Irish Republican News: Archives

April 30, 2011

Real IRA responds

In a dramatic public address on Easter Monday, the ‘Real IRA’ affirmed its determination to pursue its armed struggle against British rule.

Three Senate seats for Sinn Fein

Sinn Fein has secured three seats in what may be the last ever 26-County Seanad [Senate].

Sectarian attacks and bomb alerts

A series of bomb hoaxes and alerts also intensified in the past week and fuelled a sense of rising tension in the North.

Gerry Kelly rejects call to repudiate IRA

With elections to local councils and the Stormont Assembly due to take place within a week, Sinn Fein is coming under pressure from the unionist parties and the mainstream media to turn its back on the IRA.

Union Jack raised over Sinn Fein offices

The first contentious loyalist parades of the year have passed off peacefully.

Uncertainty shrouds health services after HSE board quits

The new 26-County Health Minister Dr James Reilly has cleared out the board of the Health Service Executive (HSE), claiming the dramatic shake-up will improve services and accountability.

Easter statements and speeches

A round-up of the messages delivered at various Easter commemorations across Ireland.

The flame of freedom

This year Irish republicans mark 95 years since the Easter Rising. It is also the 30th anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strike. Each event was a seminal moment in the struggle for Irish freedom, and each changed the course of Irish history for the better.

April 25, 2011

A new IRA?

A group of former Provisional IRA members have declared that they will continue the armed struggle until a united Ireland is achieved.

Golden circles continue to rob 26-County state

A number of elite public servants continue to be paid up to one million euro ($1.46m) in annual salary and associated benefits, despite the economic demise of the 26 Counties and the arrival of the IMF.

UVF boss, Celtic manager targeted for assassination

A senior UVF unionist paramilitary was left in critical condition after being stabbed outside a busy north Belfast supermarket, apparently by a feuding rival.

Child clubbed by PSNI in stop-and-search

A County Armagh schoolboy was assaulted by a member of the PSNI who batoned the 12-year-old just over a week ago, it has emerged.

Unity referendum subject to GFA - Sinn Fein

With all of the mainstream political parties unanimous on three key issues -- the need to defeat dissident republicanism, safeguard the Six-County political institutions and oppose cuts to the British subvention -- only the call for an all-island referendum has caused a stir in the Assembly election campaign.

‘Fun’ menu for Irish treaty signatories sold at auction

A “humorous” menu prepared for an Irish delegation dinner during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations in London in 1921 has been sold in Dublin for a four-figure sum.

Two failed states, one big problem

There are now two political elites in Ireland and two dysfunctional regimes in the statelets they claim the right to govern.

Republican vision still valid

On Easter Sunday all over Ireland, republicans gather in tribute to those who died in Ireland’s struggle for independence. This Easter republicans have much to be proud of and much to be concerned about.

April 18, 2011

A stand against the securocrats

Policing in the North is once again in crisis after the chief executive at the Police Ombudsman's office suddenly quit, blaming senior government officials for interfering in the office's investigations.

Concerns over new human rights violations

Sinn Fein has criticised the PSNI's continued detention and interrogation of a number of people in connection with dissident republican activity.

HET draws a blank

The mother of a six-year-old boy shot in the head during the conflict has expressed her frustration after the police Historical Enquiries Team (HET) dismissed evidence of loyalist involvement in the death.

IMF, EU join in Dublin fudge exercise

The Fine Gael/Labour government in Dublin declared last week it had "passed" a review of its economic progress by its International Monetary Fund and European Union creditors without any penalty.

Kenny meets Cameron

The 26-County Taoiseach Enda Kenny held his first bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron in London this afternoon.

McGuinness to represent SF in leaders debates

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams will almost certainly not be representing the party in televised leaders' battles ahead of the North's election.

Sinn Fein Assembly election manifesto

Messages from Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness precede a list of the mnain points from Sinn Fein's manifesto for the 2011 Assembly election in the North.

The Old Firm, tit for tat and Glasgow city blues

If it hadn't been for four or five asthma seizures, I'd probably be talking with a Glasgow accent and voting Scot Nat.

April 13, 2011

Adams calls for talks

Sinn Fein has offered to meet with “the militarist factions” to outline the party’s strategy for advancing republican objectives and in its belief in “the futility of armed actions”.

Assembly election candidates named

There are 218 candidates in total for the 108 Six-County Assembly seats up for grabs in the election on May 5, spread over the traditional 18 six-seater constituencies.

Govt seeks gullible property investors

The state-operated bank NAMA is to provide mortgages for home-buyers in the 26 Counties -- despite acknowledging that house prices are likely to fall further.

PSNI in bomb alert controversy

A furore has arisen after the PSNI allowed motorists to drive past a van containing what was described as a 500 pound bomb on Thursday evening last week.

Sinn Fein rules out royal visit demo

Any activity that Sinn Fein organises to mark the British royal visit next month will not involve picketing of events and no “confrontation for the sake of it”, the party’s deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald has said.

Double-agent’s ex-wife can sue Scappaticci

A woman who became embroiled in Britain’s ‘Dirty War’ has received High Court permission to bring anunprecedented legal actionagainst Freddie Scappaticci, the reputed British double-agent known in the media as ‘Stakeknife’.

The Garda ‘Rape Tape’

For almost a decade, simple acts of resistance by the community in Erris have met with bullying, threats, intimidation, vilification and casual violence at the hands of both Gardai and Shell’s private army IRMS.

It’s time to stop

Sinn Fein believes that the conditions which in the past led to republican armed actions have fundamentally changed.

April 8, 2011

A record of hate

A recording of Gardai police laughingly planning to rape two environmental protestors, including a US citizen, has renewed attention on the policing operation to secure the construction of a hugely controversial onshore gas refinery in County Mayo.

Windsor to visit Croke Park, republican memorial

The planned itinerary for a visit next month by the professed ‘Queen of England’ has provoked anger and disbelief.

Conflict is ‘useless’ - McGuinness

British forces in Ireland are said to be increasingly concerned at the technical capacity of breakaway IRA groups following Saturday’s killing of a PSNI man in a limpet-mine attack in County Tyrone.

Donaldson family say PSNI, MI5 central to killing

The family of high-ranking Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson who was murdered for being a spy believe his PSNI Special Branch handler has secret information that could help the Garda murder investigation.

‘Treasonous’ to oppose bondholders - Lenihan

Former Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has said proposals to share the cost of Ireland’s collapsed banking system with those European banks who had funded their lending practices as “a form of economic treason.”

Concern over new military parade plan

Belfast City Council has voted to approve a parade for British soldiers through the city.

Reflections on the H Block prison struggle

Sinn Fein’s electoral strategy began 30 years ago during the 1981 hunger strikes, beginning with Bobby Sands’s historic win in Fermanagh/South Tyrone, 30 years ago this week.

Omagh, my town

On Sunday, The News of the World, Martin McGuinness and a number of others politicians said the people who killed young Kerr were completely out of touch with reality. It depends on how you see reality.

April 6, 2011

Gerry McGeough sentenced to 20 years

Prominent republican Gerry McGeough has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for an IRA attack on an off-duty British soldier 30 years ago.

April 4, 2011

Dublin tugs the forelock

The coalition government parties have reneged on promises made during the general election by refusing to share the losses of Ireland’s banks with those who sought to profit from their reckless lending.

Shock as PSNI man dies in clinical attack

Waves of political and official condemnation have followed the killing of a member of the PSNI in a targeted ‘dissident’ bomb attack in County Tyrone on Saturday.

Questions continue for MI5 in Derry killing

The family of Derry man Kieran Doherty have called on the PSNI to reveal any information they have on MI5’s involvement with him prior to his death in February last year.

Relief for Armagh man in Nairac ‘show trial’

South Armagh man Kevin Crilly has been cleared of any involvement in the execution of British soldier and spy Robert Nairac in May 1977.

Duffy detention for Supreme Court

Colin Duffy is to go before Britain’s highest court to challenge his period of pre-charge detention.

Assembly, local election campaigning underway

Sinn Fein’s newly elected TDs are to take part in a series of pre-election events as the party presents itself as an effective all-Ireland party, in contrast to the SDLP.

Leadership across Ireland

Last Wednesday, four years later, the Assembly at Parliament Buildings concluded its first ever complete four year term.

Bombing Omagh

The death of a PSNI member will be a source of consolation to only the fundamentalist few.

April 2, 2011

PSNI man killed in bomb attack

A member of the PSNI police has been killed in an undercar booby-trap type attack in County Tyrone.