The Green Ribbon

Wedding bliss

The heir to the throne is getting a little bit fed up with the media in the run-up to his forthcoming marriage, apparently.

When BBC Royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell asked Prince Charles about his feelings in the run-up to his wedding to Camilla Parker Bowles on 8 April in Windsor, he was given a terse reply.

"I am very glad you have heard of it, anyway," the prince said.

He added quietly to Prince William and Harry: "These bloody people. I can't bear that man. I mean, he's so awful, he really is."

Latest on NI tuition fees vote

Student news website The Rundown has an update on the continung fallout from the Commons vote to impose tuition fees on Northern Ireland:

A leading rebel over top-up fees, Labour MP for Selby, John Grogan, has written to the NUS to express concerns he has about the way in which MPs voted to introduce variable fees in Northern Ireland. Mr Grogan, described by the NUS as "a long standing supporter of the student movement and a key figure in the top-up fees furore", is understood to have informed NUS President Kat Fletcher that he and a number of rebels who were against variable fees voted for their introduction by mistake due to confusion over what was being voted on.

What happens to the North?

The Slugger O'Toole website has picked up Duncan Hamilton's recent Scotsman article on the rise of English nationalism, and asks what the break-up of the United Kingdom would mean for Northern Ireland: independence or a united Ireland?

Second-Generation Irish and Easter 1916

Sinn Fein commemorated the 1916 Easter Rising on Sunday. Fianna Fail is apparently holding its commemoration on the anniversary on 24 April.

One aspect of the Rising that is worth considering is the extent of the British connections on the republican side. The first signatory of the Proclamation of Independence, Thomas Clarke, was born on the Isle of Wight. James Connolly was born in Edinburgh. Padraig Pearse's father was born in Nottingham.

Irish plan for unity must learn from British experience

In my column for the Irish World this week, I look at the SDLP's plans for a united Ireland, and some of the lessons from Britain's experience with devolution.

ID cards Freedom of Information request

Back in January I applied under the new Freedom of Information Act for the correspondence between the British and Irish Governments on the Identity Cards Bill.

In February, I got a reply saying that the Home Office was carrying out a public interest test on whether it should release the information.

Last week, I heard the Department had decided not to disclose the information, after concluding under section 27 of the Freedom of Information Act that the interests of good relations between the two governments outweigh the public interest in disclosure.

They did however send me some documents which they concluded it was in the public interest to disclose. As you can imagine, they were fairly anodyne.

Nevertheless, I have done a story on them for the Irish World.

Bloody Sunday Tribunal play at the Tricycle

Good Guardian article today by Richard Norton-Taylor on his dramatisation of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, which is running at the Tricycle Theatre from 7 April.

I now feel I know every street, every corner where unarmed civilians fell dead or wounded, and every spot from which the Paras fired their rifles. Not because I have lived there or even because I have revisited Derry - I haven't. I feel I have come to know the place, and its ghosts, through hearing scores of witnesses and reading thousands of pages of transcript of the Bloody Sunday inquiry. This is the material - about 14m words spoken by more than 900 witnesses in the biggest investigation in British legal history - from which I have distilled the latest "Tribunal Play" at the Tricycle.

BBC Scotland's shame

The Nuzhound Northern Ireland news service has picked up a number of interesting GB articles lately.

One is this story from Scotland on Sunday on the recent Panorama documentary on West of Scotland sectarianism. Apparently, it has sparked something of an internal controversy at the BBC.

London St George's Day events

The GLA has announced a series of events to celebrate St George's Day on 23 April, a move which seems to have come as a pleasant surprise over at the Campaign for an English Parliament.

Howard on the Act of Settlement

Michael Howard has said the Tories would consider abolishing the Anti-Catholic elements in the Act of Settlement.

The Guardian has raised this issue in the past, but there seems to be a note of caution in Michael White's report.