Sad to see (and not just because he once described me as a Unionist with a "smidgen of intelligence"!) the Miserable Oul Fart hitting the high road. His blog was a darn good read, veering off as it did in many varied and interesting directions and I’ve also got to say that Alwyn’s scripture-based argument against the UK’s new Supreme Court was probably the most jaw-dropping comment I’ve had on here and I mean that positively. Hopefully he’ll be back.
As a side thought (and this is genuinely offered more as an observation more than a criticism), it’s interesting/ironic for me that numerous English/Scottish/Welsh nationalist and also Republic of Ireland based blogs seem to have no ideological objection whatsoever to linking to Unionist Lite. As far as I know, not one Northern Irish based nationalist/republican blog has done so- simply a question of quality control?
3 comments:
"...simply a question of quality control?"
If that's a euphemism for sectarianism, yes.
In my experience most northern nationalist blogs are either juvenile or dull as dishwater Sinn Fein party lines.
Rory
More tribal than sectarian I'd say. One guy, Chris Gaskin on Balrog does list Unionist blogs but he's not the most regular of posters at the minute so I'll let him off for not linking!
The rest, SDLP or SF-linked, don't even link outside their own party in most cases; the other leading NI nationalist blog written by a member of neither party is, imo, one who uses sectarian and ethno-nat based arguments so I'm not surprised that he doesn't link with people he considers as inferior beings.
Whatever, I don't lose agreat deal of sleep (or even I guess potential readers) over it but there has been a great deal of bs spoken recently about the NI blogosphere- for the most part it is as divided with no meaningful cross unionist-nationalist interaction, it is an accurate reflection, in other words, of the society we all come from.
I follow and link to more NI based political blogs than southern ones (this, splintered sunrise, slugger, leargas, the pensive quill), partly because the media down here bends over backwards to ignore the goings on up north, so it's a way of getting some real news, and partly because they tend to be more intelligent and dialectical than southern blogs.
I used to read Balrog, but decided he was a bit politically immature and too much of a SF party liner (why bother reading when you can get it from the horses mouth at Leargas).
Down south I link to a Labour Party Blog and a Fine Gael Blog. I have yet to come across an interesting FF blog or a far left blog that is worth reading, I am sure they are out there but, I can't find them. I found most, if not all of the northern blogs from your site, which is one of the reasons I think it's the best around.
If I find a good blog, I'm happy to link to it, a lot of my fellow southern bloggers seem very mean spirited with their links.
Rory
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