fabric of evangelisation: it is the concrete way in which the Gospel becomes an educational gesture, a relationship, a culture.
The Catholic school is an environment in which faith, culture and life intertwine. It is not simply an institution, but rather a living environment in which the Christian vision permeates every discipline and every interaction.
This implies that educators must be willing to learn and develop knowledge and be open to the renewal and updating of methodologies, but open also to spiritual and religious formation and sharing.
When it is true, faith is not an added ‘subject’, but a breath that oxygenates every other subject.

In April 2026, Leo told Catholic religion teachers working in Italian schools:

The religious dimension is a constitutive element of the human experience and cannot be marginalised in the educational process of the younger generations.
All this enters into your lessons, in the light of the ever-relevant teaching of the Church, in dialogue with other fields of knowledge and religious research and above all in the study of the inexhaustible pages of the Bible, from which we come to know Christ, the Son of God made man, the revelation of the Father’s face and the perfect model of humanity.

He did add that this should be done with respect for everyone’s freedom, and that true secularism does not exclude the religious dimension, but rather sees it as an educational resource.

But how can that freedom be genuinely protected in an Irish education system where, for many families, the only feasible local school is run by the Catholic Church as part of what Leo describes as “the very fabric of evangelisation”?

In June 2026, Leo told leaders of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities:

Catholic institutions are called to be a ‘living environment in which the Christian vision permeates every discipline and every interaction’. Your authenticity as true disciples of Christ will certainly assist you in transmitting the living Gospel in such a way that those entrusted to you can truly encounter the Lord and discover in the Catholic faith the unifying vision that Truth alone can provide.
As you continue to carry out the Church’s evangelising mission, it is my hope that students will always be able to find in your Institutions the sound doctrine (cf 2 Tim 4:3) entrusted to the Church…

Recent previous Church statements on evangelising in schools

Leo’s statements are nothing new. They confirm a long history of the Catholic Church expressing these sentiments. Here are some recent previous examples:

In 2022, the Congregation for Catholic Education’s official instruction ‘The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue’ said explicitly:

The Church is bound as a mother to give to these children of hers an education by which their whole life can be imbued with the spirit of Christ. In this sense, the education that the Church pursues is evangelisation.
The educational action pursued by the Church through schools cannot be reduced to mere philanthropic work aimed at responding to a social need, but represents an essential part of her identity and mission.
The whole school community is responsible for implementing the school’s Catholic educational project as an expression of its ecclesiality and its being a part of the community of the Church.

Also in 2022, Pope Francis told a meeting of educators in the Vatican:

Catholic education is also evangelisation: bearing witness to the joy of the Gospel and its power to renew our communities… I trust that this study visit will inspire each of you to rededicate with generous zeal to your vocation as educators… and thus the advancement Christ’s kingdom of truth, holiness, justice and peace.

He told participants in the International Conference on the Global Education Pact:

Not to speak the truth about God out of respect for those who do not believe would be, in the field of education, like burning books out of respect for those who are not intellectuals, destroying works of art out of respect for those who do not see, or silencing music out of respect for those who do not hear.

And he told participants in the 46th General Chapter of the Brothers of the Christian Schools:

Thank you for what you are and what you do! Go forth with the joy of evangelising by educating and of educating by evangelising.

Closer to home, in 2017, Archbishop Eamon Martin told an Irish conference on Catholic education:

Despite a changed context, Catholic schools remain as vital centres for evangelisation and catechesis, closely linked to parishes and local communities. It is reasonable, then, for boards of management of Catholic schools, in establishing their admissions criteria, to be concerned about ensuring that pupils from the local parish or group of parishes, are able to access their Catholic school.

He also wrote in an article in Catholic Culture in 2014:

A few weeks ago we celebrated Catholic Schools Week, acknowledging that our schools are distinctive – they are not only centres of excellence and learning, but they are also places of faith. So, if the Holy Father is calling on our young people to be agents of the new evangelisation, it is important to ask ourselves: to what extent do we, in our Catholic schools, facilitate young people in grasping the truths of faith, growing in love of God and neighbour, and in becoming witnesses for Christ?

Conclusion

In fairness to the Catholic Church, it is open about what it is doing. But the Irish State must stop pretending it is unaware of what is happening. Catholic schools exist to provide a specifically Catholic education, and the Vatican repeatedly says this involves evangelisation and a Christian vision permeating school life. That cannot remain the default model through which the State provides publicly funded education to children of all religions and beliefs.

Keep up with Atheist Ireland.

Pope Leo XIV Reconfirms That Catholic Education Is Evangelisation

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