'the man from MENSA' - 1 of the 600: Politics 1990-1995

The first volume: 'the man from MENSA' - 1 of 600: Mensa research, had as its focus STEM research. This second volume in the series takes as its subject politics and the social sciences. Bernard Mulholland was born in West Germany during 1957 to a German mother and a Northern Irish father who was serving in the British Army. Having left the army, the family relocated during 1965 to the town of Portadown in Northern Ireland. Shortly afterwards Northern Ireland was to descend into sectarian turmoil associated with 'the Troubles' and the British Army's Operation Banner. For thirty years Bernard Mulholland worked as a heating technician for all sections of society in Northern Ireland across counties Fermanagh, Armagh and Down, which encompass 'Bandit Country' and also 'the Murder Triangle'. Portadown itself was later to become synonymous first with sectarian and political violence over 'the Tunnel', and then later with Drumcree. After joining British Mensa during the late eighties Mulholland joined its politics interest group and wrote for its monthly journal Poliphony for almost thirty years. This tome includes many of these texts from 1990-1995 in its Appendix. It also explores the outworking of some of the thoughts and ideas expressed therein which came to have real world applications, and that also feed into Brexit. Arguably this volume provides a unique political and historical insight that informs the narrative leading up to the first ceasefires by the Provisional IRA and the loyalist groups that later developed into the ongoing peace process. But it is in many ways also a history of British Mensa at a time when its membership peaked at forty thousand. There is little in the public domain about this lite international high-IQ society, MENSA, which boasts a membership tested to have an IQ among the highest two per cent of the population. MENSA was originally conceived of as a third pillar intended to complement the Royal Society and the British Academy. When it was founded in Oxford during 1946 its original goal was to gather six hundred of the most intelligent people in Britain as scientifically measured through an IQ test who the government and its agencies could contact for advice on matters of government. This book was written by an insider who as a member of MENSA contributed extensively to this high-IQ society over a span of almost thirty years, and it is hoped that it helps to fill a gaping void in the history of this quintessential post-WWII British institution.