Letter from the Editor

	I N S I D E R

Apr 8, 2023

Ben Lowry

Editor

Even though the hour leapt forward, shifting the extra daylight from morning to evening, the rapidly expanding daylight at both ends of the day means that it the sun now rises at 6.30am in Northern Ireland.

Unusually for me I was up before dawn this (glorious) morning and it made me think of the dawn services that will be held tomorrow. I remember as a boy attending one in Florida and another in a beach near Millisle

It was Good Friday yesterday, with the resonance of Good Friday 25 years ago, although the actual anniversary of the signing is Monday. We continue with our essays. David Kerr is younger than me yet, aged 24, was in the thick of things back then

We ran a very interesting essay from John Coulter, who recalls from the 1980s the role he and his dad played in early exploratory talks between London and unionists

David McNarry, who says he was a 'contradictory hardline moderate' unionist, writes about why he supported David Trimble, in which he writes about the then UUP leader's battles with internal party critics

This morning we publish the first in Helen McGurk's two-part interview with Baroness (Daphne) Trimble

Here are some of my own thoughts on 1998

The former SDLP MLA Nicola Mallon's group Logistics UK has declined to elaborate on why it seems to have a more positive response to the Windsor Framework than hauliers who are critical of it

And earlier in the week we ran Joe Kennedy's first essay since he was appointed US economic envoy to Northern Ireland. From a famously Catholic Irish family, he seems to be striking a tone that is respectful of unionists, talking about the rarely mentioned Scots Irish.

How fitting that Mr Kennedy wrote this for us, a paper that in 1738 was carrying ads for early Scots Irish boats to America

Happy Easter

Ben Lowry

Editor

Belfast Agreement at 25: David Kerr - Unionism needs to better understand what was achieved by Good Friday Agreement