Latest news with #BelfastCity
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
'A zippy, witty puzzler of conceptual cleverness': The best Literary Fiction out now - The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine, Monaghan by Timothy O'Grady, The Original by Nell Stevens
THE BENEFACTORS by Wendy Erskine (Sceptre £18.99, 336pp) Erskine, a secondary school teacher in Northern Ireland, made her name as a writer with short stories so brimful of life that they often seemed to overspill the ordinary bounds of the form. It's no surprise that her excellent debut novel somehow manages to make room for more than 50 characters, thanks to a polyphonic structure stringing loosely connected cameos around the main drama. Set in Belfast, it centres on the alleged sexual assault of a young hotel worker by three 18-year-old boys. The aftermath, explored chiefly from the point of view of everyone's parents, is interspersed with fleeting glimpses of unconnected stories from around the city, adding extra bite to the novel's key themes of money and responsibility. A bold narrative experiment, given legs by Erskine's near-magical ability to imagine her way into the tiniest details of everyday life. MONAGHAN by Timothy O'Grady (Unbound £16.99, 400pp) O'Grady's fourth novel – his first since 2004's Light – is a complex meditation on the legacy of conflict in Northern Ireland, exploring the undying sense of inner turmoil in its survivors and combatants. It's narrated by Ronan, an architecture lecturer in New York, whose midlife crisis accelerates when he falls into the orbit of a shadowy painter from the same Irish border town where he grew up. We plunge into each man's psyche amid a series of nested dialogues that fill gaps in Ronan's family history as well as fuelling the sense that, as an academic, he's been living a lie, far from the fray. Searing passages portray the bloodshed of the 1970s as a ceaseless cycle of payback, as the plot takes the form of a slow-burn cat-and-mouse quest luring the characters back into a past they can't escape. THE ORIGINAL by Nell Stevens (Scribner £12.99, 400pp) Stevens is an inventive memoirist and novelist whose work plays gleefully with the 19th-century canon – her previous books have involved the lives of Elizabeth Gaskell and French writer George Sand. Her new book – a pacy Victorian pastiche dealing with art and desire – has a lot of fun blurring the category advertised by its title, nudging us to reconsider what counts as genuine or fake. Set in 1899, it follows Grace, raised by an uncaring family on a country estate. As a budding painter, she has a lucrative talent for copying other people's canvases, yet can't recognise faces – which adds to the uncertainty when a visitor turns up claiming to be her long-lost cousin, lighting the fuse on a twisty plot of secrets and lies. A zippy, witty puzzler that puts its conceptual cleverness firmly in the service of readerly pleasure.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Anti-Irish language leaflets made us more determined to learn'
An Irish-language teacher whose class was targeted with leaflets saying "English is our mother tongue" has said the incident made people more determined to learn. Aoife Nic Giolla Cheara, 22, runs a free weekly Irish class at a pub in Belfast city centre. In December, her students discovered leaflets placed on their cars which said that most Irish people "should hate the Irish language". Police investigated the flyers as a "hate incident" but later said no offences were committed. Ms Nic Giolla Cheara, from west Belfast, grew up speaking Irish and said she felt "hurt" by what happened because the language is "all I've ever known". "When somebody says to me that there is no reasoning, there is no purpose, there is no need for it, it hurts," she said. The incident happened outside the bar on Dublin Road, where the Irish class was taking place. In a lengthy message, the flyers said the government "should respect the will of the Irish people not to speak Irish". At the time an Alliance Party councillor condemned the flyers, describing them as intimidating. "Irish belongs to our community who use and cherish it and people should be free to learn without this florid stupidity," Emmet McDonough-Brown said at the time. Ms Nic Giolla Cheara said she was "very concerned" about the impact on her students. "I don't want my class to feel unsafe or to feel that there's a disdain for them for just learning a language - it's ridiculous," she said. But the leaflets had the "opposite effect of what the person intended" and "if anything, they felt more motivated to learn". The Police Service of Northern Ireland it carried out a number of inquiries and determined that no offences had been committed. The development of policies in Northern Ireland on the Irish language has long been a focus of political disputes between unionists and Irish nationalists. Cross-border funding arrangements and proposals for bilingual signage at Belfast's Grand Central Station have been among the recent disagreements at Stormont. At local council level, there have also been disputes over the introduction of dual-language street signs in some neighbourhoods. You can see more on this story on Sunday Politics on BBC One Northern Ireland at 10:00 BST on Sunday and on BBC iPlayer. Irish street sign vandalism cost councils £60,000 NI language law could spell significant change
BBC News
14-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Belfast Irish teacher says leaflets made students more determined
An Irish-language teacher whose class was targeted with leaflets saying "English is our mother tongue" has said the incident made people more determined to Nic Giolla Cheara, 22, runs a free weekly Irish class at a pub in Belfast city December, her students discovered leaflets placed on their cars which said that most Irish people "should hate the Irish language".Police investigated the flyers as a "hate incident" but later said no offences were committed. Ms Nic Giolla Cheara, from west Belfast, grew up speaking Irish and said she felt "hurt" by what happened because the language is "all I've ever known"."When somebody says to me that there is no reasoning, there is no purpose, there is no need for it, it hurts," she incident happened outside the bar on Dublin Road, where the Irish class was taking a lengthy message, the flyers said the government "should respect the will of the Irish people not to speak Irish". At the time an Alliance Party councillor condemned the flyers, describing them as intimidating."Irish belongs to our community who use and cherish it and people should be free to learn without this florid stupidity," Emmet McDonough-Brown said at the Nic Giolla Cheara said she was "very concerned" about the impact on her students."I don't want my class to feel unsafe or to feel that there's a disdain for them for just learning a language - it's ridiculous," she the leaflets had the "opposite effect of what the person intended" and "if anything, they felt more motivated to learn". The Police Service of Northern Ireland it carried out a number of inquiries and determined that no offences had been development of policies in Northern Ireland on the Irish language has long been a focus of political disputes between unionists and Irish funding arrangements and proposals for bilingual signage at Belfast's Grand Central Station have been among the recent disagreements at local council level, there have also been disputes over the introduction of dual-language street signs in some can see more on this story on Sunday Politics on BBC One Northern Ireland at 10:00 BST on Sunday and on BBC iPlayer.
The Guardian
11-06-2025
- The Guardian
Country diary: A horse chestnut that knows a bit about risk and reward
Ormeau Park is Belfast's oldest municipal park, but it was once the country estate of the second Marquis of Donegall (1769-1844). An inveterate gambler, the marquis retreated here to escape his creditors in England, finally taking up residence to spend his life surfing his debts. Belfast's expansion in the 18th century had led to widespread deforestation, and this may have inspired the once-modish name 'Ormeau' – from the French ormes au bord de l'eau, meaning 'elms by the water'. After all, mature elms were sufficiently scarce by this time (long before Dutch elm disease) to have been a status symbol. Below the Lagan's old riverbank, where rakish young elms are still growing, I look across the grass that used to be marsh or mudflats. Next to the park railings, as if shaped by early trauma, an aged horse chestnut tree leans firmly away from the river that's now below the embankment – a perilous position, given that any surge of the Lagan would have inundated this ground. Could this stooped grandee have survived being almost drowned? Although the embankment wasn't completed until after his death, the marquis began landscaping here in the 1820s. If he planned to locate a horse chestnut there, the risk fits with his reputation. He would also have been following a fashion that established the horse chestnut as one of our most beloved trees – the species is native to the Balkan peninsula but, starting its journey as a 16th-century gift of the Ottoman empire to Vienna, its beauty gradually 'conkered' all of Europe. After he died, the marquis's bankrupt estate was sold off, setting off a chain of events that ultimately brings me here. As I approach the horse chestnut, I tread a brown mulch of petals that only a few weeks ago were the dazzling cream and pink inflorescences that light up the species' spring foliage. They have left behind twigs lobed with the next generation, in among the dark green of the large, hand-like leaves. I reach up and touch a young fruit. Its spikes are soft and pliable. They'll harden as the fruit ripens. Come autumn, I'll revert to childhood and scour the leaf litter for the seeds, those richly gleaming conkers. But I'll leave them to take their chance. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
BBC News
03-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Belfast: Man arrested after sectarian attacks on homes
A 45-year-old man has been arrested by police investigating sectarian-motivated attacks on houses in north Belfast. Masonry was thrown at properties on Annalee Street and Alloa Street by masked suspects on 21 May.A number of families whose homes were targeted in the cross-community housing development later said they planned to leave the man, who was detained on Tuesday, has been charged with criminal damage and is expected to appear in court in Belfast next month.
