The devolved administration in the north of Ireland is moving towards
collapse as both of the main unionist parties have said they are ready
to withdraw from the power-sharing coalition with nationalists.
The PSNI has used stop and search powers against the people of two small
north Belfast communities more than 4,500 times in six years, according
to official police statistics.
Tens of thousands have gathered at an anti-water charge rally today in
Dublin. The march began at 2pm under the banner “We’re not going away, you
know!”
The Red Cross has said it is willing to help resolve the deepening
crisis at Maghaberry prison after more than 20 republican prisoners
began refusing meals for more than a week.
DUP leader Peter Robinson has been accused of hypocrisy after seeking
leniency for a loyalist believed by victims to have been involved in the
mass murder of innocent Catholics in the 1970s.
The PSNI Chief’s claim that the IRA exists
- even in the benign way he paints it - is wrong: the IRA is
gone and is not coming back, writes Gerry Adams.
The Ulster Unionist Party is set to withdraw its only Minister from the
Stormont Executive on Saturday after party leader Mike Nesbitt
described the current power-sharing agreement as “threadbare”.
In response to a growing media furore, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has insisted that the Provisional IRA were not involved in the killing of Kevin McGuigan in east Belfast earlier this month.
The failure of the British Ministry of Defence to trace any of the British soldiers present at the time of the 1971 Ballymurphy Massacre has infuriated the families of the victims.
Over 500 files have been made available to historians in Belfast this
week as part of the declassification of government files dating from the
mid-1980s.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been accused of “blowing smoke” after he
insisted that “common sense” must be applied in response to the growing
homelessness crisis.
Sinn Fein’s Daithi McKay has said there were a number of breaches of
determinations by the Parades Commission at a loyalist parade in
Rasharkin last [Friday] night.
The 26-County state and the Gardai police will be accused from a Dublin
stage next week of covering up claims about the serial rape of young
boys because the alleged abuser - dubbed “the Irish Jimmy Savile” - was
an informer blackmailed into spying on the IRA.
The close-knit republican community of the Short Strand has been shocked
by the apparent revenge killing on Wednesday night of Kevin McGuigan,
the chief suspect in the murder earlier this year of former PIRA
commander Jock Davison.
There has been a flood of complaints about the PSNI’s actions after it
blocked a nationalist anti-internment protest from marching to Belfast
city centre on Sunday.
A three-hour racist assault on the home of a former republican prisoner
in west Belfast last weekend has highlighted a wave of spontaneous acts
of violence, racism and sectarianism across the North.
Leaked reports that a decision has been made to bring criminal charges
against water charge protesters may have been a deliberate attempt to
smear those politicians involved.
It would appear as if a two tier
police and justice system - one rule for Irish Republicans and another,
much more lenient one, for the pro British community - is in force today
in the north of Ireland.
Loyalists say they will attempt to block a nationalist civil rights
march through Belfast on Sunday. The UDA’s political wing, the UPRG, has
threatened to “stop republican scum from marching on the streets of
Belfast”.
Republicans held a protest in west Belfast on Thursday evening as the
PSNI police chief George Hamilton took part in a discussion panel event
alongside Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
The survivors of the Miami Showband atrocity have urged British soldiers
who opposed collusion with loyalist paramilitaries to help an
investigation into the massacre.
One of the oldest republican prisoners at Maghaberry has said he is
being refused the right to have proper treatment for bowel cancer
because he is a resident of the 26 County state.
Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien has initiated a new series of legal
proceedings against Irish legislators and threatened to sue two websites
which published a satirical article mocking him.
A closer look at the five legal attacks of Denis O’Brien, in chronological order, and the broader
issues they raise about inequality and power in Ireland.
There has been an angry response after British soldiers mounted raids in
Derry’s Galliagh area this week, with Sinn Fein describing them as
“unacceptable”.
Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has travelled to Washington DC this week
to ask for US assistance to prevent British welfare cuts being
implemented in the north of Ireland.
Loyalists have staged a highly controversial march through south Belfast
in honour of a death squad linked to scores of sectarian murders during
the conflict.
The family of murdered Gaelic sports official Sean Brown is set to sue
the PSNI chief constable and British ministry of defence over the part
they played in his death.
There have been calls for the Dublin parliament to be recalled after a
European Union agency indicated the government tried to manipulate Irish
Water to cheat EU funding requirements.
Three Irish bankers were jailed on Friday as a custodial sentence was
handed down for a first time to those involved in the multi-billion
fraud at Anglo-Irish Bank.
A row has broken out over rival commemorations to mark the hundredth
anniversary of the funeral of Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, one of the most
significant events in the lead up to the 1916 Easter Rising.
The 1916 Societies recently launched a petition for an All-Ireland
Referendum on Irish Unity. This address on the campaign is by Barry
Monteith, an independent Councillor from Tyrone, with a link to the
petition.