Shend

I have just come across an old cutting from the Irish Times.  In his column Words We Use, Diarmaid O Muirithe explains the word shend, which is still used by some Ulster-Scots speakers in the Ards peninsula.

According to the Scots dictionaries it means 'to chide, reprove; to confound; to disgrace.'  The word also has the meansing of 'mar, destroy, ruin' and from it we get the noun shendship, meaning 'ruin, confusion'.

A correspondent to Diarmaid recalled her mother saying, 'Don't dare go to church in that gaudy dress, you'll have us all shent.'

The word is from the Old English scendan, 'to put to shame, to injure.'

Social Security Agency's Innovation Fund

This is the speech I delivered today at the launch of the Innovation Fund in Belfast City Hall:

Tackling poverty has never been a more crucial issue for Government in Northern Ireland than in the present economic climate.  People at all levels of society across Northern Ireland are feeling the impacts of the current recession and it is more important than ever that the Social Security Agency is at the forefront of addressing and mitigating the impacts of poverty by ensuring that those who need it most are receiving the financial assistance to which they are entitled.

The Executive recognises the challenges for those people who are most disadvantaged within our society and are taking the necessary steps to address this need to ensure that those people have the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from increased prosperity.

The Social Security Agency has, since 2005, had a specific target to encourage benefit uptake and has taken forward a wide range of programmes in support of this target.  This work has generated an additional £37.6m to date in benefit awards with £3.95m of this in the last 12 months alone.  The Agency is continuing to build upon its commitment to helping reduce the impacts of poverty by encouraging people to check they are receiving their full benefit entitlement.

This year the Agency has significantly increased its investment in benefit uptake work, including, introducing two new initiatives, one of which is the Innovation Fund; and the second a province wide advertising campaign which will be announced shortly.  The Agency has a proven track record of working successfully with Third Sector partners, including organisations who focus on specific customer groups as well as voluntary and community sector organisations who work at grass roots level.  All of this is focused on connecting to those in our communities who may be hardest to reach and who may be entitled to financial support.

This year the Social Security Agency is launching, on a pilot basis, an Innovation Fund of £250,000 to encourage partners in the voluntary and community sector to take a lead in testing new and fresh approaches to reaching people with potential benefit entitlement.  The response to a competitive tendering competition was very encouraging with 27 proposals being submitted by 19 local organisations.

I am also particularly pleased that Atlantic Philanthropies has decided to make an additional investment of £125,000 to support the objectives of the Innovation Fund.  Atlantic Philanthropies is a Foundation which shares many of the objectives of my Department in building sustainable communities, addressing disadvantage and mitigating poverty.  I would like to publicly thank Atlantic Philanthropies for their commitment and investment.  I would also like to thank Ken Logue personally for his work on developing the Innovation Fund to date and for his promised commitment to working in partnership with us in monitoring and evaluating the outcomes.  This further investment by Atlantic Philanthropies means that we now have £375,000 to allocate, rather than the £250,000 originally envisaged.  As a consequence we can now fund 7 separate projects to run for the next 12 months.

The successful projects seek to target a wide range of people who may not be claiming their full entitlement, such as those in part time work on lower levels of income, those with health issues, including cancer, young people with special needs, older people, those living with disability and carers.  This is encouraging and I also like the fact that proposed new and innovatve technologies are being tested.

I congratulate the successful organisations and look forward to the outcomes of your efforts.  I would also like to commend staff for their past and continued efforts in serving the people of Northern Ireland so well.

The IRA in the 2nd World War

The Irish News runs a daily column entitled 'On This Day' in which historian Eamon Phoenix looks at events that happened 'on this day' some years ago and today he looked back to 1 November 1942.

Britain and her allies were at war with Germany but back in Ulster  the IRA saw this as their opportunity and during the course of the war they staged many terrorist attacks.  Today the newspaper reported that 69 years ago 'ten people - eight civilians and two policemen - were injured by a violent bomb explosion in Herbert Street, off the Crumlin Road' in North Belfast.

Five of the injured were children ranging from seven to fifteen years and six people were detailed in hospital.  A police patrol in Herbert Street had challenged two men, both of whom ran away, dropping a Mills grenade and a loaded revolver.  The grenade exploded injuring eight civilians, one of whom was a seven-year-old boy named Patrick Scullion, from Butler Street.  Most, if not all, of the civilians were Roman Catholics from Ardoyne.  The two policemen were also injured and all the injuries were caused by bomb splinters.

As we approach Remembrance Sunday and remember those who served and those who died in two World Wars and other conflicts, it is helpful to recall incidents such as that in Herbert Street.  Such incidents help to explain why the Sinn Fein lord mayor of Belfast will once again refuse to take part in the offical remembrance ceremonies.

At a time when many Ulstermen and Irishmen, Protestant and Roman Catholic, were fighting on the battlefields of Europe and beyond, fighting to thwart Hitler's evil plans, the IRA was mounting a squalid little terrorist campaign.  I have posted about the links between the IRA and the Nazis on previous occasions but today's newspaper was a timely reminder of those links. 

BBC pundit and former GAA star 'praises' IRA leader

Last week the front page story in the Sunday Life carried the headline 'BBC STAR IRA ROW - GAA pundit says sorry for praising Provo chief'.  The story then continued over two pages in the newspaper.

Jarlath Burns is a school teacher, a former Armagh GAA captain, and now a BBC sports pundit.  Recently he appeared at a Sinn Fein rally in Dublin at which a number of celebrities endorsed Martin McGuinness in his campaign for president of the Irish Republic.  It seems that theer were many celebrities at the event but it was Burns who got the publicity.  His participation, his support for McGuinness and his comments about an IRA commander have certainly attracted attention.

During his speech at the rally, Jarlath Burns praised Peter John Caraher, a former neighbour, who died on 10 October.  He boasted that, 'When the British thought that they ruled South Armagh ... South Armagh was being ruled from Peter John Caraher's house.'

Caraher was the IRA commander in South Armagh and is believed to have been one of the IRA gunmen involved in the Kingsmills massacre.

When he was challenged by the newspaper about his comments, Burns described himself as a 'peace-loving person' and said, 'I'd be offended if someone took a comment at a rally about a neighbour of mine as any way whatsoever supporting violence or suporting people being killed.  That was unscripted.  I probably should have scripted it a wee bit better and shown a bit more sensitivity, but the point I was making was Peter John Caraher was someone who went the same journey as Martin McGuinness.'

He was also asked about the allegation, made under parliamentary privilege in 2007, that Caraher had sanctioned the murder of Paul Quinn by IRA men in South Armagh.  In response to this Jarlath Burns replied, 'I don't know about that, the death of Paul Quinn.'

'I fully and 100 percent understand (that people may be upset at the remarks) and I would never seek to offend anybody with what I say or what I do.'

However, many people will be surprised at the appearance of a BBC sports commentator at an election rally for a Sinn Fein leader. 

Even more will be surprised that a BBC sports commentator freely commends a former IRA commander, who 'ruled' what is known as 'Bandit country'.  Burns says that the comments were unscripted but is that not the sort of situation in which an individual speaks from the heart?

Since then Lord Morrow has called for strong action by the BBC against their commentator and we

must wait to see the response of the BBC.

The Sunday Life report also recalled that Burns 'has come under fire before for making political comments'.  Last year he wrongly accused me of 'bigoted political chicanery' in relation to planning permission for the expansion of a GAA club.  As the paper noted, 'McCausland's then Culture and Sport ministry had not been responsible for dealing with the planning application.'  That is absolutely right and I dealt with that matter in this blog on 10 March 2010.  I had no connection at all with the decision but his false accusation provided another insight into the man's mindset.

The Dublin rally is not, of course, the first appearance by Jarlath Burns on a Sinn Fein platform.  Last year he was one of the speakers at a Sinn Fein conference in London and that was the occasion on which he made the false accusation.

It seems that whenever he makes his, now annual, appearance at a Sinn Fein event, he manages to make a newsworthy statement!  Yes I think the BBC has some thinking to do.

More money for housing

Yesterday in the October Monitoring round, the DFP minister Sammy Wilson allocated an additional £10m for the Northern Ireland Co-ownership Housing Association and £2m for energy efficiency improvements to social housing.

Originally there was £15m in the budget this year for co-ownership housing but last month it became clear that some additional money might be available and I met with the Co-ownership Housing Association to see if they could allocate any additional money.  Recently the demand has been greater than they could meet and they have ben operating a lottery system to see who they could help.  They assured me that the demand was there and that they could handle the additional work.  As a result I bid for £10m in the monitoring round and it has been allocated.

However it was also important to ensure that the banks were on board for this additional demand, that they would be able to meet the demand and that they would be able to handle the mortage element quickly enough to anable purchasers to complete their house purchases in time.  Sammy Wilson and I met with the banks on two occasions and they assured us that they could process the mortgage element in time.

This is good news and will enable 170 more people to acquire a home under co-ownership.  These are people who could not otherwise afford to get on to the property ladder but through this scheme they will have an affordable home.

This year along, through co-ownership and the first-buy scheme, we will be able to help 700 families acquire and affordable home.

Another important issue is fuel poverty and the best way to address this is through improving the energy efficiency of homes.  However 60% of Housing Executive homes syill have single glazed windows.  The allocation of £2m will enable them to install double glazing and better insulation in many homes.  I had bid for £4m but if the Housing Executive are able to have the £2m spent in time there should be another £2m available in the next monitoring round.

All of this is good new for the construction industry as it will create additional work for the building trade.  They will also benefit from additional allocations to the Department of Education for school maintenance and to the DRD for roads.

Three terrorist brothers

On 6 December 1975 two IRA terrorists from the South Armagh Brigade were killed when a land mine they were working on exploded prematurely at Kelly's Road, Killeen.  The terrorists were Sean Campbell (20) and James Lochrie (19).

However Sean was not the only terrorist in the family.  Two of his brothers, Liam and Michael, refused to accept the IRA ceasefire and left to join the Real IRA.

Liam has been identified as one of the terrorists behind the Real IRA bomb in Omagh in 1998, which killed 29 innocent people.  The Omagh families took a civil case against against four men, one of them Liam Campbell, and a court heard that the case against Campbell was 'overwhelming'.

Meanwhile Michael Campbell has just been convicted in Lithuania of trying to purchase weapons and explosives for the Real IRA and he has been sentenced to twelve years in prison.  During the case it was revealed that he planned to use the weapons and exposives in terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Liam and Michael are certainly in the news but their brother Sean Campbell is not forgotten.  Dromintee GAA Club has named its ground Lochrie-Campbell Park, in memory of the two IRA terrorists.  There is also a Lochrie-Campbell Memorial Cup and GAA minor teams compete for the trophy.

The conviction of Michael Campbell is to be welcomed and it may well pave the way for the extradition and conviction of Liam Campbell.  Meanwhile the fact that the Dromintee GAA ground is still named after their terrorist brother and his associate is a reminder that while some things have changed in the GAA, there is still more to be done.  The GAA speaks of 'reaching out to unionists' but any gestures in that direction are contradicted by sitiuations such as that in Dromintee.

A hopeless place?

The pop singer Rihanna caused some controversy during her recent visit to Northern Ireland, as regards both the filming of a video and her performance at the Odyssey, when fans were kept waiting for her to appear. 

Part of the video was filmed in the New Lodge Road area in North Belfast and crowds of local people flocked round her during her time in the area.  They were excited and delighted about her visit to the New Lodge but I wonder what their reaction is now that the video is out?  Apparently much of it involves her singing 'I found love in a hopeless place'.  This is set against a background of drugs, alcohol and gambling, interspersed with shots of the New Lodge flats and views of the general area. 

A hopeless place?  Fortunately most people who see the video will have no idea where it was filmed.