First started in 2008 when I was then Northern Political Correspondent for the Irish Daily Star, this specific awards ceremony usually was announced in the week prior to Christmas.
But as I prepare to clock up 47 years in journalism in 2025, militant fundamentalism has always been a thorn in my career flesh during that almost half a century as a reporter with constant admonishment from the so-called Christian theological elite over the decades - mostly because of the tabloid language I would have used in many of my articles.
I had thought of suspending the awards for a year just to give me a break from judgmental church gossips over the holiday period, but now that the festive break is over, its time for normal service to resume!
So needless to say, militant fundamentalists were the runaway winners of The Gobshite Cup for the lobby group which heaped the most criticism on me during 2024.
No matter what I wrote about - Christian music, how to rest on the Sabbath, my views on Manchester City and Tottenham, women’s role in the Church, the ‘fundies’, as they are affectionately known, were to the fore in their damning criticism.
However, as we enter the early weeks of 2025, a lot of these fundies would do well to note the Scriptural advice of Christ Himself in St Matthew’s Gospel chapter seven when He urged the Biblical Pharisees to take the beam out of their own eyes before they took the mote out of others’.
Or, put more bluntly, maybe a lot of you ‘fundies’ need to be careful that in throwing mud, you don’t accidentally dig up a few of your own skeletons - especially on the issue of what musical instruments should be used in Christian worship.
And so to some of the main political awards. The Kick Ass Cup goes to the once election-battered Ulster Unionist Party after last July’s Westminster General Election saw Robin Swann, the former Stormont Health Minister and my late dad’s successor as North Antrim UUP Assembly member, romp home in South Antrim.
Although as usual, no sooner had Robin heralded the UUP’s return to the prestigious Green Benches of the Commons, than the party decided to air its dirty linen in public - yet again - and the internal feuding kicked off once more. Will the UUP never learn?
Talking of hypocritical political behaviour, the rival DUP was the undisputed winner of The Pharisee Plate with its limp-wristed propaganda that its deal on the Windsor Framework had sunk the notion of the Irish Sea Border.
I was hoping to ask the then DUP MP for North Antrim to accept the Plate on behalf of the party, but unfortunately July 2024 saw decades of Paisley dominance of the seat come to a crashing end when TUV boss Jim Allister took the Commons seat.
Its a good job I’m not a gambling person, as I’m old enough to remember as a primary school kid serving sandwiches to a really frazzled defending MP Henry Clark in 1970 when the then UUP standard bearer lost a safe North Antrim Commons seat to a fundamentalist preacher called Rev Ian Paisley.
So I hope the new North Antrim MP, wee Jimmy of the TUV, will be gracious enough to accept The Lover’s Leap Cup on behalf of his party given that it was probably tactical voting by UUP electors in the constituency that saw his promotion from Stormont to Westminster.
Could the TUV now become a 2025 version of the 1970s Protestant Unionist Party as Unionism moves back to a two-party system of the TUV, Hard Right of the UUP and DUP hardliners in one camp, and the liberal woke wing of the UUP plus the traditional pro-Union wine and cheese brigade of the Alliance Party in the other lot?
The Shinners collect The Kids R Not Us Cup for dropping 5 per cent in the recent Dail General Election and once more failing to attract enough young voters to get their paws on either a Taoiseach or Tanaiste post.
No wonder the republican movement’s ruling Provisional IRA Army Council wants more Northern political big guns dispatched South of the Border to bandage up the electoral wounds of Southern Sinn Fein.
As for the Alliance Party bubble, it now seems to be leaking air at a rapid rate, so much so it collects The Slippy Tit Cup for producing yet another one-hit wonder in the July Westminster showdown as Stephen Farry lost North Down after one term, and party boss Naomi Long failed to shift DUP boss Gavin Robinson in East Belfast.
Oh yes, I know Alliance will argue it took the Unionist stronghold of Lagan Valley on a split unionist vote and tactical voting by Sinn Fein, but already I understand plans are afoot for an agreed Unionist candidate to unseat Sorcha Eastwood at the next Imperial election. The Slippy Tit Cup was previous known as The Top Tit Trophy, but for legal reasons I cannot present this specific cup until Christmas this year.
And what of the Stoops; what have they managed to collect in terms of political silverware? The SDLP is the runaway champion of The What’s The Point Cup in pretending to be a nationalist party with no formal merger links on the horizon.
Surely there must be some party in Southern Ireland wants to join up with the Stoops to form some kind of all-island nationalist movement like the Shinners?
What about the Irish Republican Socialist Party, the political wing of the INLA? Would an IRSP/SDLP merger not give the politically pathetic Stoops some much needed muscle? Just a thought!
The expected Leinster House coalition fronted by the establishment parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, collect The Loads of Dosh Cup for their pre-election bid to buy Loyal Ulster with all the give-away cash they’ve been hoarding from the cash-strapped European Union.
Reminds me of the time in the Eighties after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Southern Irish and Yank dosh to fund projects in Loyal Ulster.
Point to ponder - saying as the Orange Order’s ruling body is called The Grand Lodge of Ireland, could all the lodges not apply for this Southern generosity and use it to refurbish their halls and get new banners for this year’s Twelfth demonstrations?
The Dream Team Cup goes unanimously to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and US President-elect Donald Trump, who hopefully together will end political wokeism and any fluffy bunny theology in churches throughout the UK.
The Hard Left People Before Profit party has asked me what cup it is entitled to. Answer; The Sweet FA Award. I’m a radical Right-wing Unionist and there’s no way I’m wasting any money on a bunch of woke, commie, hippy, still living in the Sixties Trots.
I know I shouldn’t labour the point about how some from the militant fundamentalist community have yapped at me during 2024. So I’m awarding The Gospel Music Appreciation Society Cup to the fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, founded in 1951 by the late Rev Ian Paisley, for all the denomination has done to promote Contemporary Christian Music.
Some Free P’s have really moved the much-needed debate on what instruments and songs we use in Christian worship to the fore in 2024, although something tells me it may be some time before we see a Christian rock band play in a Free Presbyterian church.
We may only be a few days into 2025, but already the planning departments of local councils in Northern Ireland are putting forward some proposals for this year’s awards. And speaking of 2025, I’ve already made some predictions about what’s happening according to Coulter’s Crystal Balls.
But here’s a few more hints. As well as a Right-wing takeover of the UUP and a Northern coup within Southern Sinn Fein, the fundamentalist wing of the DUP is set for a huge hit.
The Christian Churches will continue arguing over petty theological issues while society goes to hell on a handcart, but The Donald will give the EU a right financial bashing once he’s formally sworn in later this month.
Putin will make an excuse to become the new Stalin and try and provoke NATO into a full-scale war; no nukes please, just biological warfare!
The Fianna Fáil - Fine Gael ‘Buy Ulster’ project will go bust as the Ulster Scots lobby gets a lot of dosh from the South to teach all of us Northerners how to speak in a Ballymena accent.
Alliance will erupt in a nasty civil war between the pro-Union wine and cheese brigade east of the River Bann and the Tricolour Must Triumph republican faction based west of the Bann.
On the sporting front, hopefully another Northern Ireland GAA county team will keep the ‘Sam’ in Loyal Ulster; Linfield will snatch soccer’s Gibson Cup from Larne, and hopefully too, my beloved Gunners can stop Liverpool from clinching the English Premiership.
Even as I write, the militant fundamentalists are already preparing to bring back public executions to have me burnt at the stake as a heretic. Seems they may want The Gobshite Cup renamed as the Don’t Ask Questions About Our Sins Cup 2025.
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. |
nice one
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