Education and religion have been comfortable bed fellows since the birth of Northern Ireland 100 years ago. Indeed, it is only in the last few years that the legs have become restless, with the dawn of integrated education and the slow movement of teachers from Catholic and Protestant backgrounds to, and the phrase is used in a historical context here, the other side .
The landscape of education is set up for division and in much need of an overhaul. It is shaped to maintain the status quo. And that shape, according to Ulster University s UNESCO Education Centre, must now be moulded into something different. If the foundations are not changed, the educational houses will remain the same and that cannot foster change in the future.
Gloria Hunniford has no plans to hang up her microphone after six decades at the top of the TV tree.
The veteran Rip Off Britain broadcaster, who turned 80 in April, says she still gets nervous before the cameras roll but she’ll never give up the buzz of going live.
In a new documentary celebrating Northern Ireland’s most successful media personality, she talks candidly about her parents’ refusal to attend her first wedding because her husband was Catholic, the heartbreak of reporting the Troubles and the devastation of losing her daughter Caron to breast cancer.
The tables are turned when the presenter is grilled by her showbiz friends for Gloria: My Life on TV, while presenters Christine Lampard and Ruth Langsford pay tribute to the presenter for opening doors for them.