Hello all

Welcome to O’Conall Street, borderless thoughts on public relations, public affairs and anything else that matters. We hope to bring our own perspective to the political and media goings on on the island of Ireland through the lens of staff in the island of Ireland’s leading public relations and public affairs agency, Weber Shandwick.

Its a great time to be here. Northern Ireland is leaping out of its closet of conflict and a new generation are getting down and dirty with their talents and living out their ambitions. The rest of the island has become one of the great success stories of the past twenty years. Ten years ago the trip to Dublin was a three hour epic. Yesterday it took me just over an hour and a half. All change and all for the better I think. Even the oldest of old foes are in a ‘love in’ according to today’s Belfast Telegraph and BBC Northern Ireland’s Good Morning Ulster programme. Yes, its official, the DUP love Sinn Fein and Sinn Fein love them too, ahhh. And to be fair they have had a good week. The lessons learnt during the 2001 outbreak of FMD in the North of Ireland have been applied and the Departments of Agriculture North and South have done a great job so far. Full credit to Bert Houston, the chief vet and his team and our two Ministers for Agriculture in Dublin and Belfast. As the old slogan goes lots done, more to do, as the effort now needs to focus on communicating the distinct status of NI in key export markets.   

There is a little bit to be done to get the blog right up to speed but here we go anyway. By the way anyone with tickets for the Dublin – Derry game on Saturday do get in touch. Can guarantee a good home for them amongst the 83,000 who will travel for what must be one of the greatest sporting spectacles in the world. Oh yes and Man U beat Glentoran 3-0 last night but without Ronaldo and Rooney although Nani did a somersault and Mr Ferguson wasn’t there  to tell him off. Still great to see them here. No matter how much people love to hate each other here the one thing they agree on is that Manchester United are the greatest soccer team in these islands.