A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was filmed across Northern Ireland. While viewers experience breathtaking scenery through their screens, it threw up a host of issues for the cast and crew. "It's very, very rainy, and the sets were so muddy", says Dexter Sol Ansell, who plays Egg - "If you stepped in the mud and stood still for more than five seconds... you're gone. You've been submerged."
So many tourists he picks up want to talk about the hit comedy and, as a fan himself, he's happy to oblige. We're stuck in traffic, which is odd for this small city on a wet Tuesday morning. It's because all the media are here, he jokes. But there is some truth to it. I'm visiting for the world premiere of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast,
Three middle-aged women may be all you need for anything. To run a business, raise a village, end a war, retool a civilisation, empty the loft. Even more usefully, you can make a great murder-mystery caper with them, as Lisa McGee (a fourth woman! If it ain't broke, don't fix it) has done with her new series How to Get to Heaven from Belfast.
Liadan Ní Chuinn was born in Northern Ireland in 1998, the year the Good Friday Agreement ended the Troubles, the decades of violence stemming from England's occupation of Ireland. Other recent fiction about the Troubles-the novels and Trespasses , the TV show Derry Girls (all excellent)-is set firmly in the last century, relegating the violence to history. Ní Chuinn's work does the opposite: Their new book of short stories, Every One Still Her e, is set in contemporary Northern Ireland.
Even unionists would struggle to object to such a move, even if the Irish Government has shied away from it Why is there no Irish passport office in Belfast? Once, such a question would only have been asked by the most ideologically committed northern nationalists. Demand for Irish passports was limited, the issue was seen as controversial and even if those objections were overcome, security considerations would have made such a proposal problematic.
The government tabled what is known as a remedial order to remove the immunity clause after court challenges said it was incompatible with the European convention on human rights. Keir Starmer told the House of Commons the change would fulfil legal obligations while protecting veterans from vexatious prosecutions. Under the last government, they passed legislation which was struck down, leaving our veterans utterly exposed. We're putting in place proper measures to protect them, the prime minister said.
Endometriosis occurs when tissue like the lining of the womb grows in other places, such as ovaries, fallopian tubes and other organs. "The pain is excruciating, at its worst it's like barbed wire inside me and clinging to my organs. I am so ill I can often spend days in bed," Maguire said. She said she is furious that she is having to go through an early medicated menopause as she awaits surgery - a wait which she has been told could take several years.
The company's overall rate of profit on these contracts is capped at around 6%, but Mears' operations across the UK exceeded that limit to the tune of 13.8m. Mears recorded its highest rate of profit in Northern Ireland, peaking at 17%. That was partly due to the fact asylum seekers in Northern Ireland don't have to be dispersed among different local authorities like they do in the UK, reducing transport and administrative costs.