Jamie Pow’s “Get the popcorn out” was the first blog posted on Northern Slant in 2016. The Northern Ireland Assembly election, EU referendum and US presidential looked likely to set the tone; repercussions of all three on all of us will be felt for some time more.

There may have been a lack of drama in the lead up to May’s Stormont election as compared with previous years, but politicians made up for it afterwards. The UUP and SDLP walked out on the DUP, Sinn Féin and the Programme for Government negotiations, forming an Official opposition.

As this writer put it, getting the opposition act together has meant moving political discourse more towards everyday issues like NHS waiting times and homelessness than nationalist-unionist themes.

Elsewhere, efforts have been made at solving nationalist-unionist disputes. In the opinion of Heather Wilson, the new British-Irish inter-governmental approach to tackling paramilitarism isn’t perfect, but it’s a start.

Conversation, not conflict, will bring about change here; according to Heather, conversation and common sense prevailed on Twaddell Avenue, leading to the dismantlement of the loyalist protest camp.

The UK voted to leave the European Union despite majorities in Northern Ireland and Scotland having voted to Remain. Although the DUP sided with Leave and Sinn Féin with Remain, we await a joint platform; Jamie Pow issued a call for leaders to forge a common purpose.

The Brexit result gave us a new Prime Minister and Chancellor. The Autumn Statement pledged an extra £200million to Northern Ireland to be spent on capital infrastructure projects. These projects are still to be determined. James McMordie asked why don’t we invest in a railway revolution?

Brexit wasn’t the only referendum of 2016. In October, Colombians rejected a peace deal between the government and FARC rebels. Soon after, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos paid a visit to Northern Ireland. By Jamie Pow, the message from Belfast to Bogotá is: be patient.

When the ultimate outsider Donald Trump was elected US President, this writer said blame the Democrats for nominating the ultimate insider Hillary Clinton as his contender. Opinion polls have taken a hammering recently, but Jamie Pow wrote by and large, national polls proved to be fairly accurate on Trump.

Despite Clinton’s defeat and wider political upheaval in 2016, Kerry Corbett wrote how one trend is broadly encouraging: that is, the steady increase of female political leaders.

Away from politics we notice new conversations in a new Northern Ireland. Polona Rogina highlighted the launch of the gender identity panel group, Focus: The Identity Trust. For those in the workplace, Polona brought to light the wellbeing taboo: the need to look after oneself at a time when burnout, stress and depression have become worldwide epidemics.

As the year drew to a close, politics here was not without controversy, with First Minister surviving an opposition motion to exclude her from office.

A new year will bring new challenges, not least for Northern Ireland’s Official opposition. According to James McMordie the parties will need to move beyond indignation.

With events in Aleppo and Berlin, Kerry Corbett said there will be much to reflect on as we approach 2017, but violence elsewhere puts things into perspective for us in Northern Ireland; events have come to pass at Stormont, in the media, without bloodshed.