AI, Kneecap and lampposts: The political A to Z of Northern Ireland in 2025

It's that time of year again - here's my alphabetical rundown of the past 12 months.

A casual glance at proceedings in Stormont's Assembly chamber will tell you one thing - some MLAs need help with their speeches.

Step forward the SDLP leader of the opposition, Matthew O'Toole, who called out the DUP Education Minister Paul Givan accusing him of delivering a speech using AI.

"Cheap shot," replied Givan in words all his own as he flatly denied the accusation.

One way or another the Conservatives gave us Brexit, whether Northern Ireland wanted it or not.

Turned out it did not, voting 56% to 44% against the break with the EU.

No-one appears to have told the current Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who claimed to BBC NI: "The last time I checked, Northern Ireland did vote to leave."

When contradicted by political correspondent Jayne McCormack, she replied: "Scotland voted to remain, a lot of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain, you're right - but Wales and England voted to leave. The UK as a whole voted to leave."

Yes but no, but yes...

Baroness Hallett finally produced her report into how the UK's four governments (including Stormont) coped, or did not cope, with Covid.

AKA, tell us something we don't know.

She told us some meetings of the power-sharing executive were "deeply divided along political lines".

Decision making in Northern Ireland was "chaotic" and marred by "political disputes" between Sinn Féin and the DUP.

The attendance of Michelle O'Neill at Bobby Storey's funeral "contributed to tensions".

The two main parties failed to put the common interest above their "party political interests" and that some political leaders were not always able to "set aside political and sectarian divisions".

His fondness for waistcoats and the occasional tartan tie aside assembly Speaker Edwin Poots is not necessarily someone you'd go to for advice about how to dress (he's not reading this is he?).

But that did not stop him giving MLAs a stiff dressing down over their dress sense.

"Some of you have a very loose interpretation of smart and I would encourage members to dress smartly when it comes to the chamber," he said.

"We're not demanding that people, gentlemen, wear shirts and ties, but we're asking [you] to dress smartly and to look up to doing the job."

He also told off members for bringing in coffee cups and cans.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Lord Mandelson were done for after their past association with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was revealed.

Now pressure is growing on, of all people, George Mitchell - and on Queen's University, where he's a former chancellor, and which boasts a statue of the Good Friday Agreement talks' chairman.

It comes after former United States Senator Mitchell described his friendship with Epstein as "a blessing" in a handwritten letter released in September.

In a statement he said he "deeply regrets" having met Epstein and said he had no knowledge of his "actions with underage girls".

Fifty-three years after the killing of 13 unarmed civilians by the Parachute Regiment in Derry someone finally appeared in court charged with murder.

Known to the court only as Soldier F, he was found not guilty.

But his regiment did not escape so lightly with the judge saying those responsible "should hang their heads in shame".

The DUP Communities Minster Gordon Lyons has never been what you could describe as a news factory but that all changed in 2025.

From rows with nationalists over Casement Park to a Facebook post about Larne Leisure Centre before it was set on fire by a mob - an action which First Minister Michelle O'Neill claimed inflamed tensions - he was rarely out of the headlines.

He also had to apologise for telling a female empowerment conference that the "good-looking" attendees were seated at the front.

There's no row like a Dáil row, in politics anyway.

This one was a "a holy show" as in "you are making an absolutely holy show of yourselves" according to the speaker Verona Murphy in a manner Father Ted would have been proud of.

The row was over a government move to amend speaking rights which seems very dull. It wasn't.

When they're not rowing over NI, our politicians can frequently be found exchanging views over other places as well - like Israel and the conflict in Gaza.

The DUP's Paul Givan was one of a number of unionists who visited the country as guests of the Israeli government.

But critics say he should not have shared images of a visit to a school in Jerusalem which appeared on the Department of Education's website.

And, he faced a vote of no confidence in the assembly.

Unsurprisingly, it failed to gain cross community support so it fell.

But the toxicity generated by the issue seems to encapsulate worsening relations on the hill.

You know how it is when you wait a long time for one job and then two come along at once.

This is what happened to former Police Service of Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan.

No sooner had he been appointed Stormont's new standards commissioner than a week later he accepted a job with the Surrey constabulary.

"Kneecap are no strangers to controversy," said a BBC headline with impressive understatement.

There's nothing understated about the Belfast rap trio however.

In no particular order:

• One of the members, Liam Og ó hAnnaidh, had a terrorism charge after allegedly displaying a Hezbollah flag thrown out after a technical error
• They got banned from performing in Canada and Hungary
• They won a Bafta
• They upset Sharon Osborne, among others, by displaying messages about the war in Gaza at the US music festival Coachella

All the while proclaiming "we are not the story".

"I would like to thank the DUP and the Alliance Party, and their supporters, for trying to cancel this gig," Naoise Ó Cairealláin, aka Móglaí Bap, told the crowd at a sold out gig in Belfast.

"You couldn't pay for the PR the DUP gives Kneecap," he said.

Stormont's new Irish Language Commissioner Pól Deeds declared himself not fan.

He said the band can be "quite divisive" with more understatement.

Nothing speaks of summer in Norn Iron (okay, certain parts of it) like the gentle fluttering of coloured cloth from lampposts at dusk.

So it's no surprise that the recent trend of flying St George's Crosses and Union Flags from public lampposts in England became known as "Ulsterisation."

The phenomenon gained significant attention during a campaign called "Operation Raise the Colours".

If they follow the Northern Irish model it won't be raising them that's the problem, but taking them down.

Gerry Adams (see O is for Orange) won a landmark libel action victory against the BBC over a 2016 story about the murder of a British agent.

It was, he said, about "putting manners " on the broadcaster.

The National Union of Journalists described the phrase as "chilling".

Justice Minister Naomi Long said a line was crossed after a "mob" converged on her home.

Her husband, Belfast Alliance councillor Michael Long, said about 40 people, some wearing masks, turned up at their house to protest.

It is believed the protest related to the housing of sex offenders in residential areas.

It is not unknown for Gerry Adams (see M is for Manners) to wind up the odd loyalist or two.

And he will have annoyed plenty by deeming The Sash to be not a sectarian song.

Who knew?

He went further by telling the Irish News that he enjoyed some of the music played by loyalist bands, adding: "I like the music and all that goes with it."

However, he clarified by saying that if some songs, including The Sash, are played where there is "any sort of invasion of people's space, they will become provocative and annoying".

Was the person who damaged a portrait of former DUP Lord Mayor Lord Wallace Browne in Belfast City Hall the son of prominent Sinn Féin MLA Carál Ni Chuilin?

Naoise Ó Cuilín strongly denies that it wasand the Public Prosecution Service decided there wasn't enough evidence to pursue a prosecution.

But what is not in doubt is that he was suspended from Sinn Féin and subsequently resigned and that he went to the police but was advised by his lawyer that such was the "paucity of evidence" he should "exercise his lawful right to silence".

Gordon Lyons has had a big year (see G is for Good Looking).

The communities minister said a drag queen storytelling event in east Belfast was "not appropriate for children" and "should not have taken place."

That said drag queen Aida H Dee claimed the Drag Queen Story Hour had been going on for eight years and wondered why it was now being politicised.

Heather Humphreys is a border Protestant from County Monaghan who failed to become president of Ireland.

Perhaps, she can spend her unwelcome free-time educating her campaign team that Belfast is not Berlin and vice-versa.

True they both have/had famous walls, but that's about it.

Confused?

Everyone was when the Humphreys team released a video mistaking the German Parliament building, the Reichstag, for Belfast City Hall.

Ulster said no.

So did the electorate of Ireland which by a sizeable majority voted in favour of Catherine Connolly.

Warning this section contains language some readers may find offensive

Not how everyone would describe Northern Ireland.

Though former Sinn Féin MP Michelle Gildernew did on the BBC NI podcast "Borderland - UK or a United Ireland" which examined the case for a border poll.

She also said certain murders during the Troubles were justified.

Her party colleague and First Minister Michelle O'Neill said she was "wrong".

The 1985 Australian blockbuster "Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome was set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland which is undoubtedly what brought Stormont to mind for the Environment Minister Andrew Muir when he called the assembly "a toxic thunderdome".

The big song from the movie was Tina Turner's We Don't Need Another hero.

Stormont probably requires several and quickly.

Which brings us neatly to...

Another way of looking at it is no walkouts, no collapses and no curry or yoghurt.

So, is Stormont going soft?

Well imagine the surprise of Michelle O'Neill and Emma Little Pengelly when another Alliance MLA, Paula Bradshaw, accused their parties of "unedifying bickering".

Naturally they denied it.

But days later came Andrew Muir and the toxic thunderdome was coined.

Leaks at Stormont are nothing new but deliberate flooding of the toilets is.

In an e-mail the director of corporate services said there had been "a number of incidents" which could compromise the safety and operational use of said loos.

The TUV MLA Timothy Gaston called it "mindless vandalism" claiming sinks had been blocked and taps left running.

It was advantage critics of the DUP Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly when it was revealed almost £1,000 had been spent on flights and accommodation to Wimbledon and a seat in the royal box.

Rival politicians described it as a "jolly" and demanded the cost was repaid.

But she returned the serve with interest saying she was there in her official capacity and that it was "hugely positive" a representative for NI had been invited.

A number of factors contributed to several nights of rioting in Ballymena in June but the violence followed a peaceful protest over an alleged serious sexual assault on a teenage girl.

Two 14-year-old boys, who spoke in court through a Romanian interpreter, denied charges of attempted rape.

The charges have now been dropped.

But not before the violence which has left many homes still boarded up.

Clonavon Terrace bore the brunt of the rioting described by the police as "racist thuggery".

The target of much of the aggression was the town's Roma community and other foreign nationals.

Some who fled say they are not coming back.

In keeping with the Irish presidential election's extraordinary casualty rate, broadcaster Ivan Yates lost his job as co-presenter of a political podcast when it emerged he had been worked on debate preparation for Fianna Fáil candidate Jim Gavin.

That worked well!

All very ecumenical of Mr Yates, a former TD and minister for Fine Gael.

The exact amount of progress made towards building Casement Park since last year.