Sam McBride: Row over Irish-language signage for Belfast train station is a symptom of a deeper malaise

After a year of uncharacteristic harmony, the DUP and Sinn Féin are falling back on what they know best: Tribal disputes. While they bicker, essential public services are unravelling — but a structural change to Northern Ireland’s government means this is now embedded in the system.The scale of Northern Ireland’s decline is overwhelming and ongoing.

Unionists once looked down their noses on the south, seeing their society as superior both economically and culturally. Now the gulf between the two jurisdictions is distinctly in the other direction, and is growing not just because of the Republic’s accruing wealth but because of Stormont overseeing the trashing of everything from the environment to the NHS..