Tag: ireland

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has banned another rescue ship carrying forty migrants from entering Italian waters. The Alan Kurdi is run by German charity Sea-Eye and is heading towards Lampedusa. It is currently travelling towards the Italian island and will arrive in the afternoon of August 1. This rescue mission comes shortly after more than one-hundred migrants were allowed to disembark from a different boat in Sicily. But they were only able to do so after a new deal...

Italy said on Wednesday it would allow an Italian coastguard ship to finally disembark 116 migrants who were stranded for days in a Sicilian port, ending its latest standoff with the European Union over migration policy. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said he had reached a deal with the EU for Germany, France, Portugal, Luxembourg and Ireland to take in the asylum seekers who were rescued at sea last week. The Bruno Gregoretti coastguard ship was given permission to dock but...

Boris Johnson has travelled to Northern Ireland for the first time since assuming his role as UK's prime minister to tackle several issues in government and on Brexit. Meeting for talks with the country's five main political parties on Wednesday, Johnson is expected to encourage cooperation to restore the region's power-sharing government, which collapsed in 2017. Brexit is also expected to feature in discussions as Johnson's hardline approach to the UK leaving the European Union with or without a deal will...

European leaders congratulated Boris Johnson after he won the race to lead the UK's Conservative party and become the UK's next prime minister, but many acknowledged the challenges that lie ahead. Johnson has said that the UK should be willing to consider a no-deal Brexit. After current leader Theresa May announced her departure in May, he commented: "We will leave the EU on October 31, deal or no deal. The way to get a good deal is to prepare for a...

UK MPs today approved an amendment by 315 votes to 274 that makes it more difficult for the next prime minister to force through a no-deal Brexit by suspending Parliament. The amendment blocks a suspension between October 9 and December 18 unless a Northern Ireland executive is formed. The House of Lords got behind the measure on Wednesday evening. The frontrunner in the Conservative leadership race, Boris Johnson, has not ruled out suspending Parliament if he becomes prime...

Both candidates to become Britain’s prime minister significantly hardened their position on any potential Brexit deal on Monday, saying the previously-agreed Northern Ireland backstop was “dead.” Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt said they wouldn’t consider it in any deal they negotiate with the EU, not even if it was time-limited. It means both candidates on the race, which will be decided on July 23, are edging further towards a no-deal Brexit. Brussels has repeatedly ruled out renegotiating the withdrawal agreement it...

A member of the House of Lords in the UK who previously campaigned against civil unions for same-sex couples said that his daughter is married to another woman. David Trimble is a big deal in conservative politics in Northern Ireland. From 1995 to 2005, he led the Ulster Unionist Party, and now he’s a Conservative member of the House of Lords. In 1998, he and John Hume won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping negotiate the Good Friday Agreement, which helped...

A new ad for Dublin Bus was released this week that celebrates LGBTQ elders and Pride. The ad, entitled “The Long Road To Pride,” tells a few of the elders’ stories. One gay man said that, when he was younger, he told his doctor that he couldn’t live without affection. “What right have you to affection?” the doctor responded. A lesbian said that she knew when she was a kid that “there is something mentally or physically wrong” with her because...

A gay man in Ireland has sued the government to lift a ban on gay men donating blood. 27-year-old Tomás Heneghan has argued that the current regulations by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS), which require gay men to abstain from sex for 12 months before donating, codifies unlawful discrimination against gay men. Heneghan kicked off his lawsuit after doctors refused to allow him to donate blood this past April. Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time Heneghan has tried...

A controversial US preacher has become the first person to be banned from Ireland under a 20-year-old power. Steven Anderson, a pastor from Arizona, runs the Faithful Word Baptist church and openly expresses anti-gay and anti-Semitic views. His website claimed that he was due to preach in Dublin on 26 May. However, an online petition calling for Mr Anderson to be banned from Ireland was created in response, and gained 14,000 signatures. Jamaica bans anti-gay preacher Botswana deports Steven Anderson Anderson: "Hell's...

I'm saddened but not surprised. This hateful banner was found hanging over an overpass on an expressway in Northern Ireland, according to Attitude. How annoying that people are still like this. Both the Irish and LGBTQ people have historically been subjected to unfair persecution. Seriously, go read "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift and... pretty much anything I've written on here. It's mostly negative. The banner was discovered on October 19th by Amanda Ferguson. She posted a picture of the...

Cleric at center of sex film scandal given 'personal leave' by church A young priest in Ireland, who was filmed having gay sex on the altar of a church, has gone into hiding after being placed on leave. The man has reportedly been removed from his duties to deal with personal issues and mental health problems. A report in the Irish Mirror newspaper, claims that the daily has seen an internal church document confirming that the priest at the center of the...

I love seeing the pictures of prides around the world. Viewing how some countries that are further along in and others that are just starting out in the LGBTQ+ equality fight are celebrating their prides is full of emotions. Knowing that some have such a long way to go, others are doing it better than the US, and knowing that the entire overall theme is L.O.V.E. The American Pride movement of course started with the riots at Stonewall Inn. Not...

Always a huge deal in Europe, the 63rd annual Eurovision Song Contest is currently underway in Lisbon, Portugal, with 43 countries vying for this year’s title. Representing Ireland this year, former Britain’s Got Talent finalist Ryan O’Shaughnessy took to the big stage to perform his single, “Together.” The music video for the song, which chronicles the breakup of a couple, features way cute dancers Kevin O’Dwyer and Alan McGrath falling in and out of a tender, romantic dance on the streets...