‘Those years of fear can’t be erased’ says Belfast ambulance man of Troubles

ANNE HAILES, Irish News, March 23rd, 2026

BRENDAN Magill was born in north Belfast, close to Carlisle Circus. He attended a Catholic school but wasn’t much interested in the academic side of life; he was more impressed with the dubious talents of one of his mates.

“He licked worms and could fart on demand. He could have been a Catholic or a Protestant – it simply wasn’t an issue for a seven-year-old.”

In fact, it was never an issue throughout Brendan’s life. As a member of the Ambulance Service of Northern Ireland, he treated everyone who needed help with dignity and caring professionalism. In his book, North Belfast Blues, Brendan charts his early life and his career, during which he was faced with some dreadful situations.

It was a confusing time for the young boy living in Adela Street, where a nearby piece of wasteland was used as a dumping ground for bodies – men, and sometimes women – who were brutally murdered during the Troubles.

Brendan was 24 when he joined the service in 1988. He later became a familiar face on television as a spokesman for the service and, as in his book, he told it like it was: brutal but truthful.

‘Fenian hole’

His book is a graphic account of years filled with traumatic and terrible events. He paints vivid pictures, some less serious than others – the wee Protestant woman pleading not to be taken to the Mater hospital, opting to stay at home rather than go to that “Fenian hole”.

He remembers how the violence escalated: the shooting of five men, including a boy of 15, at Sean Graham’s bookies, a few yards from Ulster Television on Belfast’s Ormeau Road.

We saw from the windows the frantic scenes on the pavement, but Brendan brings us inside.

He attended many such horrific scenes during his service – murders, bombings, beatings, punishment shootings – yet every day he continued to deal with regular ailments: chest infections, cardiac arrests, falls and overdoses, “whether they are wee sick, middle sick or big sick!”

Sean Graham bookies shooting, February 1992, which paramedic Brendan Magill attended

Although he was stationed all over greater Belfast, Ardoyne was the centre Brendan loved most, responding with his colleagues to the codes: Red 1 – exploded device; Red 2 – unexploded device; Green – civil unrest; and Blue – a shooting. What we saw on television and read in the newspapers only gave the basic details; for Brendan, each incident had a beginning, a middle and an end, and he lifts the curtain to show the reality.

The atrocities bring back memories: the Dockers Club, Frizzell’s Fish Shop on the Lower Shankill, a colleague being handed a bag of human remains at the scene of a bomb blast. “The police would seize my shoes to exclude my bloodied footprint from their murder investigation.”

He recalls the anguish of waiting at Musgrave Hospital as helicopters landed with injured patients caught up in the 1998 Omagh bomb. “As helpless and insignificant as I felt, it was almost a relief to hear those approaching helicopters.” It was particularly difficult telling his friend that his son was dead, the victim of a shooting.

An IRA bomb in Frizzell’s Fish shop on the Shankill Road killed nine innocent people and one bomber in 1993.

‘No child too young to die’

“No child was ever too young to die for a cause they knew nothing about, like wee Paula and Clare playing near Benny’s Bar, and fouryear-old Paul, shot and killed in the exchange of fire in his garden in Finaghy. Childhood offered no immunity in this place.”

The bond between ambulance men and women was always strong. He was especially saddened when his long-time partner, Gerry Meleady, died in 2022.

“Gerry’s wife gave me the privilege of ironing his ambulance uniform for him to be buried in. I will be forever grateful to her for that.”

Although no longer a full-time ambulance man, but still serving part-time, he hasn’t changed his routine. He never sits near the door in a pub or restaurant, “waiting for the gunmen to come in and spray us with their hatred.”

Even while writing his book over eight months, often sitting at the back of the Criterion Bar at Carlisle Circus making notes and typing, those instincts remained.

“Those years of fear can’t be erased. I still live with those fears, and the nightmares occasionally infiltrate what little sleep I manage.”

Brendan also reflects on how things have changed over the years, especially in hospitals. Where once there was time to comfort each other, now, he says, everyone seems to be typing – recording what they’ve done, what others have said – or looking at their phones to see if there are any new messages or how close they are to going home.

This is a remarkable book in which Brendan pulls no punches – an uncompromising story of the Ambulance Service during Northern Ireland’s Troubles, and a testament to the men and women who served.

North Belfast Blues by Brendan Magill will be published next month and is available now on Kindle.

Like a 'rock of Ulster granite', TUV's leader Jim Allister shall not be moved

MARK BAIN, Belfast Telegraph, March 23rd, 2026

TOO LATE FOR ME TO LEARN PATIENCE AND GRACE, MP TELLS PARTY CONFERENCE

There's little point in teaching an old dog new tricks. Not when the tricks this British bulldog knows have already led the way to Westminster.

“Too late for me to learn patience and grace,” Jim Allister MP told those gathered for the TUV's annual conference in the Royal Hotel in Cookstown at the weekend.

He may now be barking up a different tree in London, but his voice is still loud and clear on this side of his “pernicious” Irish Sea border.

New tricks are not what Allister is about. His modus operandi is consistency of message: the slogan for the conference was 'A strengthening of unionism'.

As an orator, there is no local party leader to match his delivery. Belligerent, forceful, dynamic. And the messages were as simple as they have always been.

While this year's conference might not have had the gladiatorial entrance afforded to the man who brought about the downfall of the Paisley dynasty in 2024's Westminster election, the punches were still flying thick and fast from the podium.

The ease with which rivals in the Alliance Party take offence, the “plotting” to bring Northern Ireland down from within by Sinn Fein, the continued wriggling of Gerry Adams over his alleged role in the IRA, the complicity of the DUP in hastening the separation of the UK — all were delivered, and lapped up by the Union flag waving faithful.

‘Dysfunctionalism on stilts’

Again, he said he wanted to see unionism united, but, naturally, on TUV terms — which means no longer being complicit in facilitating the existence of “dysfunctionalism on stilts” in the Assembly.

Last year's guest speaker was Jon Burrows. Needless to say, there was no invite back for the new Ulster Unionist leader.

Strengthening TUV's links to Reform UK was Danny Kruger MP, as the party, with its foot in the door at Westminster, turns away from unionists here to look instead to allies in Britain.

Kruger, son of Great British Bake-Off star Prue Leith, told the crowd: “Sacrifice, and suffering and conflict have made good men and women.

“I am very proud to sit with the proud men and women of Northern Ireland. And hardest among them, a rock of Ulster granite, fixed, immoveable and impregnable, is Jim Allister.”

And immoveable he remains, despite saying that so impressive has “upstart Gaston” been since he departed Stormont, that he wished he'd given way to him sooner.

“I'm not sure Paula Bradshaw would agree,” he joked to laughter from the faithful.

Getting into his stride, he had his traditional unionist swipe at Sinn Fein, telling delegates they were bringing Northern Ireland down “from within”, pushing agendas on the Irish language and Casement Park rather than potholes and hospitals — all facilitated by a DUP and UUP complicit in ensuring Stormont stays in business.

Only the SDLP escaped the sharp end of his tongue — perhaps a sign he views the party as somewhat irrelevant. Gaston, who was suspended from the Assembly for two days after a spat with Alliance MLA Bradshaw during a committee session, said he would not be silenced from asking awkward questions.

This time last year there were doubts TUV had much substance beyond the figure of Allister.

Gaston at Stormont and Ron McDowell on Belfast City Council have eased those concerns.

With an Assembly poll looming in 2027, returning the co-opted lone voice Gaston, and electing others to stand alongside him, will be key to the party's progress.

“I want the TUV to be in a position where they have to offer us a ministerial seat and we can turn around and say 'no thank you', we are going to lead the opposition,” Gaston said.

“Yes, we have the SDLP, but they're a part-time opposition.

“Northern Ireland cannot change course until we get rid of the Windsor Framework.

“The NI Protocol is the biggest danger to the Union. Making sure our place in our Union is restored is the TUV's main aim. We will take every opportunity afforded to us to make sure that happens.”

And rustling up more support for this aim will be the focus in May and June as TUV organises a number of roadshows.

The hangover from Brexit and the NI Protocol hasn't gone away, as far as TUV is concerned. Neither has Jim Allister. And his presence will continue to be a thorn in the side of his enemies, whether they be republican, nationalist or unionist.

''I have met six prime ministers. We do not even register on their list of priorities...'

AMY COCHRANE, Belfast Telegraph, March 23rd, 2026

SOUTH DOWN SINN FEIN MP CHRIS HAZZARD ON THE BENEFITS OF IRISH UNITY, WHY ABSTENTIONISM WORKS, AND HIS FRENCH HUGUENOT ANCESTORS WHO FOUGHT FOR KING WILLIAM AT BATTLE OF THE BOYNE

Sitting in his home in the shadow of the Mournes nursing a cup of coffee under a painting of a local harbour, Sinn Fein's Chris Hazzard explained how being an abstentionist MP for South Down allows him to be “on the ground” for his constituents.

Born in 1984, he remembers his teenage years after the Troubles ended in the quiet townland of Magheratimpany, just outside Ballynahinch.

Rural matters are still extremely important to him.

Despite his constituency office in Castlewellan being named after IRA men Peter McNulty and Paul Magorrian, the MP insists a lack of financial firepower at Stormont can help sway “middle voters” and the unionist population of South Down in the event of a border poll.

His French Huguenot ancestry and historic family links with William of Orange might also help.

He became the first Sinn Fein MP for South Down in 2017 following a stint as an MLA and Infrastructure Minister at Stormont before it collapsed due to the DUP's handling of the RHI scandal.

His priorities for much of the last decade have been the same as when he was an MLA.

“Things like infrastructure, improving our climate resiliency and building a sustainable model of tourism in this part of the world is what is important to me,” he said.

He said his continued engagement between Dublin and Stormont has helped make projects like the Ballynahinch Bypass and the €100 million Narrow Water Bridge project a reality and showed abstentionism isn't a bar to getting things done.

He pointed out: “Britain has just completely stopped investment in public infrastructure and public services. It's now one of the worst states in the G7.

“However, if you look at the Exchequer in Dublin and budget surplus that it runs, there are billions of euros just open for us, and the regional Assembly in Stormont cannot compete to that extent.

‘I don’t involve myself in parliamentary business at Westminster’

“The only thing that differentiates myself from another MP is that I don't involve myself in the parliamentary business at Westminster.

“I still have an office there and we have a fairly regular rota of engagements with the opposition party and the British government.

“But I believe that a British government has no right to legislate on behalf of the people of Ireland, and I don't believe I should be interfering in affairs of Britain either.

“My ability to be able to operate on the ground in the constituency to prioritise the delivery of a local play park or to work on infrastructure projects is hugely important, and I think my ability to be able to do that as an abstentionist MP is key to the success that we've had.”

Despite meeting six prime ministers, there is one “constant” as far as he is concerned: “We, the people of the north, do not register on their priorities.

“Westminster cares little for the north of England, never mind the north of Ireland,” he insisted.

“I hope we see a day fairly soon that a local political representative doesn't need to sit across the table from a British Prime Minister to make the case for sustainable funding for public services.”

He thinks a referendum on Irish reunification is likely “before the end of the decade”.

He added: “I firmly believe this is the type of change that we're going to see absolutely in our lifetime, and sooner rather than later.

“I would think it's responsible to start planning for it.”

Unionists in the constituency might disagree. How would he go about persuading them?

“My office is used day and daily by all political persuasions and none,” he said.

“When people walk through my office doors or contact me, I don't ask them about their preference when it comes to the constitution, what colour uniform their children wear when they go to school. Whatever their particular issue is, we

“Like all areas across the north, you know we have our issues still with sectarianism — it is still a disease that's through the fabric of the state.

“But in South Down I rarely ever deal with, what some might term, green or orange issues, when it comes to our consistency work. If you're a hill farmer in the Mournes struggling to make a living, you're not going to ask first and foremost about the constitutional question; it's about these bread and butter issues that people care about.”

He said he enjoys and enjoyed good relations with his political opponents, and recalled a running joke he had at Stormont with former DUP Finance Minister Simon Hamilton, a big Chelsea fan.

He explained: “We would always joke about Eden Hazard being a relative of mine... and, funnily enough, he might be.

Huguenoism doesn’t mean a whole lot today

“Hazzard is a French Huguenot name; they were Protestants in France who fled religious persecution and came to Ireland. We've done some research in the family and there were Hazzards who fought with William of Orange at the Battle of Boyne, and for their valour and courage were rewarded with lands in Fermanagh.

“But the term Hazzard originally in France was of Arabic origin, so people move all the time, and we are a very fluid community.

“That obviously doesn't mean a whole lot of who we are today. It's up to ourselves to walk forward and present ourselves to the world, but I think it's reflective of the very diverse nature of who we are, and that's something I see day and daily here in South Down.”

He argued, as it was essentially a “border constituency”, that makes presenting the case for Irish unity easier.

“South Down is ideally located on the Dublin to Belfast economic corridor and we are starting to see investment into some parts of our economy which simply wasn't there a number of years ago; that access to the European market is a huge feather in our cap,” Mr Hazzard said.

“For a huge proportion of the people, they live their lives daily and don't see a border. They go about their daily lives trying to put food on the table for their families and that's their main goal.

“People, at the end of the day, want a state that is able to provide for its citizens.”

His constituency office has led to some criticism from unionists, but he insists people from all sides walk through the door asking for help.

He said: “Sinn Fein have had an advice clinic in Castlewellen since the 1980s and it was named after two local republicans who also lost their life. Whenever I became MP I wasn't going to just go in and take the name down; what would that have said to those two families and to the local community? That they weren't entitled to remember their loved ones?

“I remember saying at the time that, just less than 50 yards from my office, there was a British war memorial, and the people of Castlewellan absolutely respect that memorial and the people named on it.

“Where I grew up in east Down, in that rural life, we had neighbours who were in the Orange Order, you had a real cross-section of the community and politics were very rarely ever raised.

“People who live in rural areas will understand that's just the way we get on with things.

“I was very lucky, I grew up largely in the 1990s and I have no real memory of the conflict apart from the Loughinisland massacre of 1994, just because it was so local.

“I still remember very vividly being at the Down match the next day and that eerie silence that completely blanketed the Athletic Grounds in Armagh.

“People don't realise that we're as far from the conflict now as what we would have been from the Second World War whenever we were first born.

“But we have a generation of young people now who maybe don't know an awful lot about it, who don't understand how hard won the peace was.

“So we need to ensure that we are diplomatic, that we understand other viewpoints, that we maybe walk in other people's shoes — and that's certainly how I've went about my politics and how I want to approach public life.”We do not even register on their list of priorities...'

Stormont spending increased by 15% over the past 15 years

JOHN MANLEY, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, Irish News, March 23rd, 2026

SPENDING by Stormont departments has increased by 15% in real terms over the past decade and a half, Sinn Féin Finance Minister John O’Dowd has revealed.

The period in question includes the nine years of so called Tory austerity when the Conservative-led British government cut public spending and introduced welfare reforms aimed at reducing the budget deficit in the wake of the financial crash.

But rather than cutbacks, the transfer of funds from London to Northern Ireland has increased by 15%, even allowing for inflation.

Earlier this month, The Irish News reported how Northern Ireland has 40% more public sector workers per capita than England.

While the region’s block grant reduced in four years in the last decade, the remainder saw increases, while there was a hike of almost 25% in 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic.

Secretary of State Hilary Benn has described last year’s £18.2 billion block grant as a “record settlement” and the “most generous” in the history of devolution.

‘Tory austerity’ and ‘British austerity’ have been a mantra from Stormont ministers over the last 15 years, with Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins reported to have used the phrases 132 times, including as an excuse for a misspelt road sign in Co Down.

Public spending ‘will grow only very slowly’ and this will be ‘challenging’

Mr O’Dowd revealed the real terms increase in departmental spending in response to a written Assembly question.

However, the minister confirmed that total spending by Stormont’s departments “has increased in real terms by approximately 15%” for both resource and capital DEL (departmental expenditure limit).

Tories more generous

Ulster University senior economist Esmond Birnie said funding was now “about one-seventh higher than it was as recently as the end of the 2010s”.

“Although the question from Mr Carroll was couched in terms of asking how big the real terms reduction had been over the last 15 years, in fact, there has been a substantial increase,” he told The Irish News.

“What you don’t get a sense of from either the way this question was put, or the answer, is the interesting way in which funding for the NI departments has varied over time within the period starting 2010,” he added.

The senior economist said that in the decade of austerity, funding did not decline in real terms “but rather it was roughly flat”.

“That in itself was something of a shock to the NI public sector, given that the system may have got used to several decades of year-on-year annual real terms growth,” he said.

He had been asked by People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll to detail the “reduction” in public spending over the past 15 years.

“Then beginning even before Covid in mid-2020 there was a sharp acceleration in spending growth and funding levels reached a peak in 2021-22. Very importantly, post-Covid levels of real terms funding did decline but they never returned to the levels experienced during 2010-18, so it is something of a glass half full or half empty situation.”

Mr Birnie said in real terms funding for regional public spending in the forthcoming financial year “will grow only very slowly” and that this would be “challenging”.

Mr Carroll said it was “somewhat surprising to learn that there has been an increase – albeit a very modest one”.

“But whatever way you cut these figures, ordinary people’s quality of life is clearly getting worse, not better,” he said.

“There’s more homelessness on our streets, hospital waiting lists are spiralling out of control, an SEN crisis is leaving children without the support they desperately need, and we’re witnessing widening inequality at every turn.”

The West Belfast representative said there was a “serious misalignment between public spending and the Executive’s political priorities”.

“No example illustrates that more starkly than MLAs giving themselves a 27% pay increase using public money,” he said.

“While families struggle to make ends meet, Stormont’s priorities remain firmly with those at the top.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Finance said: “The 2011–12 starting point for this analysis reflects a period of austeritydriven constraints on public spending.

“While the inflation measure used shows a 15% realterms increase, this does not fully capture the rising cost of delivering public services, which often outpaces general inflation due to population growth, changing demographics, an ageing population, and increased demand for services,” the spokesperson added.

Romanticising the Troubles: Student views on Irish unity

Mark Hennessy, Ireland and Britain Editor, Irish Times, March 23rd, 2026

Success of Kneecap has done much to spur the resurgence in popularity of the Irish language, say students in UCD

Madison Twamley, a third-year University College Dublin student from strongly unionist Newtownards, Co Down, spent her first St Patrick’s Day in Dublin two years ago enjoyably socialising with college friends.

Photographs were taken in great number, as they always are, with all of the usual festival backdrops that feature on social media around “Paddy’s Day”, filled with Tricolours, shamrocks, leprechauns.

For Twamley, however, such photographs posed an issue. “My parents are always really careful how they talk about my time here in Dublin,” says the politics, philosophy and economics student.

“Obviously I was covered in the Tricolour, because it’s St Patrick’s Day in Dublin, and they’re like, ‘Don’t put that on your social media, we can’t have our friends seeing that’.”

Twamley is one of a number of UCD students who spoke to The Irish Times around the St Patrick’s Day festival to discuss issues of identity, relations and understanding between North and South, and the constitutional question.

Like most students, they believe that the opinions they hold on such issues are ignored, misunderstood, neglected or subjected to simplistic judgments by older generations.

Reservations

For 22-year-old Tom Carolan, an economics and politics student from Ranelagh in Dublin, unification is “not going to be happening anytime soon”. “There’s a lot of work to be done,” he says.

“If a Border poll was held tomorrow – or within the next 10 years – it would fail, in the North, not in the South. In the South, I think it would pass, no matter when you’d hold it, even if people have a lot of reservations.

“Ultimately in the South, there’d be enough of an emotional vote from people for it to win. Whereas in the North, obviously a lot more factors would come into play, but I don’t think it would pass.”

For Carolan, the issue is time. “I think we probably will see a united Ireland in my lifetime, but I don’t think it will happen in the next 20 years. If you rushed it and a Border poll passed with 51 per cent in the North, it would be a bad foundation for a united Ireland.”

He says he places himself in “the John Hume school of politics: that we are not a divided nation, but a divided people”.

For Twamley, unification is a long way off, if it happens at all. “Maybe when I’m 99,” she says. A greater number of people in Northern Ireland are applying for Irish passports “but for many, that’s just about getting a shorter queue at the airport.

“I don’t actually have a valid British passport. I have my driver’s licence, which is technically a British ID,” she says.

Twamley is doubtful about the level of interest people in the South have on the issue. With a Presbyterian father from east Belfast and an American mother who came to Northern Ireland in 1997 and stayed, she grew up “in a mixed community, which was very important.

“People [in the South] don’t quite realise whenever I tell them I’m from Northern Ireland. They say, ‘I’ve been to Belfast, and that’s lovely.’ I’m like, ‘No, I don’t think you quite understand. Where I live, they fly the British flag everywhere’.

Twamley says has learned a lot more about the South since coming to Dublin, but she is conscious of the gaps. “I have never been to a GAA match, three years in.

“It wasn’t easy to get into it, because all the Irish people knew each other already before they came to UCD.”

The success of the Belfast rap band Kneecap has done much to spur the resurgence in popularity of the Irish language, although the students say they are uncomfortable when the language is used as a tool to divide, not unite.

For Carolan, the popularity of the band is based to some extent on a desire for youthful rebellion. “But it does say something deeper. Some people enjoy the balaclava [worn by band member DJ Próvaí], and have a good time at a concert, but some buy into what Kneecap say a lot more,” he says.

“I think there’s a little bit of romanticisation in our generation. No one in my generation lived through the Troubles.

‘Peace generation’

“Young people in the North now are the peace generation, so I think there’s a bit of forgetfulness there. But I do think that Kneecap would speak to a lot of people in our generation.”

For Jack Basquille the resurgence in the popularity of the Irish language is a joy for someone who grew up in an Irish-speaking household “in Dún Laoghaire, which is not exactly Connemara”.

Though a fan of Kneecap, Basquille, a 22-year-old final-year politics and Irish student, harbours doubts about the way some of its messaging lands. “Sometimes, Irish is seen as a political tool, which I’m not a huge fan of. I think it diminishes it.”

The conversation about unity must consider that there will be “a massive minority” who will either oppose it or fear its consequences, he says.

“The assumption a lot of people have, I think, of a united Ireland is that Northern Ireland and the unionist minority would just amalgamate and assimilate. That’s an ignorant thing to think, I feel, and probably quite dangerous.

“That’ll be years and years away, and take so much compromise. I don’t know if the Irish people are able for that, or if either community [is] able for that. There’s so much difference and people are so headstrong about this stuff.”

Often, the attitudes of young people are set against Electric Picnic videos of thousands of young people joining in with The Wolfe Tones on the “Ooh, Aah, up the ‘Ra” chorus of Celtic Symphony.

For Carolan, such moments can be over-interpreted, but also reveal something deeper: “You’ll hear lads after GAA matches singing that stuff. It’s so part of the Irish culture.

“Younger generations were less exposed to it. They see the photos of the IRA, the Armalite, the balaclava, and all that, and it seen as kind of cool, but the Troubles never affected a lot of people singing.”

For Twamley, the differences in songs and cultural references highlights the gap that exists between North and South. “I had never heard The Fields of Athenry until I was on a bus into town one night that was packed with first-year students.

“They started, and then they threw in the chorus of ‘Ooh, Aah, up the ‘Ra’. It was a very strange experience, I have to say. Initially, it was a little bit frightening, because the IRA is very serious. I don’t know why people joke about it.”

Unlike most southerners of his generation, Basquille went to the North “maybe five times last year, not more than that”, where he and friends “rocked up in Belfast with our GAA bags, most of us speaking Irish, to play American football, which is massive up there”, he says.

‘King Billy murals’

“We got into a black taxi, expecting that we would be taken to some AstroTurf pitch, but, instead, we ended up in an estate adorned with UVF flags and King Billy murals where we played on the green in a housing estate.”

Preparations for “the Twelfth” were everywhere in Wedderburn Park in Finaghy, with “a massive pile” of pallets for a bonfire stacked on one side. One of the group worried about whether they should cover up their O’Neills kit bags.

“We spoke in Irish. They couldn’t care less. It didn’t bother them at all.”