British prime minister Tony Blair has said the Provisional IRA
must move into “a different modus operandi” in which it can no
longer pose a threat.
A British spying device has been discovered at the home of Derry
republican Andrew McCartney.
The mother of a Belfast teenager murdered by British soldiers a
decade ago has said she will go to the European Court of Human
Rights to have her son’s killers thrown out of the British Army.
A nationalist SDLP councillor had to be given a police escort
from a meeting disrupted by a Paisleyite mob in Ballymena,
County Antrim last night.
Sinn Féin’s Toireasa Ferris, daughter of Kerry North TD Martin
Ferris, has been elected Mayor of County Kerry.
The heavily pregnant partner of jailed Belfast republican Sean
Kelly has called on the Dublin government to do more to get the
father of her children released.
The following speech was delivered by IRSP Ard-Chomhairle member
John Murtagh last week to a gathering of about 200 members of
the Republican Socialist Movement at Bodenstown, the burial
place of the founding father of Irish Republicanism.
Short-term relief mixed with concern for the future in Belfast
this weekend as a controversial parade by the Protestant Orange
Order was called off amid increasing tension over the march
route.
The Provisional IRA has said it was responsible for a gunshot
that killed schoolgirl Kathleen Feeney during a battle with the
British Army in Derry in 1973.
Unionist paramilitaries worked for the police when they planned
the murder in 1997 of a north Belfast Protestant, according to a
disturbing new report.
The following is a summary of recent calls for political action by
Irish Northern Aid.
Ulster Unionist veteran Reg Empey is David Trimble’s successor
as the new party leader following a surprisingly close vote by
the party’s ruling council.
Sinn Féin’s cross-border parliamentary representatives met in
Dublin today to plot the party’s campaign for the forthcoming
General Election.
The Dublin government is set to take the British government to
the European Court of Human Rights if it fails to hand over
files relating to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings at a meeting
of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference later today
[Monday].
British Direct Ruler Peter Hain was told today to stop
pretending he is an honest broker in the peace process after he
echoed new demands by Ian Paisley’s hardline DUP.
A public inquiry into the murder of unionist paramilitary leader
‘King Rat’ gets underway in Belfast today.
The Orange Order has submitted three new applications to the
Parades Commission seeking marches through a flashpoint area of
west Belfast.
Republicans have reacted angrily to the arrest and summary
imprisonment of prominent north Belfast republican Sean Kelly.
The text of a speech by Sinn Féin MP for
Newry Armagh Conor Murphy, speaking at the party’s annual Wolfe
Tone Commemoration in Bodenstown on Sunday.
Hundreds gathered in Derry at the weekend to pay tribute to
Bloody Sunday hero Patrick Walsh.
A weekend of serious violence in north Belfast has followed
Friday’s ‘Tour of the North’ parade.
Hardline unionist leader Ian Paisley has declared that any new
IRA peace pledges could take years to be believed, and warned
the Irish Prime Minister to keep “his dirty hands” off the
North.
Three Catholic men escaped serious injury this week after their
car was attacked by up to a dozen loyalists wielding baseball
bats and iron bars.
A prominent IRA Volunteer was re-arrested and returned to prison
today in a move that could herald a further weakening of the
1998 Good Friday Agreement.
A leading Irish lawyer has called for oppressive anti-republican
legislation to be scrapped after five men were convicted of
membership of the breakaway ‘Real IRA’ on the word of a senior
garda policeman.
The North’s newly-constituted Human Rights Commission has
already been criticised for lacking in community balance.
In vivid contrast to the meritocracy and performance-driven
ethos of the entrepreneurial instincts that created the Celtic
Tiger economy, the vast apparatus of the state still blunders
along in its wake, guarding its mediocrity and looking after its
pals.
The Dublin government has fallen to its lowest poll rating for
almost two years, according to the latest opinion poll, while
the opposition parties have all scored increases.
Sinn Féin’s Philip McGuigan has called for urgent meetings with
both the Police Ombudsman and the Parades Commission after six
nationalists were injured in clashes with the PSNI during a
unionist paramilitary parade.
A North Belfast residents’ group has called on the Parades
Commission to review a decision on Friday’s ‘Tour of the North’
march.
The Ulster Unionist party has expressed dismay at reports that
the IRA may have disclosed the location of the body of alleged
IRA informer Gareth O’Connor.
Gaelic activists are celebrating a landmark decision to make
Ireland’s first language an official language of the European
Union.
Belfast solicitor extraordinaire Padraigin Drinan still can’t
decide whether to go to Craigavon Civic Centre when the inquiry
begins into the murder of her close friend Rosemary Nelson.
There are two crucial political questions at the moment in the
North. What will be the IRA’s response to Gerry Adams’ appeal
for it to stand down and for its activists to devote their
energies to political struggle? And, what is the DUP’s true
position on a power-sharing deal with Sinn Féin?
Lord Kilclooney, the former UUP deputy leader John Taylor, has
publicly attacked the candidates for the party leader’s job. He
referred to them as “has-beens” associated with the demise of
the party, and suggested that British Army Colonel Tim Collins
would be a good choice.
Nationalists in Coleraine have been struck by a series of
orchestrated petrol bomb attacks. Some of those targeted in the
County Derry town were in their sixties.
Demolition work has begun on an infamous British Army base once
used as a centre for torturing irish republicans.
Donegal County Council has unanimously passed a motion calling
for a full public independent inquiry into the assassination of
Donegal Sinn Féin Councillor Eddie Fullerton by unionist
paramilitaries in 1991.
26-County Prime Minister, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, has said he
hopes that a decision by the Provisional IRA to stand down will
come in the next few weeks.
The outline facts on the Protestant marching season and the
annual confrontation between marchers and Catholic residents of
the Garvaghy Road enclave in Portadown.
The 26-County government is determined to hold a referendum on
on the European Union’s Constitution despite Britain’s decision
to postpone indefinitely its own referendum.
For a man bristling out there on the right of the
political spectrum, who believes there should be minimum
interference by the state in peoples’ lives, Michael McDowell's record is one
of petty interference anywhere he can in peoples’ lives.
Ian Paisley’s DUP has been challenged to formally enter dialogue
with republicans for the first time.
A 29-year-old west Belfast man was killed in controversial
circumstances at the weekend when he was hit by a PSNI police
Land Rover driving at high speed.
The 26-County government will consider dismissing senior members
of the Garda police criticised in the second report of the
Morris tribunal, according to its Minister for Justice, Michael
McDowell.
There were minor clashes betweeen nationalist protestors and the
PSNI police when a sectarian parade was forced though a Catholic
area of Ballymena on Saturday.
There have been renewed demands for intervention after two more
young men from west Belfast took their own lives at the weekend.
Amnesty International has launched an online appeal asking
people worldwide to write to senior UK judges, urging that
neither they nor other judges sit on any public inquiry under
the Inquiries Act 2005 into the murder of Belfast lawyer Patrick
Finucane.
There were angry scenes outside the court on Saturday where a
man was charged with the highly controversial murder of Belfast
man Robert McCartney. Another man, James McCormick, was charged
on Saturday with the attempted murder of Mr McCartney’s friend
Brendan Devine.
Ian Paisley’s DUP will not be deceived by “rhetoric” by the
Provisional IRA, the party’s North Belfast MP has declared.
A police investigation is underway at a nursing home in County
Dublin following the broadcast of shocking scenes of neglect and
mistreatment of elderly patients.
International observers have highlighted systematic violations
of rulings on parades by the Protestant Orange Order.
Unionists on Lisburn City Council have backed sectarianism after
voting to fly the Union Jack permanently on all council flag
poles.
Garda police in Donegal tried to frame two innocent men for
murder, according to a damning tribunal report which has shaken
the Dublin government.
The following is an outline of the main events relevant
to the second interim report of the Morris Tribunal released
this week.
A member of Republican Sinn Féin in Derry has said that PSNI
police tried to recruit him as an informer.