The Centre for Cross Border Studies

Every two or three years the Centre for Cross Border Studies comes close to running out of money. The begrudgers on the Slugger O’Toole website may not believe it, but a small ‘stand alone’ research and development centre in [...]

On 8 March the NI Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness will launch the sixth edition of the Centre’s annual research publication, The Journal of Cross Border Studies in Ireland. One of the most interesting articles featured in it is [...]

Why is the health system in the Republic of Ireland so poor?  One way to begin to answer this extremely complicated question might be to compare it with the health system in Northern Ireland, which, while being very far [...]

Because it’s coming up to Christmas, I am going to devote this month’s column to a good news story: Northern Ireland’s internationally recognised leadership in the use of ICT in schools, a story which is almost completely unknown south [...]

Six months ago I wrote in this column about the very generous welfare payments being paid in the Republic of Ireland, sometimes two or nearly three times the equivalent levels paid in the North(1). As the Republic now [...]

At least we now know where we are now in Ireland, North and South, in the worst financial crisis to have hit the island in living memory. At time of writing the Irish Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan, has said [...]

I’d like to return to the theme of energy cooperation in Ireland. This month’s belated row over the purchase (announced in July) of Northern Ireland Electricity by the Irish government-owned Electricity Supply Board – which, interestingly, saw Peter Robinson [...]

As a former journalist, I do relish getting hold of a government report that makes eminently sensible recommendations but which politicians for some obscure reason do not want the public to see. So I was delighted when earlier this [...]

Armagh is now on the Irish diplomatic circuit.  Next month the highly regarded Southern Joint Secretary of the North South Ministerial Council (NSMC), Tom Hanney, leaves to become Irish ambassador to Belgium. His successor, Anne Barrington, is finishing her [...]