January 2026
Running aground
Davos proved a frosty frontier for President Trump, every bit as icy as Greenland which he would like to annex.
I won’t say it was an omen, but President Trump might have been well advised to take the technical hitch which forced Air Force One back to base as a sign of the Davos diplomatic chill that greeted him in the high-end Swiss ski resort.
Dubbed by some commentators as the ‘disruptor-in-chief’, the cold welcome perfectly matched the mood of many other world leaders who were appalled by his intended land-grab of Greenisland.
Faced with a European backlash, he rowed back on the deployment of tariffs and using mighty US military force to take Greenland but insisted on immediate negotiations on ownership of what he called ‘a piece of ice. A very small ask.’
Later, he launched his Board of Peace at the resort. All but one or two European countries weren’t there – a measure of intense displeasure over the President’s colonial ambitions and talk of giving a seat at the table to the war-monger Putin.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a devastating speech. He talked about what ‘middle powers’ such as Canada could do to counter hegemony and build a new world order.
The former Governor of the Bank of England declared: “Stop invoking the ‘rules-based international order’ as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion....
“… The powerful have their power. But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.”
Reaction from the Trump camp wasn’t immediately forthcoming.
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New political ‘Traitors’
The political theatre being played out in London is better than the traditional Christmas pantomime. ‘Westminster Traitors’ could be the sequel to that other blockbuster programme filmed at a secluded castle somewhere in Scotland.
Robert Jenrick’s sacking by Kemi Badenoch came just hours before his defection to Reform UK was confirmed. Kemi doesn’t have her sorrows to seek. Some twenty Tory MPs have already jumped ship to Nigel Farage’s motley crew. Some media commentators say a further eleven MPs drawn from the right wing of the Conservative Party are on a ‘defection watch list.’
The unfolding treachery, secrecy, scheming and delicious backstabbing have us agog for the next political episode.
Labour should refrain from too much gloating. The party has its own right-wing MPs dissatisfied with Keir and crew and are weighing up whether the time is right to make the switch.
Stormont is flat beer when set against the fizz and crackle of the Palace of Westminster.
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Ireland calling…
It’s goodbye to BBC Northern Ireland and RTE, and hello to something brand new if the island is ever united.
Academics from Dublin City University and Ulster University have spent considerable time worrying over public service broadcasting options. Retaining the two media platforms in Belfast and Dublin wouldn’t work and, in their place, the suggestion is a decentralised media operating from regional journalism hubs based in ten major population centres.
Under new arrangements, we’d most likely see hundreds of job losses and the sale of studios and offices. The “Late Late Show’ and ‘The Nolan Show’ might disappear and radio, as we know it, would probably undergo a radical shake-up. On the positive side, we’d see amazing opportunities to build new platforms, generate fresh programme ideas and devise new accountability structures. There might also be appreciable savings by eliminating overlapping and duplication.
What would it be called? ‘Bout You, Ireland’ or ‘Ireland Calling’ or ‘Ireland, Here and There’ could be considered. But I jest!
They’re not yet rushing to darkened rooms in Ormeau Avenue and Donnybrook as moving the discussion from words such as ‘should’, ‘could’, ‘would’ are no guarantee that anything will happen.
Ahead of what to do with broadcasting, there are thorny questions on taxation, policing, flags, healthcare and where to base a new Parliament to consider if unity is to become more than an aspiration.
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Slow down
There’s a consultation underway on reducing speed limits. Views are being canvassed on a range of options including cutting the 30MPH in many areas to 20MPH and setting a new limit of 50 MPH on rural single carriageways and setting the limit at 60MPH of all dual carriageways.
The consultation closes in April, so there’s plenty of time to have your say.
One thing worth highlighting concerns enforcement. PSNI roads policing has 150 officers and staff combined. This figure is half what it was ten years ago. Without adequate police numbers detecting speeders and processing penalty points, one has to question how effective new limits would be on our roads.
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Arise, ‘Sir’ Rory
In this part of the world, we’re mad about golf. We have our favourites – household names known far and wide who have scooped top accolades in the sport.
None more so that our own Rory McIlroy from Holywood. 2025 was his year. He completed the Grand Slam by winning the Masters and was pivotal in Europe’s Ryder Cup success. From his successes internationally, he managed to earn megabucks.
All the more surprising, therefore, that he didn’t get a knighthood in the King’s New Year Honours List – no mention, no acknowledgement of his outstanding achievements.
Maybe the paperwork came too late in the year to be included in the List. Or maybe, as reported, his exclusion had something to do with HMRC taking a look at a tax scheme from years back. There’s nothing to suggest Rory did anything wrong, but it was reported to have been the reason for being ‘red flagged’.
Surely deserved official recognition will come his way at some point. He will then be able to add the gong to his BBC Sports Personality of the Year award along with being named the BBC Northern Ireland Sportsperson of the Year and the RTE Sportsperson of the Year.
Arise, Sir Rory!
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Par for the course
Staying with golf …
Homeowners in the west of Ireland are hoping to rent their properties for next year’s Ryder Cup in stunning Adare Manor Golf Club in County Limerick.
The ‘Connacht Tribune’ reports that more than 60 Galway addresses are already listed with rents for the week ranging from €18K right up to €60K in a plush suburb of Galway City.
Expect homeowners in Limerick, Kerry, Cork, Tipperary and Clare to jump on this potentially lucrative bandwagon. Rents like these are too good to pass up. Grandparents can expect a call anytime now.
It’s early days and we don’t know what the uptake is like. Galway City to Adare is at least a 90-minute drive, but if you can afford to splash out €40-50-60K on a pad, then the budget might just stretch to a daily return helicopter ride from somewhere close to Eyre Square.
For the lucky ones, that would be par for the course!
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The best of us
We’ve seen kindness and meanness played out in Belfast in recent weeks.
The tragic deaths of married couple Catherine and Ralph Singco, both health service workers, and their unborn baby in a car accident near Crumlin saw a coming together of the community. Within days of the tragedy, a GoFundMe appeal raised £64,000 to cover the cost of repatriating their bodies to the Philippines.
In contrast, we continue to witness appalling racism where families are forced out of their homes and terrified by the actions of thugs who paint slogans and warnings on their properties.
People who come here to live and work deserve better. They keep essential public services from collapsing and possess a first-rate work ethic many of their racist abusers would do well to copy.
Catherine and Ralph will be solely missed. For me, the people who contributed to the appeal are the silent majority who are the best of us.
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‘Gold in them thar hills’
It can only be a matter of time before The Donald turns his attention to Norn Iron.
We’ve had Mexico, Canada, Venezuela and Greenland – so far! And bellicose talk of tariffs from President Trump if European countries fail to support his attempt to grab Greenland.
Why here? Well, it’s all down to gold, and a few other metals, in them thar hills in Tyrone. The US-backed company, Dalradian, wants to extract 3.5 million ounces of gold; 1.7 million ounces of silver and 15,000 tonnes of copper.
Dalradian says the mine would generate £2.3 billion in taxes, cut Northern Ireland’s trade deficit by 24% and create 1,000 jobs.
The problem is planning and the length of time it’s taking to get a decision. Enter Donald T. Is it really all that fanciful to think that the President will steer clear of West Tyrone and Northern Ireland when the potential picking s are so great? Curraghinalt may well be on his itinerary when he next visits the island.
Remember, you heard it here first!
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Budget blues
After more than a decade, we have seen a draft multi-year budget for Northern Ireland. However, cheerleaders are few and far between.
The Finance Minister John O’Dowd believes his three-year effort has the ability to transform creaking public services such as the well documented crises in Health and Water.
Other parties in the Executive – DUP, Alliance and UUP – have already given the Sinn Fein Minister’s proposal the thumbs down. The Opposition SDLP described it as unambitious and bereft of vision.
There’s a Consultation now well underway and on the basis of political views expressed so far, this much-needed, three-year offering may be dead in the water. In which case, we’ll revert to a one-year Budget.
Disagreement is nothing new. We’re well used to it. The Westminster village is another kettle of fish. Treasury may take a dim view of what’s being played out. It wants evidence that the devolved institutions are adopting a grow-up approach characterised by an ability to manage our finances in a sustainable manner.
Let’s see what emerges after the Consultation, but don’t hold your breath.
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Corridor care
Corridor care in our hospitals now appears the norm. It is shameful.
Patients admitted through EDs are left on beds in corridors with little or no dignity.
Billions are going to provide health services, yet we seem incapable of fixing what’s broken.
We have to get real, and that means making tough decision on all aspects of care.
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Eurovision boycott
RTÉ will neither take part in nor broadcast this year’s Eurovision Song Contest over Israel’s participation. Ireland, a seven times winner, joins the Netherlands, Spain and
Slovenia in rejecting Israel’s involvement.
RTÉ says its decision was based on the thousands killed in Gaza by Israeli military action including about 200 journalists.
The global must-watch marathon over a number of days reaches an audience of about 160 million.
RTÉ’s boycott will not block Israel’s participation. It goes ahead regardless.
One small footnote: according to an FoI, last year’s contest set RTÉ back €386,000. As we face into an uncertain 2026, this kind of saving is not to be sneezed at.
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End of Hill Street blues
A round of applause for the Department for Infrastructure. At long last, the famed cobbled stretch of Hill Street in Belfast’s bustling Cathedral Quarter has been pedestrianised.
It’ll be on a six-month experimental basis with the scope to extend to eighteen months if the ban on vehicles is a success. There’s really no reason why it shouldn’t be.
Hill Street is about 120 metres in length and if you’ve been bar hopping of a Friday or Saturday night, you’ll be all too familiar with the perils of walking there with cars competing for space on the narrow route.
From way, way back when all there was in Hill Street was the much-loved watering hole and restaurant called Nick’s Warehouse, there were demands for pedestrianisation, but for whatever reason, they came to naught.
This is a common-sense measure and, hopefully, it will be comprehensively enforced but why has taken decades to get here is anyone’s guess. One must assume the blame rests with the dead hand of bureaucracy!
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Traffic jam halts getaway
I bet they’d have loved to have had the Galway City rush-hour traffic problem near the Louvre in Paris when thieves got away with French Crown jewels valued at €88 million.
In the City of the Tribes, four masked raiders were arrested as they attempted to make their getaway after an unsuccessful robbery.
Their first mistake was the time they chose to rob a tech shop – 5pm. Anyone who knows the city will tell you it’s one of the worst times of the day to head for the hills.
Their second mistake was when they said they’d over-extended themselves on their social visit.
The Circuit Court Judge wasn’t taken in by that one. Handing down jail terms of four and a half years on the gang, the Judge told the Court: “The balaclavas were not for the purpose of party dress, and they were not going to some sort of ski-party in Galway. They brought that equipment with them for criminal conduct.”
Eagle-eyed witnesses told of the botched robbery and how details on the getaway car were given to the Gardai. Rush-hour traffic did the rest!
Selecting Galway City for their botched heist was their third and final mistake.
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A first
Every inch of our roads is being mapped right now – a worldwide first for us! The digital mapping will locate potholes and other defects. So far, so good, eh?
According to the company commissioned to do the work, Gaist, the mapping will make Northern Ireland the most understood network in the world and will help to make repairs and maintenance more efficient.
It’s badly needed. The Department for Infrastructure forked out more than £1.1 million in compensation for damage caused to vehicles. The mapping will deliver real detailed data much faster and let engineers know the problems that have to be prioritised.
We’re still fine with that, right?
Mapping will be completed by April and after the winter takes its toll, we should see holes being filled at pace. Or will the lack of finance slow everything down?
The award for the press release of the month has to go to the Chair of the Infrastructure Committee Peter Martin.
Mr Martin declared: “Everyone already knows where the potholes are. The problem has never been finding them. It is fixing them.
“People welcome investment in streamlining processes but changing from manual to digital surveys is pointless if the pothole remains unfixed. People want to see rollers and tarmac on the ground.”
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DIY Belfast style… but not as you know it …
Many of us have plans to write a book but we never quite get around to it … and if we do, what do we do with it? Do we get in touch with a publisher? If so, which one?
For many new authors, they decide on DIY. As technology progresses, this is less taxing than you might think.
One such author is west Belfast man, Thomas Mack, who has recently published his second novel in the Balthazar's Quest (The Columbus Station Saga Book 2) series. Thomas seems to have mastered the art of DIY publishing and, I believe, is currently writing the third book in the series.
The Columbus Station Saga is a fast-paced science fiction series set aboard a failing space station at the edge of human space. The station finds itself becoming humanity’s last refuge, caught in a civil war, political collapse, and a faltering station computer system which was supposed to keep it running. Watch out for the many Belfast references. It’s a great read!
Another local writer who has gone down the independent publishing route is Tim McKane. Tim’s first novel ‘Titanic: Sabotage: A Historical Thriller Set in Belfast and Dublin 1911’ was recently published.
If you want more information on either writer and their books, I am not giving you a link. You’ll have to ‘DIY”!
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