Michael Long

East Belfast Football has been granted permission for the 'bring your own alcohol' dinner

Belfast football club given permission for ‘bring your own booze' dinner

Trilingual signs bearing historical and cultural information in Irish, Ulster-Scots and English in that order have been built on Belfast's Assembly Rooms. Photo: Cllr Michael Long/Facebook

Trilingual signs on historic building, after SF lose bid to exclude Ulster Scots

Morning View

Editorial: Whatever the reason, the fact is that Alliance mostly votes with SF

More than two-thirds of Stormont Park residents are against Irish signs, but nationalists on Belfast Council were determined to override their wishes. Photo: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press.

New bid to blaze Irish signs where two-thirds against them loses by single vote

Morning View

Editorial: Time for Alliance to admit Belfast Irish sign policy is not working

A Seaview tribute to 48-year-old John Alexander in memory of the long-serving supporter and stadium safety officer. (Photo by Stephen Hamilton)

John 'Burgerman' Alexander's touching final Seaview visit in 'legend' tribute

A traditional green burial at a burial park near Doncaster in England

Belfast Council to look at creation of natural burial sites in the city

Belfast City Hall's decision came after a Shankill community wrote asking for help staging their festive winter events, following a funding shortfall.

Shankill Christmas gift to be offered around Belfast after Sinn Fein complain

Belfast City Council approved a £1.9 million Irish language policy, which includes using the language on council transport, workers' uniforms, and street signs

Letter: Funding for Irish language plan is coming from underspend - not reserves

Unless there is a flourishing money tree in the grounds of Belfast City Hall, every penny in the council bank accounts is money contributed directly by ratepayers through their annual rates bill

Letter: Belfast ratepayers will fund £1.9m cost of new Irish language policy

Belfast City Hall will be one of many major landmarks to get Irish language signs under the council policy, which was approved during a crunch vote on the issue there on Wednesday night.

"Greening of Belfast for domination" Irish language blitz passed by council

The Assembly Rooms in Belfast

Councillors told not to ‘pat themselves on back’ over Assembly Rooms purchase

Marking Canada Day in Belfast are councillor Michael Long, Ken Brundle, Honorary Canadian Consul for Northern Ireland; Pete Wilson and Derbhile Kennedy, directors, CGI; Kyla Dittmar, Oui Poutine; Adam Keefe, head coach of the Belfast Giants

Canada Day celebration in Belfast

Belfast City Hall.

Final defeat for Armed Forces Covenant at Belfast Council

A major development currently under construction in the gasworks area of Belfast.

Fears plan to tax firms for sewer revamps could damage construction in Belfast

International business consultant Carl Allen outside his family's business on Sandy Row, Belfast.

'Is Belfast gridlock intended to force people onto public transport?'
An international business consultant whose family's company is suffering due to the Belfast gridlock wonders if it might be "part of a wider strategy to force people out of their cars" and into public transport.
Philip Bradfield

Belfast Council rejects trilingual sign bid

Footfall in Belfast City Centre was up 24.1% year on year from July 2023, with foot traffic in the retail core increasing by 1.6% over the same period. On average, people spent three hours 26 mins in the city centre during July 2024 – up 4% from the year before

Summer visitor figures reflect positive progress in Belfast city centre

Olympia Leisure Centre in south Belfast

Belfast councillors vote to confirm Irish signs at Olympia Leisure Centre

St Patrick's Day festivities in Belfast city centre. Photo Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker Press

Concern over St Patrick's Day in Belfast with funding described as too low

Church Road in Castlereagh was closed following the discovery of a suspicious object at playing fields in the area, which are used by East Belfast GAA. Pic: Pacemaker

Calls for an end to attacks on East Belfast GAA club

Naomi Long, pictured surrounded by her MLAs at Stormont; she has been quizzed online about how to define "woman"

Transgenderism: Alliance leader Naomi Long declines to answer 'what is a woman?'

Letters to editor

Letter: Reminding republicans of the callous murder of political representatives

Belfast Lord Mayor Tina Black (4th left) and Joe Murphy carrying a cross, taking part in Worship Between the Gates, part of the Human Peace Wall by the New Life City Church on Northumberland Street in Belfast, between the Shankill and the Falls Road

Shankill and Falls Road communities unite to form human chain at peace wall

Sinn Féin accused Alliance at last week’s full meeting of Belfast City Council of “slowing down” the Irish language along with the DUP

Bitter exchanges in Belfast City Council over Irish street signs

Work on the pedestrian crossing on the Upper Knockbreda carriageway near Cregagh Glen, is due to begin in the new year

Construction of the crossing will begin in the new year

Baroness May Blood

Call for May Blood statue to be erected at Belfast City Hall
A statue of Labour peer May Blood in the grounds of Belfast City Hall would be a fitting tribute to the late campaigner, Alliance councillor Michael Long has said.
Mark Rainey

Letter to the editor

Belfast was right to open a book of condolence for Shireen Abu Akleh

Tina Black, the new Lord Mayor of Belfast

New Sinn Fein Lord Mayor wants to celebrate diversity of Belfast

Chris McCracken, managing director LQ BID, Michael Long Lord Mayor of Belfast, Emma McClay, marketing manager at Linen House and Patrick Anderson, Department of Communities

Public realm reimagined as shared space at Linen Quarter

Michael Long, the new Lord Mayor of Belfast

New Alliance Lord Mayor of Belfast makes no portrait pledge to ratepayers

Michael Long moments after adopting the chain of office

Alliance’s Michael Long speaks his first words as Belfast Lord Mayor in Irish

Alliance Party councillor Michael Long, who has been installed as the new Lord Mayor of Belfast.

Michael Long installed as lord mayor of Belfast – for three weeks

Letter to the editor

Alliance councillor comes across as condescending

Letter to the editor

Unionists can be forgiven for thinking Alliance is a nationalist party

Councillor Michael Long.
Photo: Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker

Alliance councillor’s apology over ‘Bloody Friday’ tweet

Letter to the editor

My party is neither pro nor anti-Union: we are just ‘Alliance’

Letters to Editor

What upsets Alliance is unionists showing unity

Letter to the editor

Ruth Dudley Edwards has accidentally promoted Long from ‘High Priest’ to MLA

People to be banished to a desert island:

From bottom left, heading right, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill, President Emmanuel Macron of France, beneath him Ian Paisley MP, libel lawyer Paul Tweed, Meghan clutching Harry, President Joe Biden, top, Gerry Adams, then beneath him President Michael D Higgins, PSNI chief constable Simom Byrne, then President Justin Trudeau of Canada, top, Alliance councillor Michael Long, above him and slightly to the right Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney, First Minister Paul Givan, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

Other people despatched to the island, but not illustrated, include Carrie Johnson, Martina Anderson, Wales’s First Minister, Mark Drakeford and
New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden

Ruth Dudley Edwards: My list of people from 2021 to banish to a desert island

An Ulster Rugby spokesperson said they are disappointed that a number of spectators continue to park illegally

East Belfast residents raise Kingspan parking woes, Ulster Rugby trying to addre...

Ruth Dudley Edwards, the author and commentator, who writes a column for the News Letter every Tuesday. She is author of 'The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions' and her most recent book is 'The Seven: the lives and legacies of the founding fathers of the Irish republic'

Ruth Dudley Edwards: Sneering Alliance leaves an open goal for Doug Beattie

Jamie Bryson was mocked for delivering a speech against the Irish Sea border from atop a blue wheelie bin outside the PSNI station in Newtownards last month. Photograph by Declan Roughan / Press Eye

We should not sneer at loyalists as Britain disengages from Northern Ireland

Justice Minister Naomi Long wants to see more progressive politics predominate in Northern Ireland

Naomi Long: I can't stand bullies and I can't stand sectarianism

Letter to the editor

Republican hijack of Irish language caused Presbyterians to withdrew from it

Letter to the editor

Unhelpful News Letter editorial on Irish language promotes division

Belfast councillors clashed over the regeneration fund

Council row erupts over ‘sectarian carve up’ of city

Google image of the Royal Victoria Hospital

DUP man says he would oppose Irish language signs at Royal Victoria Hospital

The damage around St Anne's Cathedral in the northern end of Belfast city centre after a German bombing raid in 1941

Belfast Blitz memorial drawing nearer to reality – but not in time for the 80th ...

A resident took this picture of teenagers sitting high up on an electricity pylon

Partying teens ‘were swinging off power pylon’

City Hall lit up to mark the anniversary of the Polish Solidarity movement

Belfast buildings lit up red for Polish Solidarity movement

A Sinn Fein banner erected on a park railing

Alliance calls for removal of Sinn Fein banners from city council property

An image of the social media footage in Belfast City Hall

WATCH: George Telford Memorial Lodge issues statement vowing to cooperate fully ...

Sinn Fein wants to erect bilingual signage at two west Belfast leisure centres, including Andersonstown

DUP slams ‘farcical’ Irish language signs special meeting

Winifred Carney was the secretary and trusted confidant of rebel leader James Connolly during the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin

Parties will face down Sinn Fein on city hall statue provision

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