Where is loyalism in 2024 and how much has changed since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998?
In this special live episode of the popular Shrapnel podcast hosts Sam McIlwaine a self-described ‘socialist loyalist’ from the Shankill and Gareth Mulvenna, a Catholic who has researched loyalism extensively for almost 20 years, are joined by a panel of three guests representing alternative voices from within the broad spectrum of loyalism.
Beano Niblock is a former loyalist prisoner and the writer of the acclaimed play The Man Who Swallowed A Dictionary (2023) about the life of his former comrade David Ervine. Niblock is a vocal advocate for loyalist storytelling and the power of arts as means of communicating historical experience.
Emma Shaw is the founder and CEO of the Phoenix Education Centre, a profit for purpose community interest company in East Belfast that nurtures community self-help and promotes strategies to tackle low educational attainment and barriers to the workforce.
David Adams is a former spokesperson and councillor for the UDA-linked Ulster Democratic Party who was heavily involved in negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement. Having experienced what he described as a ‘messy divorce’ from loyalism in the mid-00s, he has spoken openly about the need to have informed conversations about reconciliation as a priority in any debates over the constitution.
Share:
