In
The Borders we have the
Berwickshire every Thursday and in Newcastle, Norn Iron where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea we have a choice every Wednesday of the very local
Mourne Observer and the adjacent
Down Recorder. If the local press reflects the society we live in then give me the Borders every time. So active is the political scene in Berwickshire in early April that our MSP can devote his whole weekly column to the launch of a Borders Bird Book-orgastic stuff for the Twitchers no doubt but not some thing that is going to excite the masses and roll out the barricades on the banks of the Tweed. By contrast the press here is highly politicised and with the absence of a functioning Northern Ireland Assembly local politicians strut their stuff attracting as many column inches as they can seeking media attention from theworthy: disabled access to Newcastle Harbour to the sectarian: A march through tourist infested Newcastle on Easter Sunday to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the Easter Rising. Not quite going back to Cromwell but recent enough to inflame a passion or two. The local Sinn Fein councilor is a dab hand at this publicity game and it is a rare edition of the Mourne Observer which does not have at least a couple of photographs of him and a dozen more references placed by his hard working publicists.
The Berwickshire letter columns this week got worked up about damage to a war memorial and the sad closing of a village shop in a Berwickshire village- almost the last of a dying institution but the columns of the MO and the DR are filled with hate mail as rival politicians rip points off each other in most intemperate language. The rest of the paper apart from cataloguing crimes, many of them still indicative of still deeply divided society where 11 year boys can still attack other youngsters not over the great issues of the moment-Manchester United versus Arsenal-but because the 'others' are Protestants and they are Catholics, or the vicer the verser (Bit like that other big issue of the moment Rangers and Celtic then? Blog-ed. Oh Shut up-Huttonian)-tend to fill up scores of pages in ensuring an equal coverage of Catholic and Protestant weddings-Nationalist and Loyalist sports : Gaelic Football versus Rugby Union-Shinty against Hockey- and even the obituaries are sectarianly balanced. Two many dead Prods and a few are held over a week or two. One of the recent obits provided a nice surprise -a Catholic who loved cricket-only in Norn Iron would one notice that as an oddity.
So we await with interest the Easter Rising Memorial March on Sunday. Nationalists are asked to carry Easter Lilies to commemorate the Irish dead. By contrast in Dublin (where the rising took place) all the dead are to be honoured. ( Like the Flodden event later this year) It seems that Republicans in the south have 'drawn a line and are moving on' But up here Sinn Fein and their Orange counterparts still seem stuck in the past: 1916 and 1689 respectively.
