Ireland’s two largest conservative parties battled it out yesterday in a
by-election count which saw the left-wing vote decimated and Fine Gael
ultimately hold onto a seat thanks to a wave of sympathy for a grieving
daughter.
The removal by British officials of a banner on the Falls Road in west
Belfast advertising a planned 1916 commemoration on Easter Monday has
recalled events surrounding the removal of an Irish tricolour flag almost
fifty years ago, eirigi has said.
Breakaway IRA group Oglaigh na hEireann has claimed that a bomb
abandoned in County Fermanagh last weekend was intended to target the
hotel hosting British Prime Minister David Cameron and other world
leaders attending June’s G8 summit.
North Belfast nationalists are expected to defy a ban on holding a
protest outside a Catholic church during one of the biggest sectarian
parades of the year.
A former member of the Real IRA’s ruling army council has just been
released from the jail where he was held for four years during a lengthy
extradition battle.
Alec McCrory writes on the latest in a series of British state measures
which are directed towards republicans and pose a significant threat to
civil liberties.
The family of a man with special needs shot dead by British soldiers in
County Armagh almost 40 years ago have said an apology from the British
government is not enough.
Sinn Fein Finance Spokesperson Pearse Doherty has said the Dublin
government is complicit in a disastrous attempt by the European Union to
expropriate up to 10% of the savings of some of the EU’s poorest
citizens.
Voting takes place this Wednesday for the Meath East by-election. A
total of eleven candidates are to contest the seat previously held by
the late Fine Gael Minister of State, Shane McEntee.
After nearly seven years and 11 attempts to find out the truth, the
inquest into the killing of senior Sinn Fein member turned MI5 informer
Denis Donaldson is on hold again.
There are renewed hopes for the undocumented Irish in the US after
President Barack Obama made positive comments on the issue at the annual
St Patrick’s Day shamrock ceremony in Washington.
Republican Network for Unity (RNU) has outlined its opposition to the
Good Friday Agreement after announcing that it will field candidates in
future local elections throughout Ireland.
Is there something deeper driving the ‘fleg protests’, the road blocks,
forlorn handfuls shivering along white lines, the traipsing in and out
to Belfast City Hall?
The 32 County Sovereignty Movement (32CSM) has reacted angrily after
three of its members in Derry were arrested Wednesday and charged with
“terrorist offenses” for having participated in a peaceful ceremony last
year to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising.
There were brief but intense clashes north of Belfast
last weekend when loyalists invaded a nationalist area to tear down
Irish flags and symbols and then left a bomb outside a Catholic church.
Breakaway IRA group Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH) has claimed responsibility
for a bomb attack on the PSNI police on the northern outskirts of
Belfast on Saturday night.
An independent member of the Dublin parliament has admitted that he
availed of a backroom process by which prominent public figures and
other well connected individuals can avoid motoring offence penalties in
the 26 Counties.
In contrasting developments, one high-profile loyalist flags protest
leader has received bail after claiming to suffer from terminal cancer,
while another has moved into the UVF paramilitary landing of Maghaberry
Prison.
The deepening social inequality in both parts of Ireland is being
highlighted as the island’s political leaders are again jetted off to
exotic destinations for the annual St Patrick’s Day celebrations.
An attack apparently planned by the ‘new IRA’ against the PSNI’s Strand
Road base in Derry bore the hallmarks of a similar attack in 1991 by
the Provisional IRA on Downing Street, according to security experts in
the North.
The First Minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson has attacked the
policing and judicial system in the North after three ringleaders of
the recent flags disturbances were arrested last week.
A two-year coalition ‘progress report’ published by the 26 County
government has been described as an attempt by the coalition to give
itself a ‘pat on the back’.
Republican Sinn Fein have said that promises of a breakthrough in ending
full-body strip-searching of prisoners in Maghaberry jail in County
Antrim “have come to nought” following the announcement last month that
the electronic scanning machine will not now be installed in the jail.
Fermanagh District Council has passed a motion calling for the immediate
release of interned political activist Marian Price. It agreed to write
to the current British Direct Ruler, Theresa Villiers, calling for her
release.
Sinn Fein’s Francie Molloy has won the Mid Ulster by-election to fill
the seat at Westminster vacated by the party’s Deputy First Minister
Martin McGuinness.
Two prominent loyalists and a British right-wing extremist have been
arrested and charged in the first action so far against the alleged
ringleaders of the recent disturbances in Belfast and across the North.
Relatives of the Omagh bomb victims are launching a legal action in a
bid to force the Dublin and London governments into granting a full
cross-border inquiry into the horror.
Today marks the anniversary of the start of the 1981 Long Kesh hunger
strike against the criminalisation of republican policical prisoners. Another prisoner who has followed the same path is Samer Issawi.
A temptation newspaper columnists should avoid is the urge to make links
between different stories simply because they happen to be in the air at
the same time. But here goes anyway.
It's widely accepted that the chaos on the streets of greater Belfast
from December through most of February was mainly due to the failure of
policing policy.