Belfast Telegraph Wednesday January 5 2011 by Donna Deeney

Anne Marie makes a splash with global swimming prize

A 44-YEAR-OLD woman who swam from Northern Ireland to Scotland has made a major splash after being named the World Open Water Female Swimmer of the Year.

Anne Marie scooped more than 47% of the total vote organised by Open Water Swimming.

The Co Donegal health care worker was shortlisted in November for her heoic efforts in swimming the Irish Channel between Co Antrim and Scotland.

The Health Care worker is one of of only 11 people to successfully conquer the notorious 18-mile stretch of water.

Parties unite to call for St Patrick's Day holiday
Saturday, 15 January 2011

Leading nationalist and unionist politicians have called on the Government to make St Patrick's Day a public holiday in Northern Ireland.

March 17 is known around the world as the day to celebrate Ireland's patron saint, but while it is a full public holiday in the Irish Republic, it is only a bank holiday north of the border.

Leader of the nationalist SDLP Margaret Ritchie has written to Secretary of State Owen Paterson on the issue, and her call for a change has been backed by Democratic Unionist MP Ian Paisley Junior.

Ms Ritchie is MP for South Down, where St Patrick is reputed to be buried in the grounds of the Church of Ireland's Down Cathedral in the town of Downpatrick.

"Patrick is one thing that we can all, Catholic and Protestant, unite around in Northern Ireland," she said.

"His legacy unites us all and he is a unifying figure in Northern Ireland.

"He is a symbol of reconciliation and a symbol of unity between communities."

She said Mr Paterson should back her calls for action on marking the day with a public holiday. The SDLP leader said the move was long overdue.

A conference will be held in the St Patrick's Centre tourist facility in March. The venue is next to where the saint is said to be buried and it is hoped the event will act as a launch-pad for raising the profile of the ecclesiastical history surrounding Patrick's story.

Conflicting accounts of his history have mingled with myth over the centuries.

The young Patrick was said to have been kidnapped at the age of 16 in Britain and brought to Ireland as a slave, before he escaped, only to return to Ireland as a missionary.

Ms Ritchie said: "It is a sleeping giant for tourism."

Her call for a public holiday was backed by Mr Paisley, whose father had previously made a similar call.

But Mr Paisley Jnr wanted to put his own constituency on Patrick's historical map.

"I think it is actually my party's policy to have a public holiday," he said.

"St Patrick was a prototype Protestant, so why would anyone have any problem."

And in a sign of the competition between the regions that lay claim to the saint's legacy, he added: "And he lived on Slemish mountain near Ballymena in my constituency, so even better... I know there is some myth he had something to do with Downpatrick."

Suppose the Irish have always been very good at making a lie up and making it stick, re-branding everything.

Margaret Ritchie is right, it is something that can be used to “unite Protestants and Catholics” and is just another part of the blending in process, as for the DUP just more useless populist politics, they are thinking more of people thinking they’ve got them another day of work, rather than the long term damage they are doing to our community. Might sound over-dramatic, but a wee bit here and a wee bit there all adds up and is a slow drip towards the destruction of Ulster.

I seen in the NL last week that NI wanted to enter a hockey team for the next Commonwealth Games. It was turned down by the world hockey authorities. Do those in hockey etc not realise when they set out on a course of an all-ireland set-up what the consquences would be. At one time you had the choice of playing for GB or Ireland that choice was taken away a few years back as far as I know. Rugby (a league) too was organised on an NI basis at one time, this too changed just before hockey did the same. Kate Hoey complained about NI young tennis players not being part of the British Coaching system as Andy Murray was. She was told that as they were Irish they were part of the Irish Coaching system and should apply to them re coaching. It amazes me how people in politics are not aware of this and are blind to the future when they go down this road of all-ireland arrangements.

Paddy's Day is a National Holiday in Eire. If this goes ahead (abley supported by Paisley and others) it will eventually be referred to as a National Holiday for the whole island. And so it goes on.

Same goes for cricket, a good few of the Irish cricket team are Ulster Protestants. With rugby, the blending in process has occurred over many years, I know quite a few Ulster Prods especially up in the North Coast area who are big fans of the Irish rugby team and regularly attend the matches and it’s disheartening and sad seeing them walk around in a Irish rugby regalia. Before our football team started to improve, the time we went for ages before Sanchez took charge without scoring a goal, there was a hell of a lot a talk of a All Ireland football team, thankfully as the team improved and the Republic got worse, this talk started to dry up, but things like this Setanta cup and our local league retaining its name as the Irish League is a major rope around our necks.

That about the hockey was about a week ago (maybe two) in the NL. But its ongoing in other ways hardly noticed cause they are a small happening. I noticed that the man who fell though ice in Lurgan Park and eventually died had an Irish Coastguard helicopter in attendance. This at a time when they were talking of closing the coastguard down here. OK any port in a storm and ifs to save a life,but I'm sure it could have been managed to have aBritish helicopter there. Just a small thing I know but another link in the chain...to Eire.?

The blending in process is in full swing as for the threat level, yes the threat of violence is no-where near the same level, but the threat of Irish conquest over Ulster is at an all time high, with more and more once staunchly loyalist areas being integrated and eventually took over in the changing demographics.

I think it was you said that they would take Ulster without a shot being fired. While in a political sense a United Ireland might be a long way a way, but culturally and at a ground level, it's being pulled from right below our feet.

The blending in process was the subject of an article in the BT and that was before the Belfast Agreement. Some professor/doctor something advocated this and it looks like the unionist politicans have taken it on board. The same politicans who said they were acting under duress when they went into goverment with the shinners. They definitely didn't look and act like people who were reluctant to be involved with the shinners.

Its all a scam on the loyal people of Ulster. They didn't have to be pally-wally with them. The Westminsters masters could certainly have brought in legislation and the unionists politicans didn't need to do anything to make it easier for them by recieving McAleese and the hundreds of other bits of knee-bending they have done.

We have certainly moved a long long way from the stance of Belfast Lord Mayor Herbie Ditty when he refused to meet his Dublin counterpart.

I see McAleese was on the Newtownards Rd recently and was met by all the 'great and good' from East Belfast who I think included Mervyn Gibson. There is no doubt about it,people are fickle and will come to accept the once unacceptable.

The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually.[1] According to contemporary biologists the premise of the story is not literally true; an actual frog submerged and gradually heated will jump out.[2][3] However, some 19th century research experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true, provided the heating is gradual enough.[4][5]

As a community we are known for the odd knee-jerk reaction, but things that happen over a gradual period, like the greening of Ulster and we just sit idly by.

I look at East Belfast, Prods fought against Short Strand, to keep those Protestant streets beside Short Strand from falling into republican hands yet when the fenians gradually one house at a time buy property and move into once staunchly loyalist parts of East Belfast, the same loyalist paramilitaries that fought to keep Cluan Place etc Protestant soil, sit with their hands on their pints talking about how super loyalist East Belfast is.

That’s not a dig at East Belfast, it’s the same throughout Ulster. In Coleraine, the main loyalist housing estates are around 20-30% Roman Catholic. In Londonderry the prods fight to maintain the fountain, a fight that’s worth fighting and to keep Irish Street safe from republicans in the Waterside, yet the taigs are moving in and now make up the majority. We need to wake up, the few loyalist heartlands that we have left are being taken over before our eyes, yet we are told that the future of this Country is safe. Well sorry for being a non-conformist idiot with my head stuck up my backside, but the reality is demographics is destiny and if people can’t understand that simple fact, then fuck them their opinions and political outlook in my mind is seriously flawed.

I have said it before how it used to bug me when unionists politicans taunted the shinners by saying 'wheres your mandate?' and refusing to talk to them because they hadn't a mandate. It was just a matter of time before they would get one. History has shown us that. But it looks like unionist politicans don't do history.

Captain LPS Orr was the MP for South Down as was later Enoch Powell. When the seat went to Eddie McGrady he said ''the border has now moved to Belfast''. Its a continuing back-peddling and most of its due to their incompentence,lack of pre-planning, organisation and backbone.

I have thought myself that if they didn’t get re-elected that it might make them shape up, but unfortunately there is just to much dead-wood or long standing family friendships at local branch levels that in many cases leads to the most capable individual candidate not being selected in place of some eejits who have the support of his or her like click within the branch. People that play games like that, when it comes to selecting the figureheads to lead the political fight for Ulster and are people, are nothing but vermin, who are playing with the fate of this nation.