Despite coming under intense criticism from the 26-County establishment
in Dublin, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has received support from the
former British Direct Ruler in Ireland, Shaun Woodward.
The two largest teacher unions in Ireland, the INTO and ASTI, have
condemned changes to pensions proposed by the 26-County Minister for
Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin as “larcenous” and
“probably illegal”.
A decade after the murder of crime journalist Martin O’Hagan by loyalist
paramilitaries, his colleagues at the newspaper he worked for are still
receiving loyalist death threats.
A number of loyalist paramilitary figures are to visit US political and
business leaders in a visit being organised by the Dublin government, it
has emerged.
International pop sensation Rhianna was this week confronted in a County
Down cornfield by a DUP councillor who told her to “cover up” while she
was on his farm.
An anti-internment/Free Marian Price march takes place this Saturday,
1st October at 2pm, Dublin, from the Garden of Remembrance to the GPO.
Martin Rafferty, of the 32CSM, discusses the
Marian Price campaign, internment, and the prospects for a united Ireland.
The line-up for the Irish Presidential election next month has been
decided tonight after controversial Senator David Norris and former
pop/gospel singer ‘Dana’ Rosemary Scallon both secured the necessary
support of local councillors for their nomination as candidates.
The nomination of Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness for next month’s
election to the President of Ireland has provoked a chaotic and bitter
response from the 26-County ‘elite’.
Sinn Fein nominee Martin McGuinness was repeatedly questioned about his
past involvement with the IRA this week, with the issue dominating the
early days of the presidential campaign.
Britain’s Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the British government
intends to make a cash payment to the families and wounded of the Bloody
Sunday massacre.
Runai ginearalta eirigi [the general secretary of eirigi] Breandan Mac
Cionnaith has condemned the continuing harassment of Lurgan republicans
after three homes were raided on Wednesday morning by the PSNI.
The mother of a Catholic murdered by the unionist paramilitary UDA has
added to calls for Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson to resign after she
was again fobbed off over a report on her son’s murder.
There were rowdy scenes in the Dublin parliament this week between the
26-County government and Sinn Fein over the planned sell-off of part of
the ESB (Electricity Supply Board), the semi-state body which until
recently held a monopoly on Ireland’s energy market.
An abridged version of the address by Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas at the United Nations, in which he requested
full membership and recognition for the State of Palestine.
On the centenary of the Easter Rising in 2016, it could be Sinn Fein’s
Martin McGuinness taking the salute outside the GPO in Dublin, following
a dramatic and imaginative proposal by the party this weekend for his
nomination in next month’s Presidential election.
Breakaway IRA groups carried out four separate attacks against the PSNI
this past week, including an attack in County Antrim in which members of
the police force are reported to have received minor injuries.
The leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Tom Elliott, and UUP Assembly
member Danny Kennedy are to face disciplinary proceedings from the
Orange Order for attending the funeral mass of PSNI member Ronan Kerr in
April.
Germany’s European Union [EU] commissioner Guenther Oettinger caused an
outrage this week after he called for the Irish tricolour to be flown at
half-mast in Brussels to embarrass the country over its economic
problems.
Proposals to radically change the Westminster constituencies in the
North are expected to see the main unionist DUP party, as well as
the nationalist SDLP, both lose a valuable seat in the
Westminster parliament in London.
A controversial newspaper columnist was shouted and spat at by angry
Fianna Fail supporters after a commemoration organised by the party last
week went disastrously wrong.
Martin McGuinness has been my friend for almost 40 years. He is a
remarkable and gifted human being and a great leader and a patriot. It
will be a great honour for me to propose Martin McGuinness to contest
Presidential election on a broad, republican, citizen-centred platform.
He will make an excellent President of Ireland.
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has confirmed reports that the party’s
Ard Chomhairle [high council] is to meet on Sunday morning to discuss a
proposal from the party’s leadership to nominate Martin McGuinness to
stand in the 26-County presidential election.
The Sinn Fein annual conference has heard calls for a national
conversation on the future of Ireland, between now and the centenary of
the Easter Rising in 2016.
British Special Branch double-agent Mark Haddock ordered the murder of a
paramilitary rival and smirked as he told the gunmen, “try not to shoot
the kids”, a high-profile trial in Belfast was told this week.
Bankrupted Irish property speculators are being paid ‘salaries’ of up to
200,000 euro (US$280,000) a year by the Dublin government, it was
revealed this week.
A surprise announcement of the loss of almost 600 jobs from a call
centre operation in Waterford has shocked staff and left government
officials struggling to frame a response.
Pressure is growing on the authorities at Maghaberry prison to release
internee Gerry McGeough, who suffers from a serious heart condition,
into hospital care.
To risk being pedantic: if no other good comes from the supergrass trial
that began in Belfast yesterday, at least the practice of referring to
informers as ‘informants’ will have been dropped.
The question is, why is he still there? After two official reports tore
to shreds his management of the Police Ombudsman’s Office and its core
functions and exposed the shambles that the office has been for the past
two years, Al Hutchinson should have been booted out immediately.
Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has told his party’s
Ard Fheis [annual conference] today that unionists are “brothers and
sisters” who are to be “loved and cherished”.
A trial involving 14 unionist paramilitaries which begins this week
could see new revelations of conspiracy, collusion and hidden agendas
by the PSNI police.
The man charged with handling complaints against the police in the North
of Ireland has said he may consider his position following the public
release of the latest damning report into his handling of historic
cases.
There has been disbelief in Scotland after a man who assaulted the
manager of Glasgow Celtic Football Club escaped punishment -- despite the
attack taking place during a live televised football match.
Dublin’s representative in the European Parliament has lodged a formal
complaint over an assault on him by 26-County police at a peaceful
environmental protest in County Mayo.
Ten years ago this week, schoolgirls and their families making their
way to and from the Holy Cross school in north Belfast came under
attack on a daily basis.