A trip to Dublin the day before the State visit of Her Majesty The Queen takes some interesting turns around the city. Continue reading One Royalist, three Americans, as Dublin prepares to welcome Queen Elizabeth II
The proposal that we should have the possibility of bilingual traffic signs in Northern Ireland is seen as divisive. However, I think it could have a much more positive benefit to our country in general.
Until many, mostly political unionists and cultural Protestants, stop seeing any language use other that of English as an attack on being British, we will have a hard job in using any such language. However, as I have said before, and has been said by many, if these self same people would look back in their heritage they would find that they are likely to have ancestors who used Irish, and if not Irish, then Scots Gaelic. Scots Gaelic of course like Welsh is in use on roadsigns in other parts of their so-beloved United Kingdom. In other words, they need to relearn the history of this island and come to the understanding that diversity is often a way of unifying a whole country. Continue reading linguistic diversity should be a positive benefit to all
So the British railways* are to get investment of £8bn by the Coalition Government. Will there be further investment in the railway in Northern Ireland? Probably not.
Hopefully, the Northern Ireland block grant will get some money given to it using the Barnett formula, but I suppose it will be up to us to lobby Conor Murphy MP MLA, of Sinn Féin, the Minister for Regional Development Continue reading “everywhere else is getting investment in rail”
Translink, Northern Ireland’s publicly owned transport company has been quite good at introducing new tickets which are in the form of ‘Smartcards’ for some years now. Unfortunately, unlike in London, it is not possible to top them up online. It is possible to go online and buy a ‘whole new card’. Recently I asked Translink for an update on this issue, the response is posted below. We have carefully considered how we might introduce on-line top-ups for our Smartlink products. This will require time and investment in order to significantly develop current ticketing technology. In the meantime, we have been … Continue reading Buy your Smartcard online – and a new one next month… Translink fails NI
At a time when Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK not to have a budget in place, it is clear that spending will have to be curtailed as the money coming into the Province from Westminster is being reduced. Perhaps we will be able to bring more money in from tourists. read full story at Michael Carchrie Campbell Continue reading blogged elsewhere… No budget, but money to waste on misleading signs
This afternoon while I was visiting the capital, I had a cheque that needed to be trusted to the servants of Her Majesty’s Posts. I visited the Post Office next to St James’s Park Underground Station and came across another ‘customer experience improvement scheme’. Gone are the days of the good old British queue. Now we come in, press a button on a screen, be given a ticket with a number on it, and be asked to sit down on the ‘comfortable’ chairs to await service by one of the post office clerks. Upon being called by the machine to … Continue reading not just the posts but the trains and buses too…
On my way back from Foyle Pride on Saturday by train I noticed that there was an interesting sign on the opposite platform when we had stopped at Coleraine station.
This has the destinations of
Portrush Direct
and
P/Rush via P/Stewart
Now, this led to much discussion at our table Continue reading “is cromore halt open once more?”
Gyronny Herald 