Britain is set to formally quit the European Union late Friday, closing the chapter on nearly half a century of integration with its European neighbours and leaving the north of Ireland in a limbo between two powerful economies
Speaking at a protest against Brexit on the Irish border on the day Britain leaves the EU, taking the northeast of Ireland with it, the Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said preparations for constitutional change on the island “needed to start”.
Two former British soldiers who fired on Official IRA man Joe McCann have failed to stop their trial for the murder of the Belfast father of four from going ahead.
A gun attack on a well-known Belfast republican has raised fears of the
return of a grudge-type dispute in east Belfast which in 2015 claimed
the lives of two former members of the Provisional IRA, Jock Davison and
Kevin McGuigan.
The widow of murdered defence lawyer Pat Finucane has won permission at
Belfast’s High Court to challenge the continuing failure of the British
government to carry out an effective investigation.
An
extract from a dossier titled ‘Humans of the Housing Crisis’ prepared by
Sinn Féin of suffering in Ireland as a result of the housing crisis. It
was compiled from submissions received by the party over six days from
Tuesday 3rd December.
Shocking new documents have disclosed that British Army intelligence officer Robert Nairac was responsible for the planning and execution of the Miami Showband Massacre, in which three innocent band-members were killed.
Sinn Féin could be on the cusp of a breakthrough in the 26 Counties as polls show a sharp jump in support for the party and a corresponding decline in support for the main party of government, Fine Gael.
Sinn Féin has called for a referendum on Irish unity within five years in tandem with a ‘Green New Deal’ for climate change as part of its election launch at Dublin’s Mansion House.
Ahead of the anniversary of the British Army’s massacre of 14 civil rights demonstrators in Derry, families say they will fight “tooth and nail” to prevent the only Bloody Sunday murder case from being moved out of the city.
Despite the deferral of a commemoration for members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), plans remain in place for the names of members of the British Crown Forces who died in Ireland up to 1921, including the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries, to be etched on a commemorative wall in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.
Irish speakers face “a battle a day” to get services in the language despite featuring in a new multi-party agreement to restore the Six County political institutions, according to language activists.
Tributes have been paid following the death of Seamus Mallon, the former SDLP deputy leader and deputy First Minister who was closely involved in the peace process of the 1990s.
The 26 County election campaign has had the most shocking start
imaginable after body parts of a murdered 17-year-old boy were found in
a bag in north Dublin.
Disingenuous and almost sarcastic comments by British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson on his first visit to the Belfast Assembly have underlined
a sense that politicians at Stormont have been left to fend for
themselves despite a new effort to ‘make Northern Ireland work’.
Sinn Féin has described the decision by the state-run broadcaster RTE to
hold a one-to-one election debate between the leaders of Fine Gael and
Fianna Fail as an “utter joke”.
A man shot in an SAS ambush as the Provisional IRA engaged Crown Forces
in Coalisland 23 years ago has been convicted of involvement in the
attack, and jailed ahead of sentencing -- despite the incident taking place
before the Good Friday peace Agreement.
Former British prime minister John Major stepped in to stop plans for a
service commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Great Hunger in 1996,
according to state papers dating from that time.
The main elements of the new deal for Six-County power-sharing agreed
by the Dublin and London governments and five political parties in the
north of Ireland.
The recent attempt by an unelected member of the House of Lords to pass
through a ‘Referendums Criteria Bill”, that will gerrymander any future
referenda must serve as a strong reminder to all that the unstated
Border Poll voting threshold for a referendum on Irish Unity needs
addressed now.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is to seek a dissolution of the Dublin parliament
from President Michael D Higgins to allow for a 26 County general
election on Saturday February 8.
The DUP’s Arlene Foster has returned as Stormont First Minister and Sinn
Féin’s Michelle O’Neill has taken up the post of deputy First Minister
as the main political parties moved quickly today to restore the Six
County institutions and take up Ministerial appointments.
Three years after they collapsed, Sinn Féin has made a decision to
return to the partitionist institutions at Stormont, with party leader
Mary Lou McDonald stating that it is the “responsibility of every
party to ensure the Executive meets”.
One of the most extraordinary displays of contempt by an Irish
government for its own people -- a plan to hold an official state
commemoration for those who oppressed and terrorised Ireland for a
century -- has been “deferred” following a huge public outcry.
The unionist paramilitary UDA has been linked to the murder of
Carrickfergus man Glenn Quinn, a former barman who had no paramilitary
connections. His death was due to a severe beating he received after he
fell out with a senior figure from the South East Antrim UDA.
A former British soldier is to stand trial for the 1988 killing of a
Catholic man at a Crown Force checkpoint. Aidan McAnespie, 23, was
walking through a border checkpoint on his way to a Gaelic football
match when he was struck in the back by gunfire.
Amid an unprecedented crisis in Irish hospitals and with the Dublin
government staggering towards an inevitable election, a group of
independent TDs have put down a motion of no confidence in the Minister
for Health Simon Harris.
The New IRA has issued a New Year statement in which it said it looked
forward to a consolidation of the struggle against the British
occupation and “vowed to meet force with force”.
This state was founded by those who fought for Irish Independence between 1919 and
1921 and it would be bizzare if this state were to commemorate those who
fought to suppress it’s establishment.
The Government must go beyond deferral and scrap any plan now or in the
future to commemorate the role of the RIC and the DMP. The shallowness
and opportunism of their position on these events has been exposed. So
has the posturing of the Fianna Fáil Leader.
A new draft Stormont talks agreement has been presented tonight by the
Dublin and London governments which outlines new measures to reform the
Stormont institutions and calls for support for Irish and Ulster-Scots
culture in the north of Ireland, but falls short of an Irish Language
Act.
More than 1,000 files on the Guildford Four, Maguire Seven and
Birmingham Six, notorious miscarriage of justice cases involving
innocent Irish civilians living in England, are to remain secret almost
a century longer than they were supposed.
Revelations around a British government minister’s claim that some
lawyers in the north of Ireland were “unduly sympathetic to the IRA”
have further highlighted the need for a full public inquiry into the
murder of Pat Finucane.
PSNI Chief Simon Byrne is to meet a group of Armagh political
representatives amid continuing anger over a picture he published on
Christmas morning of himself posing alongside heavily armed PSNI men
outside their Crown Force base in the village of Crossmaglen.
With a growing consensus around the need for a border poll to reunite
Ireland in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement, right-wing
politicians in the 26 Counties have been using the Christmas period to
attempt to silence the calls and urge a return of the partitionist
institutions at Stormont instead.
State papers from the 1990s have shown that the British government’s
Northern Ireland Office sought to suppress and counteract the
increasingly effective use of the media by republicans, including the
world wide web emerging at the time.
A Championship soccer match in England had to be stopped this week
following an outbreak of anti-Irish racism directed against Irish
international and Stoke City player James McClean.
A summary of some of the information contained in declassified state
papers which were released by officials over the Christmas break in
Dublin, Belfast and London.
Michael Finucane, the eldest son of Pat Finucane and a practising lawyer
based in Dublin, on his response to revelations about the murder in
declassified papers.