WHILE curious events during July are not unknown here, I did not expect a debate instigated by a DUP MP to prompt recollections of my eldest child’s preparations for her second year at primary school three decades ago.

Carla Lockhart made a series of colourful assertions while speaking at a Youth for Unionism event in the Boys’ Model School in north Belfast, and, as reported in The Irish News, said: “We can learn from nationalism and republicanism. They have used education so well.

“Thirty years ago. they decided that education was their top priority, and they have used their education system to ensure that their young people know their history, know what they’re about, and want to advance in whatever walk of life they find themselves in.

“They also have an ability of one church, one sport, one political party – whereas unionism doesn’t do that. Unionism tends to split, divide, and go in different directions. But look, we have to use that to our advantage, and find the unifying points in it all.”

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Noel Doran: Carla Lockhart and the Pan Nationalist Front that never was

I was intrigued by Ms Lockhart’s assessment, her repeated use of the word “they”, and her attempts to place education in a directly political context as, at this stage in 1996, my daughter was about to join P2 in the........

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