Belfast Area most affected by race riots yet to receive funding
Conor Coyle, Irish News, August 22nd, 2025
AN area of Belfast which saw some of the worst impact of race riots in the city in 2024 is the only one yet to receive funding specifically targeted at addressing anti-Muslim hate following the violent disorder.
A £600,000 fund was announced for Northern Ireland by UK Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner following the racist violence last August alongside funding for other local authorities throughout the UK.
£160,000 was earmarked for four targeted areas in the north, south, east and west of the city as part of the Community Recovery Fund.
In August 2024, rioting broke out following anti-immigration protests in Belfast, with migrant-owned businesses attacked by protestors.
Businesses and cars were set on fire in a series of race hate incidents in south Belfast, including in the Sandy Row/Donegall Road area.
The area was one of four targeted by the funding, which has been distributed via Belfast City Council to community groups in the Woodvale area of north Belfast, Greater Falls in west Belfast and Connswater in the east of the city.
While the projects in three areas had the funding awarded and programmes began in June 2025, funding is still to be awarded for the Sandy Row/Donegall Road project two months later.
The Irish News understands a number of local community groups in the area have been approached to submit bids for the funding pot, but have not yet agreed to do so.
Council working to ‘strengthen ties’ in communities
A spokesperson for Belfast City Council said it “continues to engage with a consortia in south Belfast to finalise their proposals”.
“Belfast City Council is supporting 24 integration and inclusion projects through the Community Recovery Fund. These include a number of projects being supported through the fund’s Consortium Programme.”
According to a council action plan, the expected outcomes from groups applying for the cash was “a reduction in anti-Muslim hate”, “increased integration” and to “rebuild social trust and promote cohesion between communities”.
Among the aims outlined by groups in other parts of the city as part of the programme were to “strengthen ties between host and migrant communities” and “support integration of ethnic minority and migrant communities”.
A report to the council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee in January of this year by council officers stated: “Proposals will be sought and developed through an open call for four areas in Belfast which have been directly impacted by racist attacks.
“Officers will work with community organisations in the following four locations, and ensure community led proposals to increase integration and inclusion of the migrant population are developed and progressed.”
In October, Belfast councillors had clashed over what areas of the city should receive funding from the integration element of the Community Recovery Fund.
The SDLP, Greens and Alliance argued the money should focus on those parts of South Belfast that suffered during the disturbances, while Sinn Féin and DUP said the money should be spread across city hot spots.
Ultimately it was decided the £160,000 pot would be evenly split across the four parts of Belfast.
'Protests still ongoing in Ballymena with homes of foreign nationals targeted'
By Court Reporter, Belfast News Letter, August 22nd, 2025
Street gatherings are ongoing and the "homes of foreign nationals have been targeted for protests," a police officer told Ballymena Magistrates' Court today.
She was speaking as a Ballymena man appeared at the town's Magistrates' Court.
The man is alleged to have used an object to damage the window of a police vehicle during rioting in the town on June 9 this year. Martin Alan Kerr (40), of Carnduff Drive, is charged with riot. When interviewed he said he was at a protest on June 9 but denied a suspect in footage was him.
He had 24 previous convictions including criminal damage, disorderly behaviour and possession of an offensive weapon.
The officer said the defendant has been on police bail for two separate allegations of possessing an offensive weapon in public - a lock knife - on May 4 this year and possessing a lock knife in a public place on August 7 this year.
Objecting to Kerr being released on bail on the riot charge, a police officer said "serious racially-motivated public disorder" happened in the Clonavon area of Ballymena. There were hundreds of people present.
The officer said images of suspects were published and the defendant was identified.
The officer said the disorder in Ballymena resulted in significant damage to property and injury to police officers.
She added: "There's still a strong public feeling in the area about this and community tensions remain high.
"Protests are still ongoing in Ballymena and across the country and the homes of foreign nationals have been targeted for these protests".
A defence barrister said the defendant says "it is not him" on footage.
He said it had been nine weeks since the riots and other defendants were given bail.
Bail was sought for the defendant to return to his home in Ballymena and the defendant could be curfewed and electronically tagged.
District Judge Nigel Broderick refused bail. He said the defendant had 24 previous convictions including five for criminal damage.
He is also on police bail facing other charges, the judge noted. He said it had been "wholly unrealistic to apply for bail to live in the very town that you were accused of being involved in significant racial rioting". The defendant was remanded in custody and the case was adjourned to September 18.
Gary Murray: I trust new legacy body ICRIR to get justice for my sister who was murdered by the IRA
‘This week I have taken the decision to refer the IRA’s murder of my 13-year-old sister Leanne to the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).’
Gary Murray, Belfast News Letter, August 22nd, 2025
The 1993 bombing by the IRA was indiscriminate, murdering nine people and injuring many more in our community.
Those murdered that day had their lives taken simply because they were from a Protestant community. It was an act of naked sectarianism.
The IRA’s justification was that they were ‘targeting’ the UDA, but that carries no weight with my family. Those out doing their Saturday shopping, like my little sister, were not the UDA. The IRA gang planted a no warning bomb in a busy shop. It is as indiscriminate an attack as is imaginable, regardless of the propaganda and lies spun afterwards by the IRA and Sinn Fein.
In recent months I have given thought to going to the ICRIR, particularly given consideration to feedback I have heard from some people who have already used the service. I have been convinced that the body is professional, independent and will certainly do its best to get to the truth.
But it seems striking to me that nationalists, and indeed some bodies such as the Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International, oppose the ICRIR, both of which have never once contacted me or my family in over 30 years of campaigning for justice.
I would have no confidence given what I consider to be their clear bias. I do not believe that these organisations are independent, but rather increasingly surrogates for the industry of nationalist lawfare and the political agenda of that section of the community.
Their opposition, it seems to me, is not about legal issues before the court. Instead, a blanket political position of opposition to the ICRIR. This includes claims, which are again offensive to my community, that because of the fact former RUC officers are involved, the ICRIR the body cannot be independent.
‘A one sided victims process’
It was RUC officers who were wading through rubble trying to find bodies and limbs to save life in the Shankill bombing. It was republicans who caused that destruction.
For victims like me it seems they want a one-sided victims process for only one group of victims, controlled by one section of society.
And, I do wonder whether groups like Relatives for Justice exercise such a hold and influence over nationalist victims, that in fact there may be victims from that community who want to engage with the ICRIR but are being coerced out of it or put under pressure.
Perhaps it is more about those who have made significant sums of money out of turning victims issues into a cottage industry, being concerned the endless financial benefit is going to come to an end.
They say RUC officers aren’t entitled to play a role, but yet PUL victims like me have to see, for example, convicted IRA terrorist Gerry Kelly on the NI Policing Board.
They have also recently criticised Sir Declan Morgan, the former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.
He was acceptable when he was overseeing nationalist inquests but not when in a role that might shine a light on IRA activity – that is very telling. When are these groups going to do their job for all victims and not just the selected few who are deemed worthy by Sinn Fein?
The same people heaped praise on Sir Declan Morgan when he was Lord Chief Justice and nationalists were flooding his courts with cases. When as LCJ he was demanding more money from the UK government to fast track the deluge of nationalist inquests the NIHRC, Amnesty and nationalist victims groups had no opposition to him at that point.
It is precisely because of Sir Declan’s judicial experience and reputation that I have confidence in him. I trust he will do his best to get answers for my family, and if he can’t, or if there are efforts to impede him, then I trust he will publicly come out and expose those who seek to stop families, such as mine, from getting answers.
This process is not easy for victims. It is re-traumatising, but for me I believe I have to carry on the fight not only for my little sister, but also for my mother who was broken and never the same again after Leanne’s murder. Nevertheless, she found the strength to keep going until her final breath.
I go on in her name. This is for you Leanne and for my beloved mother Gina.
Gary Murray lost his sister Leanne in the 1993 Shankill bombing
Givan sounds warning to DUP voters considering switching to TUV after polling slump
Mark Bain, Belfast Telegraph, August 22nd, 2025
A DUP minister insists he remains confident that voters will rally behind them at the next election.
It comes after the party slipped further behind Sinn Fein in the last LucidTalk poll, with the TUV also closing the gap. Jim Allister's party is now just four points behind the DUP, the poll suggests.
However, 20 months out from the next Assembly election, Paul Givan sounded a warning to voters considering switching to the TUV.
He said: “Nobody can seriously believe that we should go to direct rule, that we shouldn't have Stormont, or that unionists should place their trust in a UK Government that gave us the Irish Sea Border.”
Speaking on a visit to Saintfield, the Education Minister said there was a need for greater unity of purpose within the wider unionist family.
He claimed that if the parties had worked more closely at the last Assembly election in 2022, unionists would have an extra seat at the Executive table.
The latest poll, published last Saturday, showed Sinn Fein remaining the largest party on 26% — unchanged from May. The DUP is down one point to 17%, the party's lowest score since the 2022 election.
TUV surge
But it is the surge in support for the TUV that is most striking, with the party leap-frogging both Alliance and the Ulster Unionists to poll at 13%.
Mr Allister is the most popular unionist leader, having enjoyed a rise in stature after taking Ian Paisley's Westminster seat in North Antrim.
But Mr Givan dismissed fears his party could lose seats in the next Assembly election, due in 2027.
“I'm always looking at elections,” he said. “As soon as one election is over the focus is on the next one.
“What are we doing is to make sure as a political party that we're on the right footing. That requires our policies to be looked at, our messaging in terms of effectively communicating. I never would take votes for granted.
“We should never be complacent in getting people to come out and vote for the DUP.
“We need to ensure that we are effectively putting forward the policies that resonate with them and I believe that we do have the right policies.”
Mr Givan also hinted he would like to see greater unionist co-operation.
He added: “I think it's important as well, within unionism, that we deal with the fragmentation. It's something I think the broader unionist population want to see, a closer co-operation.
“At the last Assembly election there were four extra unionist MLAs who could have been returned but because the unionist family didn't work together that wasn't the case.”
He added: “We need to be very much saying to the unionist community that we have to strengthen the unionist representation within the Executive, to avoid what is a Sinn Fein/Alliance coalition in there.”
Mr Givan warned of the lack of alternatives to the Assembly, adding: “The alternative to no Stormont is putting your trust in a UK Government that has let down the unionist people.”
Immigrant numbers in NI down 20% in last two years
Liam Tunney, Belfast Telegraph, August 22nd, 2025
SOME 246 AWAITING OUTCOME OF CLAIMS CURRENTLY STAYING IN HOTELS
The number of asylum seekers in Northern Ireland has fallen by more than a fifth since September 2023, Home Office figures show.
It comes after three NI councils confirmed they had been approached with concerns over hotels in the districts which are currently accommodating asylum seekers.
Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council (ANBC) has launched a planning enforcement investigation after a complaint from DUP MLA Trevor Clarke.
Queries have also been received by officials in Causeway Coast and Glens, and Ards and North Down.
The latest figures published by the Home Office on immigration has revealed a decline of more than 21% in NI's asylum seeker numbers since September 2023.
As of June 2025, some 246 people seeking asylum are currently being accommodated in Northern Ireland hotels, a 40% decrease on the 413 figure from December 2024 and a reduction of more than 77% since September 2023.
In total, 2,535 asylum seekers are awaiting the outcome of their claims in NI, down from 3,220 almost two years ago.
Home Office data also breaks down the local authority in which the asylum seekers are accommodated, with the highest total (124) in Causeway Coast and Glens. Of those in hotels, 78 are currently in Antrim and Newtownabbey, with 41 in Ards and North Down and three in Derry City and Strabane.
Overall, the total number of asylum seekers in NI has declined by just over 21% since September 2023.
Belfast has the highest number of asylum seekers overall (1,760), with Derry City and Strabane and Causeway Coast and Glens taking in 255 and 201 respectively.
Northern Ireland's asylum seekers are made up of 74 different nationalities, with the largest group (681) coming from war-torn Somalia.
Some 253 are from Syria, with a further 224 from Eritrea and 173 from Sudan. All three countries are currently in the grip of conflict. Other large groups are those from Iran (144), Iraq (125), Nigeria (120) and occupied Palestine territories (72).
The nationalities of four asylum seekers are currently unknown, while there are 29 stateless individuals among the figure.
Overall UK figures also revealed Belfast had the second-highest number of asylum seekers housed in dispersal accommodation (1,707), behind Glasgow with 3,523. Dispersal accommodation is used on a longer-term basis while asylum claims are being processed and often relies on the private rental sector.
In total, some 2,228 asylum seekers in NI are currently housed in this manner.
A further 105 are in initial accommodation other than hotels, while some 16 are receiving subsistence-only support, given to asylum seekers who have somewhere to stay but no means of affording essential costs.
Under the 1999 Immigration and Asylum Act, there are several types of support available to asylum seekers.
Among those seeking provision in NI, most (2,460) fall under Section 95, which allows the Home Office to provide support to asylum seekers at risk of destitution.
A further 28 come under Section 98, which allows temporary support for those at risk of destitution, while 47 are currently subject to Section 4.
Potential impact of hotel ban
This allows the Home Office to provide support to asylum seekers who are destitute and meet specific criteria, typically when they have exhausted their appeal rights.
Now under Labour control, the UK government has announced a commitment to close down hotels and return asylum seekers deemed to have no right to remain.
Border Security Minister, Angela Eagle, said the current Labour government “inherited a broken asylum system” adding that at its peak in summer 2023 more than 400 hotels were being used to accommodate asylum seekers. The number has since fallen to fewer than 210, according to the Home Office.
The MP for Wallasey added: “We will continue working with local authorities and communities to address legitimate concerns. Our work continues to close all asylum hotels by the end of this Parliament.”
Meanwhile, a DUP councillor has warned that barring hotels from housing asylum seekers could “make things worse” by driving the Home Office to buy up more homes.
Currently the Home Office contracts accommodation of asylum seekers out to the Mears Group, who manage the system on their behalf.
Lisburn and Castlereagh City councillor Alderman Paul Porter said the group “buys up properties” which drives up rental prices in those areas.
“I have had people in my constituency in a deprived area contact me on rental prices rocketing up almost double the cost in recent months.
“My main concern is that the lack of scrutiny over what Mears is doing over the last four years is just disgraceful and the idea that closing off hotels is going to become this panacea when it is actually going to make things worse for local communities.”
The Mears Group has been approached for comment.
So, just where will we put asylum seekers after High Court backed NIMBY lobby?
Sean O’Grady, Belfast Telegraph, August 22nd, 2025
What is the message that comes from the High Court's decision to back Epping Council's petition to close the Bell Hotel, which has been used to accommodate people seeking asylum?
It is not, as has been propagandised, that the Establishment judges — who it turns out are not “enemies of the people” after all — listened with sympathy to the cries of the mums and nans demonstrating outside the hotel and begging for protection for their kids (after one of the people in the hotel was arrested and then charged with a sexual assault). The High Court didn't take a view on that.
They granted an interim injunction requested by the local council to end the hotel's current usage with 14 days' notice on… planning grounds.
Nothing much to do with human rights, community safety, crime levels, public concerns, Reform UK, or various politicians, propagandists, troublemakers, and digital activists (human or not) jumping on the cause. It was a breach of planning rules about purpose, the same as if someone had turned a shop into a restaurant.
In a way, that makes the judgment a much more powerful affair than if it had been imposed by an official using some ambiguous, legally questionable authority.
If it's wrong for a hotel in Essex to be used in this way, then it's wrong for a hotel anywhere in the country to be put to such a use. There are “acute” difficulties with this, as the Home Office warned. Where to put them?
The unintended consequence of the ruling is that the High Court has inadvertently created, to borrow a politically fashionable expression, a “two-tier” system.
Councils that proactively pursue legal action can have so-called migrant hotels in their area closed down. Less activist and arguably more humane councils in other places may not choose to take up the opportunity. Maybe individuals or groups can, in any case. But that means that the migrants can be effectively “deported” from one county to another by the Home Office.
Or, alternatively, they end up in flats or houses of multiple occupation (HMO) in the original local authority, or elsewhere, and not in breach of the planning process.
At any rate, where to house asylum seekers will soon become an even more chaotic and highly charged issue than it is now, especially if demonstrations start up in streets where there's an HMO, and the police will find it difficult to be in too many places at once.
There will, in other words, be more trouble, and it will prove more difficult to contain it. That's not the High Court's problem, but it's everyone else's. There is, it's claimed, a simple answer to this: “Deport!” If it were as simple as that, it would have been done long ago by politicians under intense political pressure.
Quite apart from the inviolable right under international law to claim asylum — let's just say that's been abolished — these people still need to be processed, if only to determine where to send them. Some countries are dangerous; fine, say the advocates for immediate expulsion. But those countries, and safer ones, may not wish to take people back. We can't force another country to accept them, still less stop them trying to get back to Britain. Take them to international waters? A long way from the English Channel, and it wouldn't necessarily prevent them from making a return journey. Shall we “tow them back to France, a safe country”, as is often the reply? Well, no, because that would be a violation of French sovereignty.
Apart from the very small new returns arrangements, there is no lawful method of doing this. How, it might be asked, would we feel if the French navy brought them back to the south coast of England? Insane.
It would risk confrontation with the French navy and a serious breach in relations with Paris and, thus, the EU. That would be bad for national security and for trade. Even Nigel Farage, history buff and atavistic patriot, might not wish for a return to a comic opera version of the Napoleonic Wars.
Put them in tents? OK - but where? Place them in detention camps? Fine - but where? “Not in my back yard” is the usual answer, which doesn't sound like a workable solution at scale. The challenge of irregular migration is very obviously an intractable one, to which there are no easy answers, and which has been made quite a bit more difficult by the High Court judges.
Even so, they are doing their job, and an independent judiciary free of political pressure and media bullying is an essential part of our way of life. It should not matter to any court that Yvette Cooper is troubled by it, nor, for that matter, that some overheated pundit on Talk TV has got the champagne out.
We should respect court decisions that are awkward or offensive. We should also spare a thought for the future of other human beings genuinely fleeing torture or execution, as some undoubtedly are, with no desire to break the law or attack anyone. It's unfashionable to say such things right now, but even if they are “just” economic migrants, their lives matter too.
Judge in Epping Forest asylum hotel case ran for Tories in NI poll
Liam Tunney, Belfast Telegraph, August 22nd, 2025
A judge behind a landmark ruling on hotels accommodating asylum seekers in the UK once stood for election in Northern Ireland.
Stephen Eyre's ruling on the legality of The Bell Hotel's eligibility to house asylum seekers has sparked a wave of complaints to local authorities across the UK, including three councils in Northern Ireland.
The action, taken by Epping Forest District Council against Somani Hotels, alleged the group had not notified the local planning authority of a change of use for the premises.
Mr Eyre is a former election candidate for the Conservative Party, standing in Birmingham Hodge Hill in 1987, Stourbridge in 2001 and again in a 2004 by-election in Birmingham Hodge Hill.
In the 1992 General Election, he stood in Strangford as the Conservatives attempted to gain a foothold in Northern Ireland.
Among the field who stood against Mr Eyre was current South Antrim MP Sammy Wilson, the Alliance Party's Kieran McCarthy and David Shaw of the Natural Law Party.
The seat was won by John Taylor — now Lord Kilclooney — who had almost 9,000 votes to spare over Mr Wilson. Stephen Eyre finished second-bottom in the poll with 6,782 votes.
Prior to the polls opening, a Sunday Life preview featuring odds provided by Eastwood bookmakers rated the Conservative candidate's chances as 100/1.
Extracts from the News Letter quoted Mr Eyre saying a Labour government would be a “disaster for Northern Ireland” and revealed his opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
“The electorate here have not been presented with a full integrationist policy before,” he said.
“I believe the best weapon we have against the IRA is to fully integrate the Province into the United Kingdom, thereby sending a message to the terrorists that not only are they without hope of victory but they are further away than ever from achieving their goal.”
Further articles also suggest Mr Eyre was standing on Euro-sceptic policies, with the News Letter reporting: “Stephen Eyre, Conservative, Strangford, welcomed the firm stand taken by John Major over Europe, saying he had made a resolute defence of UK interests.
“Labour and the Liberal Democrats would hand power over to foreigners and it was essential that the Conservatives be returned to power.”
Despite a last-minute attempt by the Home Office last week to have the Epping Forest case dismissed, Judge Eyre imposed an injunction preventing the hotel from housing the asylum seekers.
In his judgment, he said: “Although the defendant's [Somani Hotels Limited] actions were not flagrant or surreptitious they were deliberate.
“The defendant acted in good faith but chose to take its stand on the position that there was no material change of use.
“The defendant did so in the knowledge the claimant, as local planning authority, took a different view and believed that permission was necessary.
“It thereby sidestepped the public scrutiny and explanation which would otherwise have taken place if an application for planning permission or for a certificate of lawful use had been made.”
The Home Office had previously warned the decision would “substantially impact” its ability to house asylum seekers in hotels across the UK.
Homelessness figures more than double in decade
Allan Preston, Irish News, August 22nd, 2025
HOMELESSNESS in Northern Ireland has more than doubled over the last decade, prompting urgent calls for more social housing.
The latest housing figures from the Department for Communities for April to June this year showed the number of households classified as homeless continues to rise.
As of June 30, there were over 49,000 households on the social housing waiting list – 25% more than in 2015 when the total was just over 39,000.
In this same period, the amount of households on the list with homelessness status has more than doubled from 13,644 to 32,159 – a rise of 136%.
The yearly increase has been consistent over the past decade, including a rise of 2,090 (7%) since last June.
With eight of Northern Ireland’s 11 council areas experiencing increases, Belfast City Council had the largest rise – passing the threshold of 10,000 households for the first time since the figures have been recorded in their current form.
In March 2015, the Belfast council area had 4,557 households classified as homeless – increasing by 123% to 10,184 in June this year.
Derry and Strabane District Council had just over 2,000 in 2015, rising by 124% to just under 4,500 in June 2025.
Newry, Mourne and Down District Council increased by 110%, from 1,322 households in March 2015 rising to 2,779 in June 2025.
Small decreases were recorded in Ards and North Down, Lisburn and Castlereagh and Newry, Mourne and Down Council areas.
Nicola McCrudden is Chief Executive of Homeless Connect.
“Yet again the statistics speak for themselves. The increase of 136% in the number of households experiencing homelessness over the last decade is an obvious sign that past failures to tackle housing need has caught up with us,” she said.
“Too many people are suffering the serious consequences of not being able to access secure and affordable housing that they need.
“If this trend is ever going to shift, we need leadership from the executive as a whole. The housing supply strategy provides a genuine opportunity for cross-executive working to overcome the barriers to increasing the supply of new homes.”
‘Nowhere near building enough homes’
Households classified as homeless have increased yearly since 2015.
She said the strategy approved by the Stormont executive provides a 15-year framework for developing the necessary policies and actions needed.
While understanding work on a three-year action plan was underway, Ms McCrudden said people living in hostels couldn’t wait.
“We are not, and have not been, building enough social housing and other forms of housing are simply out of reach for growing numbers of people,” she said.
“Current funding for social housing will only allow for up to 1,150 new starts in 2025/26. This is nowhere near the number needed to meet the executive’s collective target of 5,850 by the end of this assembly mandate.”
She said the consequences would be thousands of people living in informal arrangements with family or friends or living in temporary accommodation.
“The societal and monetary costs of failing to build enough social housing continue to mount,” she said.
She said this was also placed a serious strain on peoples’ physical and mental health.
“It is unquestionably the case that homelessness is a contributory factor to the pressures facing the NHS here,” she said.
“Even if we had the housing supply we need, these issues would still remain. We need a well coordinated and integrated health system working with the grain of the wider approach of the Housing Executive to responding to homelessness. Services and supports for addiction and mental health have to be designed to address the needs of people experiencing homelessness.”
While welcoming progress in developing health inclusion services and work by the Public Health Agency, she said a “disjointed” system was failing too many people experiencing homelessness.
“If we are going to take the journey to ending homelessness here, we need the wider health system to play its part,” she said.
“People experiencing homelessness need more from government here. We have lots of strategies and action plans, but we need political leadership and a genuine commitment to work together for the good of everyone in housing need.”
The Department for Communities was contacted.
Hunger strike commemorations to take place this weekend
Conor McParland, Belfast Media, August 22nd, 2025
ANNIVERSARY: Sinn Féin MLAs Gerry Kelly and Pat Sheehan, Cllr Séanna Walsh and Síle Darragh at the Bobby Sands mural on the Falls Road ANNIVERSARY: Sinn Féin MLAs Gerry Kelly and Pat Sheehan, Cllr Séanna Walsh and Síle Darragh at the Bobby Sands mural on the Falls Road
REPUBLICANS from across Ireland will descend on West Belfast this weekend for the annual Hunger Strike Commemoration.
A weekend of events will pay tribute to those who died on hunger strike during the conflict, including the ten republicans who died in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh in 1981.
On Sunday morning, a 5k run will take place in Colin Glen Forest Park at 9am.
Then, on Sunday afternoon, the main commemoration will be held, assembling at Dunville Park at 2.15pm with main speaker Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald.
Sinn Féin MLA Carál Ní Chuilín, who is chairing proceedings, said it is an important event for republicans.
"It's a very important day for republicans. You're going to have republicans gathering from across Ireland," she said.
"It is important to remember the bravery of our hunger strikers. It is important that we not only remember their sacrifice but also acknowledge that although this was 44 years ago for people who knew them personally, it is very poignant for them.
"There is a huge appreciation for what the hunger strikers did for the republican struggle.
"The hunger strikes were in 1981 and then you had the mass escape from Long Kesh in 1983 and then full political status shortly after that.
"Every prisoner thereafter enjoyed the rights that our ten comrades died for.
"Every significant event in Irish history after that including the peace process, the hunger strikers were always very close in my thoughts. Their sacrifice set in motion a series of events that made political and social change unstoppable.
"Today, for me, all roads lead to the re-unification of Ireland which will be a big theme on Sunday.
“I am encouraging activists to attend as much of the programme as possible and help to honour our patriot dead.
“We are now closer than ever before to ending partition and realising the dream of a united Ireland which so many gave their lives for.
“This weekend, let’s pay tribute and rededicate ourselves to a new and free Ireland. We are expecting a huge turnout on Sunday."
Johnny Adair used to rally people in Britain to start ‘patriotic craze’ of kerb painting
John Breslin, Irish News, August 22nd, 2025
A FORMER leading member of the Reform UK party used an image of convicted loyalist terrorist Johnny Adair to rally people in Britain to start painting kerbs red, white and blue to show their patriotism.
Nick Buckley, a one-time Reform candidate in Manchester and charity worker, admitted he did not do any research on the image before positing online.
“I used Google to find a photo of someone painting kerbs and was successful. I did not research who was in the photo and the face of the individual was mostly cut off,” Mr Buckley, who has an MBE for his charity work, told The Irish News.
“My post was about painting kerbs not who has previously painted kerbs.”
The image is of Adair painting red, white and blue the kerb near his then home on the Lower Shankill Road.
Mr Buckley sourced the image on Google from one republished in a Belfast newspaper in 2021, and which included Adair in the caption.
Calls to begin kerb painting follow the raising of the flags of the Union and St George as part of a campaign linked to the anti-migrant movement and more broadly far right activism.
Mr Buckley, a prolific user of social media, posted the picture of Adair earlier this week. It had been viewed 143,000 times as of yesterday evening.
He added: “Please let’s make this the next patriotic craze. Painting the pavement kerbs in red, white and blue. It’s our country, let’s make sure no one forgets.”
Johnny Adair painting the kerb stones red, white and blue on the lower Shankill Road and, inset, the post by Nick Buckley
Adair, once a leader of the UDA on the Shankill Road, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in the mid nineties for directing terrorism. Dozens of Catholics were killed by the unit during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Following his release from prison, he quickly fell out with fellow UDA commanders and was eventually forced to flee to Britain. After several attempts to return to the north, he currently lives in Scotland.
Mr Buckley was the Reform candidate for mayor of Manchester in 2021 but stood as an independent in 2024 after splitting with the party.
The increasingly organised campaign to raise flags – and potentially paint kerbs – in Britain has attracted criticism and warnings.
“We are concerned that the discussion around the English flag and patriotism is giving cover for racism driven by the far right, and – shamefully – by politicians of all shades,” Lewis Nielsen, anti-fascist officer at Stand Up to Racism, told the Guardian newspaper.
“We do feel the movement is quite dangerous and comes at a tipping point where the far right is trying to build.”
Are we watching the collapse of the Alliance Party’s ‘surge’?
Alex Kane, Irish News, August 22nd, 2025
IS the Alliance ‘surge’ coming to an end? I’m asking the question because the latest LucidTalk poll has the TUV replacing it as the third party, as well as nudging ahead of the UUP and SDLP.
Naomi Long, at 37%, is now below every other leader (including Jim Allister) in terms of the performance yardstick, while her approval from unionists is just 17%, below that of Michelle O’Neill and Claire Hanna.
I know that the margins in this sort of poll can be quite tight; but as a Holmesian (and I really enjoyed visiting the Reichenbach Falls for my 70th birthday on August 13) I also set great store by his maxim that there is ‘nothing so instructive as the observation of trifles’.
So, while Alliance will try and dismiss what some of them will describe as a blip, there will be genuine concern about slippage in electoral support and the slippage in Long’s personal ratings.
Of most concern, though, will be the fact that approval from unionists is very low.
Alliance’s surge, which began after the Brexit result, was heavily dependent on a noticeable shift from a section of the UUP’s base.
It’s always hard to make an exact science of conclusions to be drawn from this sort of thing, but it seems to me that Alliance began to attract UUP votes when the party – which had been broadly supportive of Remain – threw its lot in with the DUP, TUV, PUP and elements of loyalism and the Orange Order and edged closer to the Conservatives’ ERG wing and Nigel Farage’s worldview.
Destabilising factors
The Windsor Framework and sea border has unsettled a very substantial majority of political/electoral unionism.
Increasing numbers of them have bought into Jim Allister’s analysis that Northern Ireland has been reduced to colony status and that the DUP was hoodwinked back into the Assembly by Rishi Sunak’s command paper.
Any hope they may have had that some sort of ‘bespoke’ arrangement acceptable to both sides in Northern Ireland was possible was dashed fairly quickly.
The shift by pro-EU unionists to Alliance began around the 2017 assembly election (the party increased by 2.1%) and continued across a number of polls: the 2019 general election (+8.8%); 2019 EU election (polled 18.5% and won a seat at expense of UUP); 2019 local council election (+4.8%); 2022 assembly election (+4.5%); and 2023 local council election (+1.8%).
Now then, that’s quite a run of elections in which the level of support (and number of seats in the assembly and councils) increased each time.
And on that basis it was legitimate to talk about a ‘surge’ for the party.
For years it had seemed on the brink of a breakthrough, yet it never came. Even the first assembly election in 1998 didn’t deliver for the party.
But last year’s general election represented the first setback since 2017.
The party dropped almost 2% and lost North Down, although a serious split in the unionist vote in Lagan Valley (three candidates taking 59% between them) allowed Sorcha Eastwood to nab the seat on 38%.
A senior member of the party chatted to me at the main count centre in Belfast as results were rolling in and admitted that it was a “worse result than we were expecting”.
Whether it was a mere blip, from which lessons will be learned, can’t be determined at this point.
Won’t be another Lagan Valley split
I would make a bet this early, though, that there won’t be a three-way split in Lagan Valley in the next general election.
And I also think it’s likely that the three main unionist parties will reach a quiet arrangement when it comes to fielding candidates in the assembly election due in 2027.
Something else in unionism’s favour at coming elections.
If I’m right – and I think I am – that unionism generally is very worried about the impact the framework and sea border are having on Northern Ireland’s position within the United Kingdom, then I think it’s likely that those unionists who have been prepared to back Alliance over the last six years will shift back to unionist parties.
“While Alliance continues to back the NI Protocol and framework, which unionism now clearly view as a threat to their constitutional status, then I don’t see how they could continue to vote for the party
While Alliance continues to back the NI Protocol and framework, which unionism now clearly view as a threat to their constitutional status, then I don’t see how they could continue to vote for the party.
I think it’s also true that more unionists than ever before regard Alliance as much closer to the thinking of non-unionist parties than it is to them.
That matters, because a very substantial factor in the 2017-24 ‘surge’ has been the willingness of some unionists to vote Alliance.
Again, a dip in July 2024 and dips in LucidTalk opinion polls might not amount to a hill of beans come the next election.
On the other hand, we may already be seeing the collapse of the surge: something that happened to the party after its original surge in 1973.
5 Palestine solidarity protestors refuse to attend police interviews
John Breslin, Irish News, August 22nd, 2025
FIVE people had hand delivered letters warning of potential criminal charges under terrorism legislation due to their involvement in Palestine solidarity protests are refusing to attend interviews with police.
The five, including civil rights activist Eamonn McCann and partner Goretti Horgan, were handed the undated and unsigned warning letters at their homes around 9pm on a Friday, but there was no mention of any specific offence.
Mr McCann was at a Derry City match that evening so the officers returned at 10.30pm to deliver the letter to him, Ms Horgan revealed.
All five, also including prominent Bloody Sunday justice campaigner Kate Nash, were given 10 days to make contact with the police to arrange interviews.
They were then warned failure to do so may lead to them being reported to the Public Prosecution Service on suspicion of committing offences under the Terrorism Act. All those delivered letters are over 70.
But, said Ms Horgan, there was no reference to any specific offence and no mention of Palestine Action, only that they were identified as taking part in two ‘Defend the Right to Protest’ gatherings in July.
“You have been identified by police as having taken part in these protests. Police therefore have grounds to suspect that you may have committed offences contrary to Section 13 of the Terrorism Act,” the letter read.
Kneecap’s Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh is being prosecuted under the same provision after allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag at a gig in north London.
500 arrested in Britain
The British government named Palestine Action a proscribed organisation, its members branded terrorists and those showing support facing criminal charges back in early July. Approximately 500 people have been arrested in Britain and one in the north, Máire Mhic an Fhailí, after displays of support.
Eamonn McCann was at a Derry City match when police called.
Kate Nash received a letter from the PSNI to her home.
Ms Horgan said: “We believe there is no reason for us to attend and that the letters should not have been sent. The letter did not say what the offence was and was undated and unsigned.”
Further, she said, Palestine Action is taking a judicial review against the British government’s proscription of the organisation and that it makes no sense for the PSNI to pursue people as no charges will be brought until those court proceedings are concluded.
She believes the police at higher levels either are unsure around how to handle what is an increasingly contentious political issue or this was an attempt to put pressure on activists.
Ms Horgan said the letters were hand delivered late on August 8, the night before another ‘Right to Protest’ gathering was planned. Also, the number of police surveillance units taking photographs of protests is growing, she added.
She questioned how many surveillance cameras were trained on the August 9 Apprentice Boys Parade, where visible displays of support for the UVF and UDA were spotted.
The PSNI said enquiries were ongoing and it would be inappropriate to comment further.
Ulster Unionists - last of the big political spenders and Sinn Fein by far the biggest.
Ulster Unionists remain last out of Northern Ireland's big five parties in terms of money coming in
By Adam Kula, Belfast News Letter, August 21st, 2025
The Ulster Unionist Party remains by far the last out of Northern Ireland's top five political parties when it comes to income and expenditure.
The Electoral Commission has published a summary of the parties' accounts for the financial year, ending December 31, 2024.
The figures are as follows:
• Sinn Fein – income £1.07m, expenditure £1.49m;
• Alliance – income £475,562, expenditure £500,017;
• SDLP – income £474,574, expenditure £442,380;
• DUP – income £441,985, expenditure £436,136
• UUP – income £171,443, expenditure £127,208.
Meanwhile the TUV had an income of £112,771 and spending of £109,397;
The Socialist Party (Northern Ireland) had an income of £83,691 and spending of £86,266;
And the Tories (officially the Conservative and Unionist Party) had an income of £56,425, with spending also of £56,425.
In 2023, the ranking in terms of income was Sinn Fein, DUP, SDLP, Alliance, and UUP.
The UUP has been in distant fifth place in income every year from 2022 onwards.
Meanwhile Sinn Fein is consistently top of the list each year, by far.
Cahir Hughes, head of Electoral Commission in NI, said: “We are committed to making sure political funding is transparent.
"Political parties spend and receive considerable sums of money so it’s important that information on their finances is accessible to the public.
"Publishing their accounts allows voters to see how parties are funded and choose to spend their money.”
