Page 2 - Mark Bain News Today

Lagan Valley has been a comfortable seat for unionism over the decades.

Even the hint of a rumour is enough to get tongues wagging, and if the backlash to such speculation is fierce, there is often no turning back.

The Northern Secretary of the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) has told the Education Minister work must begin immediately to restore pride in the teaching profession.

There’s a famous scene around half an hour into the 1975 movie Jaws — the same year Eamonn Mallie began his career in journalism — where Quint (maverick actor Robert Shaw who lived the final years of his life in Ireland) announces his presence to the room.

It’s going to be a big weekend in Clonoe. It’s all the chat as the men of the village call at the barber get their hair trimmed. The ladies’ salon next door is, as they say in these parts, “wile busy”. There’s a real sense of anticipation.

“I always expected to be in my prime around my 40s,” said Ian McElhinney. “It’s come a little later than I expected!”

The race to secure places in post primary schools across Northern Ireland begins today (Tuesday) when the Education Authority’s online application portal opens at noon.

It’s like pulling on a comfortable pair of slippers as Gerry Kelly relaxes so easily back into his favourite thing: conversation.

From 8am on Saturday morning around 14,000 P7 pupils in Northern Ireland schools will receive the results of the transfer test.

We will find out on Thursday what society could face going forward unless resolutions are urgently found to a series of pay disputes which have been rumbling on for years.