Irish Republican News: Archives

Protests have been taking place to convince Irish state broadcaster RTÉ to withdraw from this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Israel over its attacks against the Palestinian people.

The Intelligence War

100 years ago this week, Ned Broy smuggled Michael Collins into the headquarters of the British police in Ireland. It was a key turning point in the War of Independence.

Don’t hand them over!

Two young Dublin men, Seán Farrell and Ciarán Maguire currently face extradition to the Six Counties on foot of a European Arrest Warrant served by the PSNI in March 2017. If their request is successful Seán and Ciarán will face trial and potentially lengthy prison terms in Co Antrim’s notorious Maghaberry Prison where republican prisoners have for many years been subjected to forced strip searches, systematic beatings and held in isolation for prolonged periods of time.

The Craigavon Two: Ten years as political hostages

Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton collectively known as the Craigavon Two, this week pass the 10th anniversary of their incarceration.

Britain intent on grinding down families’ fight

Sitting in the gallery of the Ballymurphy Massacre Inquest courtroom, you see two battles being waged. There is the legal battle for truth by victims’ families. There is also a battle of wills wherein the British Crown seems intent on grinding down families who dare fight for legacy truth by a strategy termed “deny, delay and die”.

Hunger strikers - Britain ‘blind to reason and persuasion’

March 1st marked the 38th anniversary of the start of Bobby Sands hunger strike in 1981. Nine days into his protest Sands turned 27 years of age. He would not live to see another birthday.

Time to go

There are many reasons you might think Karen Bradley should resign, but the Derry Girls may not be the first one that comes to mind.

Free Abdullah Öcalan

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the abduction of the Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, who remains in solitary confinement as the only prisoner on an island in the Sea of Marmara in Turkey.

Escape from Lincoln Jail

During the years 1918 and 1919 Irish republicans, including Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins, were imprisoned in Lincoln Jail in England. They occupied themselves with study and debate, and then devised a textbook prison escape, 100 years ago this month.

The Dáil Courts of the Black and Tan War

There is plenty that we can learn today from the history of the Republican Court of a century ago.

A dirty deal to jail a solid republican

Saoradh’s view of the conviction in a non-jury court this week of its former party chairperson in Dublin, Kevin Braney, on the word of a paid informer.

The case against Jackson

Eamonn McCann of People for Profit, who was one of the organisers of the original civil rights march and continues to organise the annual Bloody Sunday march for justice, outlines why this year’s march demands “Jail Jackson”.

‘Our objective is the peaceful unity of the Irish people’

The new all-Ireland political party being led by Peadar Tóibín this week revealed its new name as Aontú, the Irish for unity or consent. In this statement written for the centenary of the First Dáil in 1919, Mr Tóibín set out his republican vision for the party.

Time to realise the promise of the revolutionary generation

Last weekend, an official state commemoration of the First Dail took place in the Mansion House in Dublin. Addressing the audience, Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald said that “we have before us the opportunity to build a new and united Ireland”.

The march for justice

The context for this years’s Bloody Sunday March.

Soloheadbeg, the start of the war

One hundred years this week, on a quiet Tipperary roadway, the first nationalist revolt against the British Empire last century was started by a small band of armed men from townlands and villages -- Donohill, Solohead and Hollyford -- in the vicinity of Tipperary Town. The Soloheadbeg ambush shook British rule in Ireland.

Unionism’s new slogan should be ‘Ourselves Alone’

It must be a disconcerting time to be a Unionist. The very fabric of the UK is fraying at the edges at an alarming rate. Scots were a mere five percentage points from backing independence in 2014, while Brexit represents the biggest centrifugal force in the history of the British state.

Declarations of the First Dáil

On 21 January 1919, 100 years ago this week, the first meeting of the parliament of the revolutionary, all-Ireland Irish Republic took place.

Papers reveal bickering, manipulation

We publish a round-up of the state papers declassified at the turn of the year by the Dublin and London governments, dating from 1988 and 1994. Please note that, as usual, some papers have not been released for reasons of ‘state security’.

New Year statements 2019

A round-up of statements issued at the turn of the year by the leaders and leaderships of Sinn Fein and republican organisations.

Gardai, the Guardians of the Violence

Retired Garda policeman Kevin Taylor has spoken about the background to the raid by a loyalist eviction gang at the McGann family home in Roscommon, who attacked him with the support of serving Gardai.

Resilient too inadequate a word

Resilient is too inadequate a word to describe Sinead and Michael Monaghan. Both have suffered immeasurably during the conflict.

Chairman’s address to the 32CSM Ard Fheis

The address to the recent Ard Fheis of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, given by national chairperson Francis Mackey.

‘Harness the energy of all republicans’

A speech delivered last weekend by Peadar Toibin TD at the annual commemoration for former Sinn Fein Vice President Frank Driver at Ballymore Eustace in County Kildare.

Loughinisland verdict, families’ vindication

The families of those killed and injured in the Heights Bar have official vindication of the fact that RUC collusion facilitated the murder of their loved ones.

Remember Irish republican prisoners this Christmas

This is the time of year when republicans traditionally remember those ‘faoi ghlas ag gallaibh’, behind bars in the cause of Ireland. This is the current list of prisoners as collated from welfare groups, families and friends.

No extradition of political prisoners

This week Dublin City Council became the third council to pass motions against the extradition of Irish Republicans to the North. The following is a piece by councillor Ciaran Perry explaining the campaign which saw his motion passed.

Seven reasons not to wear the poppy

It’s time to look at the wider picture of how the poppy pays tribute to so many crimes down the years.

Sinn Fein at a crossroads

A very poor performance by Sinn Fein in the 26 County Presidential election is causing alarm within the party over its political leadership and direction.

The Greysteel massacre

A Catholic priest who comforted the bereaved after the Greysteel massacre 25 years ago has said he believes the revulsion felt after the savage mass-murder helped move the North of Ireland towards peace.

Farcical High Court decision backs PSNI farce

I am now convinced that the Police Service of Northern Ireland is an elaborate prank, a kind of brilliantly large-scale Candid Camera -- and the courts are totally in on the joke.

Jingoism can’t disguise DUP’s reckless Brexit agenda

Arlene Foster is preparing to have a train crash Brexit in pursuit of a narrow agenda with no regard for the majority who voted to remain or for any of the people of the north.

Was the British government the main protagonist?

When all disputes and diversions have been explored, we come back to one core awkward fact.

Seamus Costello

Seamus Costello was a founding member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). He was shot dead on 5 October 1977, 41 years ago this week.

The Republic must constitute any future United Ireland

An address delivered by Sean Bresnahan to the Ruairi O Bradaigh Memorial School in Roscommon.

There was no going back

Recollections by Fionnbarra O Dochartaigh of the civil rights commemoration committee regarding the events at Duke Street which some historians characterise as the day the ‘Troubles’ began.

The devil and the deep blue sea

When I was a lad, our History teacher used to say that people should look for signs of madness in a political leader, and when they saw it, the leader should be shunned. Unfortunately, History wasn’t listening to our teacher.

Emmet’s speech from the dock

Robert Emmet, United Irishman and the leader of the rebellion on 1803, was tried for high treason in Green Street courthouse, 215 years ago this week.

British state let off the hook

The exposure of Michael Jackson in Channel 4’s Ballymurphy documentary makes it necessary to look back on his performance at The Bloody Sunday Inquiry - and at the Inquiry’s refusal to draw proper conclusions about his participation in the murders, his role in the cover-up, and his perjury to the Inquiry.

Annette McGavigan

Forty-seven years ago today a 14-year-old school girl, Annette McGavigan, was shot dead on the streets of Derry by a British soldier. No one was ever charged with her death and no proper investigation was ever carried out.

The Loughinisland killings - who knew?

I finally got round to watching the film ‘No Stone Unturned’ last night. The fact that it’s on Amazon Prime means it’s available to anyone anywhere.

The 1913 Lock-Out

A brief history of Ireland’s landmark industrial and social dispute, between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers, which began in Dublin 105 years ago this week.

RSF hunger strike anniversary commemoration

The oration delivered by Sinn Fein Poblachtach Ard Cisteoir and Ard Chomhairle member Diarmuid Mac Dubhghlais, Atha Cliath at the 37th Anniversary Hunger Strike commemoration and parade in Bundoran, County Donegal at the weekend.

Tony Taylor’s 900th day behind bars

A protest is to be held in Derry to mark the 900th day of Tony Taylor’s internment at Maghaberry Prison.

‘Denial of rights as wrong today as it was in 1968’

The full text of the speech at Sinn Fein’s commemoration of the North’s first civil rights march, by the former party chairperson, Mitchel McLaughlin.

The Omagh bomb

The bereaved of Omagh have never been short of sympathy. But they have been starved of truth.

GAA marks centenary of ‘Gaelic Sunday’

The Gaelic Athletics Association (GAA) marked the weekend’s centenary of ‘Gaelic Sunday’ with commemorative events at clubs across Ireland and abroad and a special colour parade at Croke Park.

‘Old certainties are gone’

The full text of Mary Lou McDonald’s speech at Sinn Fein’s annual 1981 hunger strike commemoration in Castlewellan, County Down last weekend.

Internment

A former internee recalls Operation Demetrius, when the British Army violently rounded up and imprisoned hundreds of nationalists and caused almost 7,000 to flee their homes

‘Never follow blindly’

Former IRA Volunteer and blanketman now historian, author and political commentator, Anthony McIntyre, addressed a gathering which marked the 10th anniversary of the official unveiling of the Duleek Hungerstrike Monument.

The peace process is being used as a political hostage

Short of pulling out a Tricolour, the national flag of Ireland, and setting it on fire on the dais, it is difficult to imagine how much more undiplomatic and positively provocative the Conservative Party leader could have been in her words and sentiments.

Markievicz enters Westminster

The Dublin parliament has gifted a portrait of Irish abstentionist MP Constance Markievicz, the first woman elected to Westminster, as a debate takes place over the refusal of Sinn Fein to take its seats there.

Martin Hurson

A brief look at the life of Martin Hurson, who fought for Irish freedom and became the sixth to die in the 1981 hunger strike, 37 years ago this week.

The Integrity of the Irish Nation

Those who claim to be unionist may regard themselves as British but they live on Irish soil and are here as a result of colonisation. They have a right to live in Ireland but they have no right to prevent the Irish people from being part of one historical Irish nation.

Remembering the hunger strikers

An oration delivered in Duleek, County Meath by Cait Trainor on the 10th anniversary of the opening of their hunger strike memorial garden.

The Caledon squat, 50 years on

A family’s decision to make a stand over housing set in motion a chain of events that would give rise to the civil rights movement 50 years ago and thrust Ireland into the international spotlight.

James Connolly and Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee

This week in 1897, James Connolly was arrested and detained for organising a series of protests in Dublin over Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee, some of which resulted in riots.

Arlene, reconciliatory gestures and coat-trailing

I want Arlene and the Orange Order to look at this huge institution which creates division again and again every year, in a society which is already divided.

RSF Bodenstown Address 2018

An abridged version of the main oration delivered by Republican Sinn Fein Ard Chomhairle member, John Joe McCusker, following the party’s annual commemorative parade to the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone last weekend.

‘Real change is within our grasp’ - SF

The full text of the keynote speech by Sinn Fein Deputy Leader Michelle O’Neill to the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis 2018.

Dennis Heaney

A statement issued through the Pat Finucane Centre by the family of Dennis Heaney, who was shot dead on the streets of Derry by undercover SAS soldiers on 10th June 1978, 40 years ago this week.

The 1798 Rebellion

A look at the fateful Rising of the United Irishmen, which took place 220 years ago this month.

Remembering Ray McCreesh

Several hundred republicans gathered in McCreesh park in Newry last weekend to honour local hunger striker Raymond McCreesh in separate events organised by Saoradh and Sinn Fein. A tribute delivered by Saoradh’s Nuala Perry.

London offers tracking apps instead of a border poll

How can the United Kingdom deny a border vote to the inhabitants of the Six Counties on one hand by claiming that the demand does not exist for it, while on the other the prime minister herself admits that the outcome of such a poll is uncertain?

Yes or No to abortion?

We present two sides of the republican debate on abortion rights ahead of the referendum on May 25th to remove the Eighth Amendment, which broadly prohibits it, and to allow the Dublin parliament to legislate for its provision.

Francis Hughes: Scourge of the UDR

A contemporaneous account of the life of Francis Hughes following his death on May 12, 1981 while on hunger striker against the Tory criminalisation of republican prisoners. From the Starry Plough.

The big knock

Sinead McCool describes what it’s like to endure PSNI harassment and a raid against your family’s home in 2018

5 May 1981

A contemporaneous account of events and sentiment in the aftermath of the death of Bobby Sands on this day in 1981, from the point of view of a British socialist. Originally published in Spartacist magazine.

Republicans torn on abortion issue

Divisions among republicans on the issue of abortion have become painfully exposed by the current debate on the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the 26 County constitution.

Irish Republicanism at a critical juncture

A speech delivered earlier this month by Peter A Rogers at the independent republican Easter commemoration in Duleek, County Meath.

Good Friday Ambiguity, twenty years on

Elephants filled Queen’s University’s Whitla Hall this week where a major media event was organised to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

A united Ireland can be a home to Arlene Foster

The principles of the Good Friday Agreement are now central to our future, argues Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald.

Easter speeches and statements

A round-up of the main statements and orations by republicans at Easter 1916 commemorations this year.

Republicans must stand united

The disgusting scenes from the British Armed Police in Lurgan today are enough to shock anyone; it is a throw back to what middle of the road mediocre pundits would call “the dark old days”. But to look at what happened in Lurgan today we must understand why it happened.

Varadkar accused of marching to British tune

Irish republicans have condemned the decision by 26 County Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to expel a Russian diplomat as a flagrant disregard for Irish neutrality and have linked it to increasing militarisation within Europe.

Join the stand against the new gerrymander

The DUP are behind the redrafting of constituency boundaries to hold onto as much power in the North as possible, writes Sinn Fein MP Elisha McCallion.

Tribute to Frank Flood

Dublin City Council has officially named a bridge in north Dublin after a 19-year-old student of University College Dublin and head of an IRA unit who was executed during the War of Independence.

Remembering Rosemary Nelson

Human rights lawyer, Rosemary Nelson, was murdered in this week 19 years ago by an under-car booby trap bomb. The attack was later claimed by a Loyalist death squad the LVF, but the level of sophistication points the finger firmly at British military intelligence for Rosemary’s murder. Mandy Duffy remembers Rosemary on her anniversary.

Why I won’t go to Westminster

In 2017, I and other MPs were elected on a mandate to actively abstain from Westminster. We intend to honour that mandate, writes Sinn Fein's Paul Maskey.

Poyntzpass remembered

One of the most shocking loyalist atrocities of the conflict -- the murders of two lifelong friends, one a Protestant, one a Catholic -- made headlines around the world 20 years ago this week.

Black 47

Variety, a leader among Hollywood publications, has given Black 47, the first ever movie set in Famine times in Ireland, a rave review.

Arlene does a Paisley

Arlene Foster has dipped deep into her political bag of tricks and produced a very old, tried-and-trusted Paisley technique.

Right to remember our fallen comrades

Easter 2017 saw thousands of Irish Republicans march defiant and proud behind an impressive colour party in Derry at the Unfinished Revolution Easter commemoration. Many members of the colour party have since been arrested, detained and interrogated.

The legacy of Connolly, 150 years after his birth

An article written by Jim Slaven of the James Connolly Society to mark the 150th year since the birth of the Irish patriot.

‘It is never too late’

A diverse gathering of republicans took place this week at St Mary’s Cemetery Navan to commemorate the 6th anniversary of Volunteer Martin Rattigan and his brother Joe, whose 4th anniversary occurs later this year. North Armagh republican Cait Trainor delivered the following oration.

The Dripsey ambush

An account of one of the most important incidents in the War of Independence in central county Cork, 97 years ago this week.

A profile of Mary Lou McDonald

Mary Lou McDonald will be confirmed as the next leader of Sinn Fein within two weeks. A look at the woman who has set herself the challenge of leading the party into government in the 26 Counties.

Bloody Sunday Programme 2018

The official introduction and programme for the week of events in Derry culminating in the annual march to commemorate the Bloody Sunday massacre.

United Ireland ‘not inevitable’ - Adams

Gerry Adams gave what is thought to be his last speech as president of Sinn Fein to the party’s Cuige Uladh [Ulster department] in Belfast on Saturday morning before his succession by Mary Lou McDonald. The full text of Mr Adams’s speech.

The Craigavon 2 deserve justice

The Craigavon 2, Brendan McConville and John-Paul Wootton, are innocent Irishmen who have been wrongfully imprisoned for the past 8 years. Sign the petition now!

New Year statements 2018

A round-up of the statements traditionally issued this time of year by republican organisations.

Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh

2018 will present many challenges. If progress with the DUP proves impossible then the onus falls on to the Irish and British governments to spell out how they intend to jointly ensure that all past agreements are honoured.

State papers round-up

A summary of some of the information contained in declassified state papers which were released by officials this week in both Dublin and London.

The Christmas Raid

An extract from Liam Brady’s autobiography in which he describes a famous 1939 IRA raid on a Free State military installation in the Phoenix Park.

Remember republican prisoners this Christmas

December is traditionally the month to remember republican prisoners with cards and letters. The current up to date Irish republican prisoner list.

The future requires a process of reconciliation

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams TD was in Fermanagh this week to give the Louis Leonard commemorative lecture on the 45th anniversary of his death. An extract of his remarks, which focussed on reconciliation.

The Burning of Cork

In one of the worst atrocities committed during the War of Independence, British forces deliberately set fire to several blocks of buildings and public institutions, 97 years ago this week.

We should not be collateral damage in Brexit shambles

We are at a crucial juncture in the process. The Irish Government have the responsibility and the leverage to ensure clarity and certainty from the British Government.

Sinister British tactics know no bounds or borders

No other political party in the country would be treated the same way as Saoradh, and if they did there would be a major public outcry.

Ballymurphy republicans don’t retire

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams on his party’s historic annual conference.

The pain and humiliation of Brexit

When I hear what the EU negotiators are telling the UK, I invariably feel a jolt of pleasure.

A new way forward for Ireland

Sean Bresnahan, Chair of the Thomas Ashe Society Omagh, argues that the Eire Nua initiative for a Federal All-Ireland Republic, developed by Sinn Fein in the 1970s and still supported by Republican Sinn Fein, can best advance a new beginning for all of the Irish people.

Leo Varadkar needs to start acting like Taoiseach

Given the present animosity between Varadkar's government and Sinn Fein it seems inconceivable that they could meet and hammer out a common Irish policy for the north.

Unionist presence must be accommodated

Nationalists must begin any discussion about the future possibility of reunification from a position of respect for unionist fears about the future in a reunified Ireland.

Mind what you say

Say you don’t consider this part of Ireland British and you’re likely to provoke anger from unionist politicians.

Language row betrays aims of Bobby Sands sacrifice

I would be incensed if the value of the sacrifice of the hunger strikers and all those others who sacrificed their lives during the struggle were reduced to the value of an Irish language act.

The dismaying case of Tony Taylor

If you drive around the north of Ireland you’re sure to come across one of the signs: three words that test our notion of democracy.

Thank God Dave Cullen doesn’t know me

It is clear that the 26 County state is intent on smashing Republicanism. If they are not using the word of a superintendent to jail political activists, they are prepared to use the word of an even more despicable type.

Sinn Fein is committed to restoring the institutions

In the cut and thrust of negotiations there is always the risk that someone will say something that makes the process of achieving agreement more difficult.

Principles keep you on the true path

The oration delivered by Padraig Garvey, of Republican Sinn Fein in Kerry, at the annual hunger strike commeration organised by the independent Bundoran / Ballyshannon 1981 H-Block Commemoration Committee.

Collusion and the abuse of power

It is now clear that policing, intelligence and political elements within the British system have sought to frustrate families and victims getting to the truth of the Glenanne Gang and its actions.

Now is the time to deliver Irish unity

The speech delivered by Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly at the party’s National Hunger Strike Commemoration.

Gutless unionism can’t do the decent thing

The DUP can’t stand up to the UDA because they might need them again soon to prevent change.

Robert Hamill was walking home

The British bear a great responsibility for the visceral hatred of Catholics by loyalists who support this artificially constructed colony.

IRA membership charges on the increase

Over the last few months I think we have all noticed the upsurge in IRA membership charges facing Republicans in the 26 Counties, it seems every other day someone is up in the Special Criminal Court.

Is radical republicanism making a comeback?

Is the stage now set for the politics that once informed an entire movement in the North to re-emerge?

Orange Order can no longer claim ownership of the north

It has been a long slow painful process and of course it’s not completed yet. However Orangemen can no longer march where they want or where they aren’t wanted.

There can be no return to the status quo

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams on the Stormont talks process which collapsed this week.

Breakdown in talks an avoidable mess

As they say in Belfast, the dogs in the street could see there was no prospect of a deal to restore power-sharing.

DUP losing battle for Irish-free zone

To the surprise of no-one the Stormont talks foundered on the DUP's adamantine refusal to concede an Acht na Gaelige.

Active abstentionism

Is Micheal Martin now telling us that if his party ever stands candidates in the North, and they are successful, that they will take the Oath to the English Queen?

Election has sounded the death knell for the SDLP

For the first time in fifty-one years, since Gerry Fitt was elected for West Belfast in 1966, there is no northern nationalist voice at Westminster.

The winds of change are blowing

Nationalists have come to appreciate the power and value of their vote.

Don’t let them break you

An appeal to anyone who has been approached by British intelligence and has accepted their false promises of a better life to come forward and to make it known.

Victory to the hunger strikers

36 years ago the hunger strikers and the political prisoners in the H-Blocks and Armagh Women’s prison were uplifted by reports of international solidarity.

EU decision changes the question on Irish unity

Last Saturday’s formal statement of the EU’s negotiating position is of enormous importance for Ireland north and south.

Brexit, demographic change and a ‘New Republic’ for all

With Brexit looming and unionism fast becoming not only a national minority but one within its own gerrymandered statelet, what is now required is a national dialogue.

The North will be biggest loser in the Brexit election

The general election couldn’t come at a worse time for Northern Ireland.

Joint administration the only way forward

The sacrifice of this generation of republicans and the families of our patriot dead transformed Ireland in a way that means that a new independent Ireland can be realised.

Let us learn from the past and build a New Ireland

As we approach Easter 2017 and the 101st anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916 are we anywhere near the ideals set out in the proclamation read out by Padraig Pearse outside the GPO? NO, most definitely not.

Time for DUP to accept the game’s up

You might think she doesn’t get it but Arlene Foster knows fine well what the problems were and continue to be and she knows rightly that forming an executive is not Sinn Fein’s priority.

Prospect of a united Ireland is inevitable

For the first time in my lifetime, the Irish question is no longer a question of if, but of when.

Thinking about the unthinkable

How much of our thinking is wishful? Quite a bit, I suspect.

We need to manage the transition to unity - now

If ever citizens needed proof of the power and the importance of their vote, it was this election, writes Gerry Adams.

Voters didn’t back Sinn Fein in order to get the DUP

Let’s make a couple of points clear because the media commentary in the last few days has been couched within the parameters set out by the NIO, by wishful thinking and by hand wringing from bleeding heart getalongers, the so-called ‘middle ground’ which doesn’t amount to a hill of beans north and west of Royal Avenue.

Last night: slam, bam, thank you, ma’am

Well, that was quite an evening/night, wasn’t it? Just when you thought politics in our NE nest had become dour and tedious, along comes yesterday. Where to start?

The death of Pat Finucane: just one more killing?

I was at the annual Pat Finucane memorial lecture last night in the Europa Hotel. In some ways it was a moving evening, in some ways disappointing and in some ways enraging.

Foster’s disturbing attempt to demonise SF voters

Arlene Foster’s characterisation of Sinn Fein as a ‘crocodile’ is very disturbing indeed for a number of reasons.

Brexit exposes GFA as a purely internal arrangement

Sean Bresnahan argues that the recent decision on Brexit by the Supreme Court in London leaves no room for doubt that the Good Friday Agreement amounts to nothing more than an exclusively internal solution.

Brokenshire’s legacy comments are a disgrace

You have to go back a long way to find a proconsul as directionless as the current specimen.

Sinn Fein seeking respect, equality and integrity

A statement by Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill on taking over from Martin McGuinness and taking up the new position within the party of ‘Leader in the North’.

Republican views on the Stormont crisis

The opinions of Sinn Fein’s republican opponents on the current state of politics in the north of Ireland.

McGuinness will be a hard man to follow

Martin McGuinness’s IRA career and reputation uniquely fitted him for his role as chief conciliator with the British establishment.

Why Brexit means Irish unity is now inevitable

A political commentary by Kevin Meagher, former Special Adviser to the last Labour Government in Britain, about the new potential for Irish reunification.

Momentum building towards collapse of Stormont

Serious damage is being done to the integrity of politics and action is urgently needed to restore public confidence and trust in the north’s political system.

DUP arrogance damages institutions

Monday’s antics by the DUP in the Assembly have seriously damaged its credibility and that of the Executive and of the First and Deputy First Ministers office. The DUP’s actions are not acceptable and this issue is not going away, according to Gerry Adams.

Stormont must go

An analysis by the new republican political party, Saoradh, of the latest crisis within the northern Executive.

Political correctness won’t cut it for GAA people

After GAA chief Aogan o Fearghail called for scrapping the Irish flag and the national anthem from Gaelic sports, commentator Joe Brolly responded.

A failed prison

After five deaths at the jail in the past year, prisons campaigner Alec McCrory raises concerns about the situation in Maghaberry.

Demand the release of Tony Taylor

The internment of Tony Taylor strikes at the very heart of democracy and the right to a fair trial.

‘We will not be broken’

A statement from Saoradh member, Damhnic Mac Eochaidh, read out at the demonstration against British/PSNI harassment in Belfast, and also one by 15-year-old Ailise ni Mhurchu from west Belfast, on the PSNI stop and search procedures she has endured while going to and coming from school.

Brexit has implications for whole of Ireland

Brexit presents enormous and unprecedented challenges to jobs and investment, to public services and to the progress and co-operation we now take for granted. It demands that we put the needs of our people and economy to the fore.

Brits plan to ignore human rights laws - again

Last week’s Tory party conference exposed once again the British establishment’s largely xenophobic view of the world outside of England.

Budget will re-enforce inequality

The spin is that last week’s Budget spreads the benefits to all. It doesn’t.

Brexiteers should know consequences of ignoring Ireland

There will be consequences if the carefully worded deal in the Good Friday Agreement about how to advance Irish unity peacefully and democratically is casually set aside unilaterally by the British government.

Dialogue, not deflection

Pauline Mellon on the Ardoyne parades dispute, from her blog, ‘The Diary of a Derry Mother’.

Have Sinn Fein been outwitted by the DUP?

In setting out to free Ireland, in believing they could outwit the British, Sinn Fein have in fact set us backwards to the days of unionist domination.

A response to the BBC

Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice responds to the BBC Spotlight documentary on the death of British double-agent Denis Donaldson.

Building Gaeilge for future generations

Irish history is full of examples of policies intended to deter the use of the Irish language while promoting English. But it is also full of courageous men and women who strove to defend the language and music and culture of Ireland.

Honest and transparent debate needed on united Ireland

A welcome off-shoot from the recent ‘Brexit’ referendum in Britain is that talk of a United Ireland has come again to the fore of political discourse all across Ireland.

The most beautiful of all battles

This week a peace agreement represents the first time that Colombia will be at peace since 1948, and includes comprehensive agreements that encompass many aspects of Colombian life.

Potential for building a new Ireland

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness says that the debate on an united Ireland has begun and can’t be stopped.

An end to the Union

Once again a British politician - who has no stake in this island - is given influence over our lives by a British government whose priority interests are not ours.

Political process has a one dimensional unionist narrative

The revelation that the 1916 memorial in Carnlough was removed in the dead of night by Mid and East Antrim Borough Council is unsurprising but symptomatic of a political establishment and narrative that seeks to remove all vestiges of Irish nationalist and republican culture and history.

Sectarian Orange Order bonfires

Perhaps one reason why the Northern state turns a blind eye to the naked sectarianism displayed at 11th July bonfires is the fundamentally sectarian foundations of the British Constitution.

Ignoring the truth over north’s position on EU

Forthcoming negotiations are an opportunity for Sinn Fein and northern nationalists to tighten relations with the Republic in ways that benefit all the people on this island.

Question is now about extent of loyalist collusion

Let’s hope the Police Ombudsman’s report on the Loughinisland killings becomes a model for future investigations by his office.

Truth alone is not enough

It is poignantly fitting that the truth about Loughinisland has emerged at this precise time as people gather in their local pubs for the start of Euro 2016.

‘Brexit’ vote denies the national rights of the Irish

The upcoming ‘Brexit’ referendum holds significance for Ireland given Britain’s continuing claim to sovereignty over the Six Counties and her ongoing occupation of the North.

Writing about the hunger strike

35 years ago, on May 5th 1981, Bobby Sands died on hunger strike after 66 days without food. He was the first of 10 men to die in the H Blocks of Long Kesh that terrible summer of 1981.

Sinn Féin must beware the left-wing surge

The large votes for People Before Profit candidates remain the story of the election. Left wing candidates did most damage to Sinn Féin and the SDLP.

Stormont elections - a mandate for British rule

Sean Bresnahan looks at the upcoming elections in the North. Sean Bresnahan is a member of the Thomas Ashe Society in Omagh and National PRO of the 1916 Societies.

Micheal Martin could play a role in Irish unity

A Micheal Martin speech at Bodenstown or in the Dail or at Arbour Hill would not be complete without an attack on Sinn Fein. I suppose we should take some comfort from this, writes Gerry Adams.

Sir Bob and the f***ing martyrs

Some time back there was a fashionable notion called the Tipping Point. In the old days we’d have called it the straw that broke the camel’s back. Well, I’ve reached that point with Sir Bob Geldof.

The Rising tide of revisionism

There's a lot of balderdash talked in the last couple of weeks about the Easter Rising being 'undemocratic'. So it was as people today view democracy. However that doesn't mean the existing government in Ireland was democratic. It wasn't.

It’s our party and we’ll cry if we want to

The two biggest right-wing parties have wasted weeks staging meaningless talks that can’t lead to anything. Panic? Indecision? I don’t think so.

Irish Unity is better for all

This year of all years presents an opportunity to challenge the misconceptions, to present the argument for a new Ireland where the Proclamation exists as reality, not an afterthought from the past.

A key Sinn Fein objective is emerging

Jim Gibney writes that with Gerry Adams leading a significantly larger group of Sinn Fein TDs in the Dail the north will, in this centenary year of the 1916 Rising, never again be abandoned.

The media campaign against Sinn Fein

The most alarming feature of this general election has been the ferocious campaign against Sinn Fein. The State has never witnessed such a biased agenda across all media organisations against a political party.

A time for change

Elements of the conservative media have been busy trying to spin the yarn that the election is ‘boring’. The truth is very different. In my travels across this state there is a clear desire for change. For new politics.

When national security undermines human rights

It's worth noting that Britain’s security elite systematically invests time and energy in long-term planning and forecasting.

Eight years on and it is political business as usual

Nothing has changed and no one is held accountable in Ireland, and this is a government promising more of the same.

The fantasy history of the 1916 Easter Rising

Who is more reprehensible on the scales of historical judgement? The progressive militant, who sought a modern democratic republic or the conservative militant, who was ready to accept a devolved, partitioned Ireland?

Right to reject nonsense of a ‘shared history’

The two governments, but particularly the Irish government, hoped that by developing a load of claptrap about a ‘shared history’ they could somehow exorcise the years 1912-22.

Remember 1916, when we had guts and self-esteem?

You’d have to wonder what the executed leaders of the Rising would make of Ireland's leaders of today.

Time for a new approach

Following the conclusion of yet another pseudo negotiation at Stormont, its purpose as ever to prop up British rule in the North, it is clear the status quo in Ireland is incapable of securing forward political progress.

The jailing of Claire Knowles

Just two weeks before Christmas, a law-abiding mother, daughter, sister, grandmother and friend to many was committed to prison.

A fresh start?

Amid ongoing public recriminations and street protests against the ‘Fresh Start’ agreement, Jim Gibney defends Sinn Fein’s negotiators, while the SDLP’s new leader Colum Eastwood condemns them.

Robinson has gone before he was pushed

Robinson's opponents in the DUP made no secret of their belief that he was an electoral liability.

Spies and spooks - the same old story

It is regrettable but not surprising that elements of the Irish political establishment and sections of the Irish media are willing to exploit a specious report to attack Sinn Fein.

Explaining yourself to the poppy fascists

Literally within seconds of Sienna Miller stepping into shot on the Graham Norton Show on Saturday night “eagle-eyed viewers” spotted she wasn’t wearing a poppy.

A strategy of confusion

Pauline Mellon, author of ‘The Diary Of A Derry Mother’, looks at how victims are treated in the legacy proposals of the Stormont House Agreement.

Latest report highlights process absurdities

Another week, another crisis in the peace process which passeth all understanding.

Equality needed for former political prisoners

Former prisoners should be legally recognised as full and equal members of society like everyone else.

British determined to control historical inquiries

The British government's Northern Ireland Office snuck out its policy paper on implementing the Stormont House Agreement last week.

DUP made mistake in confronting Cameron with threats

The way the British government has handled the impasse is very instructive. They did not give in to unionist amateur dramatics, ultimatums, hissy fits or walk outs.

Gerry Adams and Jeremy Corbyn and what matters in politics

Criticism of Corbyn’s non-singing of the British national anthem, or the clothes he wears, or his beard, are obviously superficial to the brink of ludicrous.

Stormont has served politicians, not the people

What has Stormont delivered for working-class nationalists? Zilch.

Political policing is not a ‘legacy issue’

Local Republicans and residents’ groups analysis of the PSNI, MI5 and repressive state apparatus and legislation is the correct one.

Stormont is a failed political experiment

Since the current Stormont is now more unpopular than the old one, many might wonder why Sinn Fein is trying to preserve it.

Ireland’s record on migrants has been shameful

How quickly we forget. When it suits. Are we about to disgrace ourselves again?

There is nothing more Sinn Fein can do

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.

If IRA didn’t exist, unionists would need to invent it

There was a joke in 1997. What’s the difference between the Stickies and the Provos? Answer: 25 years.

The last obscenity

Maghaberry is an injustice that undermines the very fabric of our society.

The deaths of Gerard Davison and Kevin McGuigan

Are the Provisional IRA about to re-commence their armed campaign? Do unionist politicians really think so?

A two-tier policing and justice system

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.

Who dares confront touchy billionaire Denis O’Brien?

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.

The myth of demilitarisation

Britain has not in fact demilitarised but simply returned to levels of troop deployment consistent with her needs during ‘peacetime’

End the appeasement of loyalist gang bosses

Local councils, Stormont and the British government subsidise the UDA and UVF by employing their bosses and local henchmen.

Orange Order bigotry must be opposed

For just how much longer must the beleaguered nationalist community in the north be expected to succumb to unwanted loyalist bonfires and being forced to indulge unwelcome, uninvited anti-Catholic Orangemen?

Stormont’s gravest crisis

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, writing for Leargas, warns that the 1998 Good Friday peace Agreement ‘hangs by a thread’.

Who will dare say out loud ‘the emperor has no clothes’?

Everything from the lives of ordinary Greeks to the foundations of the European Union must be sacrificed to a toxic fantasy, to which Ireland has made a special contribution.

MI5 has primacy on policing

MI5 retains the ability to dictate the terms on which its activities might be examined

An agreement in the rear-view mirror

The Stormont House Agreement is now history. It joins the long list of documents gathering dust in the archives like the 1995 Frameworks Document, large chunks of the 2001 Weston Park Agreement and the 2010 Hillsborough Agreement.

‘A compassionate and inclusive future’

Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice has criticised the DUP for attempting to exclude republicans from the 'reconciliation' process.

Who fears to speak of Easter Week?

New York lawyer and long-time republican activist Martin Galvin on the recent arrest and internment-by-remand of Ardoyne republican Dee Fennell.

Reaching out

Tuesday’s meeting is part of the necessary process which must now address in a more substantial way than ever before the issue of reconciliation and healing.

Demeaning ourselves for the Prince

The 26-County gardai this week conducted a series of ‘disruptive’ raids and arrests on the homes of republicans in advance of a royal visit to Ireland by Britain’s Prince Charles. A piece by Eamonn McCann for the Irish Times on the sycophantic attitude of the Irish establishment to British royalty.

A terrible beauty is born

For Britain, the election result in Scotland is is the biggest constitutional drama since the abdication.

Standing up to the Tories

Martin McGuinness on why you should vote for Sinn Féin candidates in this week’s Westminster general election.

A convenient lie?

With the British government attempting to use ‘secret evidence’ to block a public inquiry into the 1998 Omagh bomb and with new trial proceedings against Seamus Daly dragging out due to delays by the British and 26 County police, Cait Trainor looks at his case.

Government is afraid to speak of Easter week

For this government, it is easier to deal with the notion of individual loss and sacrifice than promote the ideas of the Proclamation.

An electoral pact could change things utterly

Tactical voting when used strategically can make a dramatic change. It can also positively contribute to progressive politics.

Next parliament will bring radical change

This election is going to confirm a change in British politics which has been happening for at least a decade.

Partition as perpetual crisis

Jim Slaven of the James Connolly Society gives his opinion on the political developments in the Six Counties and Sinn Fein’s change of heart on the Welfare Bill currently before Stormont. He argues that the solution to the ills currently afflicting Ireland are to be found in establishing a genuine democratic republic rather than pandering to power within the partitioned states.

Sinn Fein right to pull rug from under DUP

The dispute is simply a sign of what is to come with the other aspects of the agreement: flags, Orange marches and the past.

Three peace processes are jostling for position

There are three political/peace processes jostling for primacy here. None of them are working.

2016 and how to fool yourself

It gets closer every day, and as it does the politicians in the south get more and more uneasy.

‘We let them rot in Cricklewood’

The refusal to allow votes to Irish emigrants is tied up with the attitude of successive governments to the question of emigration.

Denying the British empire’s crimes

To dismiss Britain’s colonial atrocities, no such effort is required. Most people appear to be unaware that anything needs to be denied.

Why the PSNI cannot investigate the RUC’s crimes

Policing is too important to be left to the police, and in the context of the north of Ireland, the past is also too important to be left to the police.

Bloody Sunday ‘murder’ investigation has become a sham

While there may be a semblance of peace our quest for justice seems to involve endless promises and sham processes.

The sham of the West’s “free speech” celebration

This week’s celebration of France - and the gaggle of tyrannical leaders who joined it - had little to do with free speech and much to do with suppressing ideas they dislike while venerating ideas they prefer.

Don’t repeat mistakes here in Paris kneejerk

Who will guard the guards themselves?

Door has been opened to shed light on past

For the first time since the conflict in the north broke out in the mid-1960s and after decades of campaigning, a door has been opened to the past which potentially should allow the truth to be known for the relatives of those bereaved in the conflict.

DUP left red-faced by glimpse into the past

It has become an annual tradition: just as the last of the leftovers are fed to a grateful dog, the declassified government files are released giving a glimpse of a not so bygone time, a time when Paisley was still rabble rousing and Adams was wearing a duffle coat.

Agreement is really a stop-gap of ideas

The north is to be privatised, its past sanitised and its electorate anaesthetised. That appears to be a reasonable summary of what the Stormont parties agreed in their annual sleep-over at Stormont.

Govts must accept their responsibilities

Understanding why there is a crisis doesn’t require a lot of deep political analysis. It’s pretty obvious.

Blame for debacle lies at feet of Villiers

The responsibility for yesterday’s debacle at Stormont lies scattered around the feet of our clueless proconsul.

DUP swivel-eyed loons are afraid of equality

Unionism emerged in the 19th century as an attempt to avoid living on equal terms with the rest of the people on this island. So it remains.

Assessing armed actions

A discussion document circulated by the Irish Republican Socialist Party to their members.

Rise of SF is unnerving the political establishment

Ireland is on the cusp of enormous political change. Our homegrown political establishment, who have defended their interests against all comers since the foundation of the state, suddenly find themselves wrong-footed and floundering.

The state and the media

The battle against the Water Tax is largely a battle for the hearts and minds of the people. Indeed the same can be said for the wider struggle for meaningful Irish political, economic and social freedom.

Hart in wrong place if he’s hoping for a deal

What’s Gary Hart doing here? Why now? The answer is that the timing has more to do with the US mid-term elections next week than the Mexican stand-off at Stormont.

The case of the emperor’s thumb

I was on RTE’s Prime Time last night. It was of course about the Mairia Cahill case and it was what you might call a learning experience.

Reneging on deals is just no way to do business

This week in the Assembly we witnessed the latest example of DUP bad faith.

The truth about the past is withheld

The British government has no intention of allowing the truth to be told about its forces’ role in the conflict.

No-one can claim victory in war still being fought

I’d never really thought to analyse the question ‘who won the war?’ because by my assessment the war is far from over.

Why not another referendum?

In the aftermath of the Scottish referendum result the British political establishment were quick to deem it a ‘victory for democracy’. And in the same breath they definitively stated that the issue of Scottish independence was now settled for a generation or even permanently. Hmmm.

Irish nationalism must catch up with Scotland

A look at the significance to Ireland of the Scottish independence referendum by Colum Eastwood MLA of the SDLP.

There are no short cuts to freedom

A republican analysis of the Scottish independence referendum by the Republican Network for Unity.

Hope springs in Scotland

If the vote is No, the debate about Scotland’s future in the UK will only intensify.

IMF deal would be another humiliation for Dublin govt

Irish politicians, the people who are supposed to represent our interests and fight our corner, appear happy to collude in a charade over the cost of bailing out the EU's banking system.

Ceasefire promises were disingenuous

The view of the Republican Network for Unity on the 20th anniversary of the Provisional IRA ceasefire

An urgent need for action

The IRA cessation opened up the space for the development of the peace process.

Moderate unionists driven out by bigots

For every incident that happened this year or last year you can cite one exactly the same or worse 50 years ago.

Women’s bodies not considered their own

To allow hundreds of distressed young women to make a lonely journey across the Irish Sea every year because they have been denied proper care in their own country is shameful.

Denigrating the people of 1916

Former taoiseach John Bruton is on a crusade to revive Redmondism in Irish politics and to denigrate the men and women who gave us the Proclamation of the Irish Republic and the 1916 Rising.

Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto

There are two compelling factors that stand out in any examination of the crisis in Gaza: the persistent intransigence of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Israeli unwillingness to pursue a diplomatic and political solution to the Palestinian tragedy.

MI5’s murky role in Kincora scandal yet to be exposed

MI5’s interests will take precedence over the rights of raped children.

End the war on Gaza

The short ceasefire in Gaza will only be another temporary lull in the cyclical violence in that region unless a real and inclusive dialogue takes place involving all of the combatant groups.

If you live in the past, you can’t learn from it

After this huff is over unionists will have to return to the negotiating table as they have had to do on every previous occasion when they walked away.

John Bruton puts Easter 1916 in its place

Commemorations by the establishment seek to provide us with history not as it was, but as they would prefer it to have been.

Spectacular intellectual gymnastics and the Guildford 4

The responsibility for the detention and incarceration of many innocent people in England and in Ireland rests absolutely with the various police forces and judicial and political system.

Irish government has abdicated responsibility

You may not have noticed, because the Irish and British governments have been denying it, but something has gone seriously wrong with the British-Irish joint approach to the north.

People power pushed Sinn Fein to the top

Sinn Fein’s performance in the nationwide election a few weeks ago was not only stunning for the party it was a personal triumph of unprecedented proportions for Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams.

A scandal of church and state

The revelations of the mass grave of babies in Tuam is horrifying and the Taoiseach must launch a full-scale national inquiry, writes Susan Lohan, co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance.

Government given notice to quit

The Fine Gael/Labour government is in crisis. The election results of recent days confirm this. They have been effectively given a notice to quit by the electorate.

Watch the DUP take a hard right to outdo the TUV

Allister is now a player. He can't be ignored in any attempt to create a unionist pact for the 2015 general election.

Bereaved have been fobbed off to conceal difficult truths

A landmark High Court ruling that the relatives of six men are to be awarded compensation for lengthy delays in holding inquests gives hope to countless others in similar situations.

Oh for someone with the guts to tackle the past

Painful though it is to admit it, the only politician talking sense over the past week was Peter Hain.

Double standards at play in Gerry Adams arrest

Despite a flagrant attempt to draw a line under investigations into state terror, Britain reserves the power to prosecute republicans and loyalists as the needs of the ‘peace process’ dictate.

On meeting monarchy

It is obviously a matter for Sinn Fein who they meet but from the outside this looks like another ‘leadership initiative’ which has nothing to do with improving the material conditions of the working class or advancing towards the Republic.

Culture of entitlement

Angela Kerins has finally resigned as the CEO of Rehab in a scandal over the salaries and bonuses paid to her and other senior executives of the charity for the disabled, but those left behind must pick up the pieces.

Can we defeat this injustice?

With one stroke the crown has muted the Westminster outcry over its bartered OTR immunity certificates, placated unionist adherents and sent a sinister warning to potential independent republican candidates or campaigners.

Robinson hedged threat with sufficient waffle

Peter Robinson’s resignation threat shows what a savage blow the failure of the prosecution of John Downey has dealt to the political process in the north.

The Power of Orange Knickers

Why doesn’t Gregory Campbell launch a campaign to lift The Power of Orange Knickers up the charts? This would be a more apt and less risible response to the success of Glasgow Celtic supporters in pushing The Roll of Honour into the BBC’s chart show.

Fathach á mhúscailt – Lá Mór na Gaeilge

A major protest against the erosion of the Irish language and the rights of Irish speakers takes place at 2pm later today [Saturday] at the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin. An article on ‘Lá Mór na Gaeilge’ by Tomaí Ó Conghaile, editor of NÓS

Ireland’s Nelson Mandela

After Mandela’s death, remembrance of his struggle against the state oppression of his people reminds us of Bobby Sands, another human rights defender, who fought for the same goals in Ireland.

Civil rights reversed

Without any doubt, the release from prison of Lurgan man Martin Corey will be welcomed by all persons with an interest in justice.

The DUP truth will come out

While it’s great fun watching the lying and deceit, the accusations and acrimony, what you have to understand is that the putsch against Ian Paisley in 2008 had a political purpose,

Ulster Says NO to Haass

Irish Republicans have stretched ourselves in the negotiations and we are up for the challenge the Haass proposals contain, writes Gerry Adams.

Lead by example

Official calls are constantly being made by government figures including David Cameron for a resolution of the past here. But they themselves by their inaction are preventing the very resolution that they are demanding.

A united response is the only option

As families and friends gathered for a Christmas vigil in protest at internment, the Republican Network for Unity released this commentary on the situation.

Equality versus justice

The PSNI and the HET have vested interests concerning what the State did during the conflict, and are perpetuating the legacy and culture of State impunity.

Mandela tributes full of political revisionism

It's interesting to compare people's comments on bomb attacks by different organisations.

Media’s abuse of power and Sinn Fein leader must end

Few other political leaders in this country or indeed in Britain have been scrutinised to the same degree of bias as Gerry Adams.

British Army stupidity increased IRA support

By how long did the dishonest, sneaky, secretive unjust behaviour of the MoD prolong the conflict?

Ireland’s sovereignty will stay lost after the bailout

The promise by Enda Kenny that the 26-County state is on course to “retrieve our economic sovereignty and independence”. is an illusion.

The new criminalisation agenda

Sean Bresnahan warns that an attempt is being made to rewrite history, with some victims of the conflict being targeted and discriminated against, even in death. For the Pensive Quill.

An assertion of autonomy

A look at the controversy over comments by sports commentator Joe Brolly in defence of nationalist communities who name facilities after hunger strikers and other republican heroes.

Vulnerable and poor targeted again

They targeted the vulnerable again: women with babies, the vulnerable elderly, the vulnerable youth, poor people dependent on prescriptions.

A workable political process?

It will be sad and a major setback if 5000 jobs are not realised and 300 million pounds in investment lost. More important than Peter Robinson reneging on the MLK [Maze/Long Kesh] project, is what his decision symbolises.

Unionist threat to use violence nothing new

Sinn Fein spokesmen have been queuing up to express disappointment at what they complain is a lack of unionist leadership. Where have they been?

Hierarchy of victims debate diminishes us all

There has been much exploitation and manipulation of people bereaved and injured in our conflict - playing on emotions and grief for political capital.

How not to vote in the Seanad referendum

The temptation to spoil the ballot in today’s 26 County referendum on Seanad abolition is understandable.

Vote YES - Abolish the Seanad

Gerry Adams writes on the referendum next weekend to abolish the upper chamber of the Dublin parliament, the Seanad.

Gilmore’s vacuous talk suits his invisible role

Eamon Gilmore made a speech in Cambridge at the weekend to the British-Irish association. It made depressing reading for a number of reasons.

Bloody Sunday secrets taken to the grave

The death last week of retired British army officer Edward Loden - murdered by intruders at his son’s home in Nairobi - means that we may never fully know how or on whose instructions the initial cover-up of the Bloody Sunday killings was organised.

Time for the DUP to know that actions have consequences

Why did Peter Robinson, and him in Florida, send a letter that threatens the very existence of the Stormont institutions?

Haass should know who he’s dealing with

In traditional unionist fashion the DUP has ridden the past year's wave of violence to hold back progress.

Unionist mindset same as in 1968

When you strip it down to fundamentals, last weekend demonstrated exactly the same unionist attitudes and mindset as they held in 1968.

Laying claim to the Volunteers of Tyrone

An article by Sean Bresnahan on the upcoming Tyrone event to commemorate two IRA volunteers who died in 1973.

Anniversary of Internment 2013

Internment or Detention Without Trial is nothing new to Irish people and has been used every few decades throughout our Nation’s occupation.

Why an impunity inquiry is needed

As Ireland’s only corruption trial collapsed this week with a businessman and three implicated councillors cleared, Fintan O’Toole explains why an inquiry is needed into why a regime of impunity on corruption and fraud persists in the 26 County state.

Orange Order’s day of reckoning has come

When Richard Haass arrives to try to square the circle he will need to realise that the only way to bring the Orange Order to heel is to hit them where it hurts - in their pockets.

The neglected commemoration of the 1913 Dublin lockout

Commentators and media are already looking toward the centenary of the 1916 Rising, but there has been much less comment so far on the centenary of the 1913 Dublin Lockout.

A tale of two enclaves

For understandable reasons most of the publicity about petrol bombs flying over interface fencing is focused on east Belfast’s Short Strand. It’s not the only place where there is tension, of course.

The accused

The worm has turned and ‘Big Liv’ stands vindicated, able to point the finger at those who conspired to unjustly secure a worthless conviction.

Immoral diplomacy

Anyone who believes David Cameron that he chose an island outside Enniskillen in an island called Ireland to stage the G8 had only to listen to PSNI chief superintendent Alan McCrum who said Enniskillen is really hard to get to.

Why we must protest

By hosting the G8 summit in occupied Ireland, the British government are attempting to portray our country as a peaceful colony – a success story for modern day capitalism and imperialism.

SDLP’s uncertainty principle is baffling

What you’ve watched in the last fortnight is the political equivalent of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in physics.

Politicians need to grow up

A look at Dáil politics in a week in which 26-County Justice Minister Alan Shatter survived a motion of no confidence, despite a lingering controversy over low-level Garda corruption and the news that he was permitted to pass through a Garda checkpoint after failing to provide a sample of his breath.

Two years interned - no British justice

This week marks the entry into the third year Marian Price is interned without trial and is incarcerated on the word of a British Secretary of State.

Force feeding in Guantanamo Bay

Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams on reports that hunger strikers have been hospitalised and are being force-fed at Guantanamo Bay.

Brazen exhibition of political charlatanry

The ten-year plan for tackling sectarian divisions in the North presented last week by the First and Deputy First Ministers was a 'snow job', according to Brian Feeney.

Micheal Martin: a far-seeing bird?

Micheal Martin reminds me of the Skibbereen Eagle. Not in appearance, more in tone and self-image.

Sinn Fein’s day on the national stage has come

Any doubts that Sinn Fein has been transformed in the past couple of years were dispelled by the weekend ard fheis in Castlebar.

Thatcher’s legacy in Ireland

For the people of Ireland, and especially the north, the Thatcher years were among some of the worst of the conflict.

Thatcher is dead: reclaim the spirit of freedom

The death of Margaret Thatcher will not, unfortunately, signal an end to the damaging policies she introduced and implemented in Ireland, Britain or elsewhere around the globe.

Parades Commission is useless and gutless

As presently constituted the Parades Commission is entirely unrepresentative of the nationalist community or indeed of the Catholic community.

Another one interned by decree

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.

Protests flagged up demographic change

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?

Smiles in Brazil an expensive charade

Everyone here and a lot of people in Brazil know Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson are conducting a charade at vast public expense.

Robinson is out of touch

Far from thinking that the flag protesters are being mistreated most people believe up until the last week they have been treated with kid gloves.

Repression shaped our passive society

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.

Baggott’s approach is based on false premise

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.

From Lord Edward to TV Mike

The mighty party Edward Carson once led with iron-fisted certitude is now stumbling, drunkenly towards an inglorious end.

Never going away

I love St Valentine’s Day. But with it comes sad memories, especially of the year 1976.

Search for truth passes to a new generation

A look back at New Lodge Six massacre on the fortieth anniversary of their killing and a look ahead.

Flawed approach storing up trouble for summer

The PSNI is becoming too cosy with unionist paramilitaries.

Robinson setting clock back with forum strategy

The unionist forum was devised as a stop-gap, a talking shop, a cynical ploy to try to take the heat out of the commotion on the streets. In that respect it has already failed as it was bound to. In other respects it has set the clock back.

A flag solution will not relieve loyalist anxieties

Ongoing investigations into the UVF mean that even if some solution is found for the flag protests, disturbances will not end in loyalist districts which the UVF control.

Calls for full dialogue falling on deaf ears

2012 again saw the dialogue of the deaf at Stormont, and all the evidence suggests 2013 won’t be any different.

The only credible action is a public inquiry

There were several, simultaneous, overlapping and complementary conspiracies which taken together inescapably amount to ‘an overarching state conspiracy in the murder of citizens through collusion’, one of whom was Pat Finucane.

Change comes dropping slow. Oh so slow.

Most shameful of all is that disorder arose because nationalists and republicans engaged in a democratic act of decision-making.

Catholic tide can’t be held back

Falling below the 50 per cent figure was a staggering psychological shock for unionists, many of whom still have it fixed in their head that they amount to two thirds of the north’s population.

Long history of unionist domination

It took nearly one hundred years for democracy and equality to arrive in Belfast City Hall in Ireland’s second largest city, writes Jim Gibney.

Another issue flying in the face of change

The present kerfuffle about flying the Union flag over Belfast City Hall is a reminder of how long it takes to change anything and of the obstacles in the way of change.

Only fascists would force others to wear a poppy

The annual poppy police hysteria kicked off again this week with the hunt on to find someone who caused offence - not by what they did but what they didn't do.

Border poll distracts us from serious debate

Unionists are scared stiff of even talking about a border poll because it immediately throws up a series of unwelcome questions.

Baggott must rein in the securocrat cabal

The arrest, charging and detention of leading republican Padraic Wilson will not advance by one millimetre the objective of bringing justice to the McCartney family for the killing of their brother Robert.

Wrong Tone

It would be useful if in the process of shaking off its recent past, rebranding and reviving Fianna Fáil, whether as the republican party or the party of a new form of republicanism, that Mr Martin would go beyond old platitudes.

A border poll is the next step

A little bit of history was made in the Seanad chamber in Leinster House last Friday.

Irish solution has been to make most vulnerable pay

The response to the crisis in the 26 County economy has been a relentless assault on the disadvantaged, accompanied by protestations by the government of the day that everything possible is being done to protect the vulnerable.

The internment of Alan Lundy was a statement of intent

A north Belfast republican activist who was arrested and twice refused bail on an unsubstantiated charge of rioting early this summer, was finally released on bail this week. A commentary from Sean MacDiarmada (1916 Society Ard Eoin).

No wonder Orders laugh at Commission Rulings

Why should any of the predominantly paramilitary-linked bands that the so-called loyal orders swagger along behind pay any attention to the Parades Commission?

A visit to Gerry McGeough

Independent councillor Angela Nelson reports on her visit to Maghaberry jail to visit protesting republican internee, Gerry McGeough.

Rewriting past won't solve political woes

A resolution asking the Dublin government to apologise for its role in the early days of the conflict is a unionist ploy to distract attention from the real issues.

Support Marian Price

A major rally for interned republican activist Marian Price takes place this Saturday [tomorrow] in Dublin. Writing this week, Eamonn McCann said that the era when Irish republicans were imprisoned in British jails without due process is supposed to be history -- but some want to turn the clock back.

Futility of restrictions paraded for all to see

Again and again bands have flouted Parades Commission rulings by playing prohibited music, by playing at prohibited places, by flying prohibited flags and much else besides, and what? The same band does the same thing the next year, and what?

SF needs to step up in marching debate

Unionists ‘politicians’ knew they hadn’t a leg to stand on when they encouraged people to ignore the Parade Commission’s determination and break the law.

A new march for civil rights

It is beyond belief that nearly all the injustices and denial of people’s rights still exist today in 2012 and that we have to march again for the same rights.

The unified resistance

A look at last week’s announcement of a regrouped IRA by Aphex Acid of the UCD Discussion group, the Frank Ryan society.

The merger of physical force republicans

A different take on last week’s announcement, by socialist republican Tommy McKearney.

Martin McGuinness missed an opportunity

Activist Tommy McKearney argues that by refusing to meet the English queen, Martin McGuinness missed an opportunity to not only explain a republican position but also raise questions about the very nature of the British monarchy.

The Twelfth

A resident’s analysis of events in north Belfast this week.

Price and Corey prisoners of MI5-spun web of deceit

The fingerprints of MI5 are all over the detention of Marian Price and Martin Corey, two former prisoners who served life sentences through the 1970s, eighties and nineties and are continuing to serve life sentences following their forcible return to prison at the direction of the British secretary of state Owen Paterson.

Orange Order’s sinister ploy hidden behind the charm

This week saw the latest charm offensive launched by the Orange Order.

A cordial union

Irish republicans have frequently been prepared to take bold and historic initiatives and risks for peace to break stalemates and find agreements.

Bridging the gulf between compromise and abandonment

Peter Hain, the former secretary of State for the North of Ireland, has said that ‘many Republicans will see it as a betrayal.’ He is right.

We are all part of a bigger picture

The address by Cait Trainor, Ard Chomhairle member to the annual RSF commemoration at Bodenstown, June 10, 2012.

A previous jubilee visit

Thirty-five years ago, the silver jubilee celebrations in the north came at the height of the British government’s criminalisation, Ulsterisation and normalisation strategy.

Treaty a mere clause in contract yet unseen

The fiscal treaty, as practically everyone now acknowledges, is not the new political contract that will get the European Union out of a potentially terminal crisis. It is just the penalty clause.

The worm is turning - Vote NO

The campaign against the Austerity Treaty concludes tomorrow (May 31st) when citizens of the 26-County state go to the polls to cast their vote. Although the considered wisdom is that the Yes side will prevail, a No victory is quite possible.

PSNI confirm the reality of political policing

Last Friday, a widely circulated PSNI press release was issued to the media hours before a number of republicans appeared at specially-convened courts the following day. That press release blew a hole in the myth of a “a new era of civic policing” in the Six Counties.

This treaty will force us to bail out more banks

The public is being asked to vote for the Fiscal Treaty on Thursday May 31 on the basis of misinformation and mistruths and fear.

Where now for Europe?

Ordinary citizens understand, better than the governments of Europe and the spin doctors of austerity that you can’t cut your way out of a recession.

Financial contagion

Europe’s financial crisis has mutated into a political crisis, and its “fiscal compact” will make things worse, not better.

Mild manners don’t hide bigotry or revisionism

It’s a mistake to assume that because someone is mild and friendly that they’re not prepared to fly in the face of historical fact if they believe it suits their purpose.

Silence and indifference threaten future peace

Barely 15 years since the 1998 Irish peace pact was signed, the British are ignoring the law, obstructing justice and inhibiting peace.

A schedule for uniting ireland

While no schedule or timetable exists for Ireland to be reunited, the means by which it can be done has been agreed and a road map has been legislated for.

For what died the sons of Róisín?

This time of year brings to mind our generations long struggle for independence.

Household tax revolt the price of austerity

No government can impose a tax in the long term with which 40-50 per cent don’t subscribe.

The Ulster Unionists and the Orange Order

The latest reminder of where the Orange Order are headed comes in the form of Danny Kennedy’s decision to duck out of the Ulster Unionist leadership contest.

Spare us the act

Spare us your indignation, Micheál Martin. Button your disgust, Fianna Fáil. We don’t want to hear it. You had your chance and you chose to do nothing. So don’t pretend to be shocked now.

Adams must spell out what he means

What does Gerry Adams mean by a united Ireland? People have a right to know what they're voting for.

Why we shouldn’t hold our breath

Republicans have been saying for years now that they’re sorry the conflict happened, that life was lost. That’s not the same as saying they think their armed campaign was a mistake.

Bereaved need review of bookie’s massacre

At the heart of a new report on the massacre by the UDA/UFF at the Sean Graham bookmaker’s shop on Belfast’s Ormeau Road 20 years is the deadly story of a consignment of weapons that travelled from South Africa to Belfast in 1987.

Getting Gerry Adams

Former RUC and PSNI Detective Chief Superintendant Norman Baxter may find policing in Kabul these days more congenial than policing in Belfast.

Long to reign over us?

Martin McGuinness may have annoyed a few people this week. And made a few others nervous. And mildly pleased a few more. Odd, how the same action can provoke such a range of reactions, isn’t it?

A real cop-out

What the PSNI management has done is to subvert both the objective and the spirit of the Patten reforms and they've been doing it for years.

The moral hijacking of Bloody Sunday

On the 40th anniversary of the paratroopers’ massacre in Derry, it is remarkable how much Britain has exploited this event to its advantage.

No Oscars for Margaret Thatcher’s Irish legacy

The recent publication of British government papers from 1981 have reminded many people of the negative role played by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at that time.

Unionists most to gain in Scottish ‘devo max’

It is going to happen. Slowly, slowly catchee monkee. Just watch Alex Salmond walking the naive and intemperate Cameran into his elephant trap.

Enough generalities

It's a long way from the Village area of Belfast to Stormont, but two simple actions would help considerably to tackle sectarianism.

Thatcher’s stance shown to be intransigent, duplicitous

Papers released under the 30-year rule reveal a prime minister refusing to deal with the substance of the Irish prison protests, writes Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams TD.

NIO unionists vetoed hunger strike deal

The recently-released British state papers from 1981 are certainly not infallible nor full accounts, but they do reveal the mindset that the prisoners, their families and supporters had to overcome.

All changed utterly in electoral revolution

A remarkable year in politics north and south - remarkable not least because for once there was more ‘Sturm und Drang’ south of the border than north of it.

Detention of pardoned Price an abuse of power

The slogan says ’Free Marion Price’. Tens of thousands of motorists see it every day. It’s doubtful if any of them pay any attention. They should.

Free Marian Price now

The continuing imprisonment of Marian Price in Maghaberry is a scandal and would be seen more widely in this light were it not for her politics.

DUP bluster can’t stop SF’s winds of change

Belfast’s Lord Mayor Niall O Donnghaile has done more in his six months in office to promote peace and reconciliation between the citizens of Belfast than his unionist critics have done in a lifetime.

Important work ahead for the Irish diaspora

The Irish scattered around the world have a vital contribution to make as we seek to reshape and re-imagine Ireland in the 21st century.

An opportunity missed, or thrown away?

Now that the dust has settled on the election of the ninth President of Ireland, it is time to look back on the positives and negatives of that campaign for Irish republicans.

Partisan poppy serves to exclude nationalists

The decision by the new leader of the SDLP, Alasdair McDonnell, not to wear a poppy on Remembrance Sunday will be welcomed by the vast majority of northern nationalists.

President promoted a new inclusive Ireland

It was entirely consistent with President Mary McAleese’s 14 years as president of Ireland that one of her last engagements was to open a gallery named after the Falls Road-born painter Gerard Dillon in Belfast’s Culturlann.

Reflections on an election

Martin McGuinness is a trail blazer. That much must be clear. Even to his detractors.

All go at Gallagher

Gallagher is part of the Fianna Fail machine even if the tracks of his party membership have been covered with a floor mat upon the face of which ‘independent’ is brightly stencilled.

An absence of decency

At the very least you would have expected Cameron to reflect in his attitude and demeanour the reality that in front of him was a grieving family whose father and husband was killed by those in the British government's pay.

The past and the present

Two contrasting views about how republicans can attempt to come to terms with political change.

Hypocrites’ house of cards risks collapse

A carefully constructed a narrative about the origins of the 26-County state is being challenged.

Ireland owes much to the IRA’s willingness to fight

The IRA is an intrinsic part of this nation’s history; of its political evolution.

Sinn Fein can displace Fianna Fail

The events of the past week suggest the party is over for Fianna Fail.

The peoples’ president

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.

Loathing and absence in Belfast Crown Court

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.

Every day Hutchinson hangs on does damage

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.

Citizens trapped in a two-state nightmare

The people of the 26-County State seem dazed and confused, unable to come to terms with what is happening to them, writes Fintan O’Toole

The return to internment

A British cabinet minister has appointed a secret commission with the power to revoke the parole of political prisoners just for being accused.

Vengeful, vindictive, violent

Without street pressure and political lobbying the Justice Ministry would have kept Brendan Lillis hidden deep within the bowels of the British penal establishment.

Riot response driven by right-wing agenda

As the figure for arrests heads towards 3,000 and the British media follow the progress through the courts of the people charged, David Cameron has seized on the rioting, murder and arson as a golden opportunity to advance his personal agenda.

Bridge of Sighs

To the extent that the British move at all it is invariably sideways. In dealing with prisoners their attitude has always been one of ‘as late as, as little as.’

On the bridge of peace

In recent days, largely as a result of the persistence of his indefatigable partner Roisin, the case of Brendan Lillis has at last managed to break into the mainstream media.

PSNI pawns in grant application game

The distinction between ‘legal’ union flags and ‘illegal’ loyalist flags, as raised by the Ballyclare riots, is a pure Orange herring.

Running out of time

The humanitarian grounds for releasing Brendan Lillis far outweigh the political considerations that are feeding into his ongoing imprisonment.

Pumping up the volume

The ongoing detention of the republican activist Marian Price two months after her arrest raises serious concerns about how life sentence licenses are being used as a weapon of political policing.

Sinn Fein, wreath-laying and the unionist response

On Saturday, the Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Belfast laid a laurel wreath at the City Hall cenotaph, to the annoyance of unionists.

Sinister forces still at work

No-one in any part of the political or police system should take peace for granted.

Where was Special Branch in Loughinisland massacre?

If the Police Ombudsman’s report into the McGurk’s Bar attrocity highlighted his reluctance to grapple with collusion, his report into Loughinisland is startling by its absence of another crucial piece of the picture: the role of Special Branch both before and after the massacre.

Debt freakshow run by phoney lion tamers

This week, the Government marked 100 days in office and zero days in power.

Republican ex-prisoners not second-class citizens

The joint first minister Martin McGuinness was absolutely right when he said that his heart went out to the Travers family over the IRA killing of their daughter Mary but that he could not agree with Ann Travers when she called for Mary McArdle to be removed as a special adviser to minister Caral Ni Chuilin.

What do governments fear most? They fear us

The establishment's efforts to censor and spin the Wikileaks cables relating to Ireland have been unprecedented. Harry Browne (for Counterpunch) looks at how a torrent of information on US involvement in Irish politics became a trickle.

Mayor is the product of community’s resistance

When I first heard the news that Sinn Fein councillor Niall O’Donnghaile was elected Mayor of Belfast, the word that struck me immediately was “homecoming”.

The day eirigi saved Dublin

The ‘Dublin Lockdown of 2011’ didn’t go unnoticed by that city’s citizens, but was notable for how casually it was imposed.

A bad week for Irish journalism

Now that the Windsor visit is over, what are the benefits and what exactly has changed as a result?

Building a better future

The visit by the Queen of England to this part of Ireland has to be seen as part of a journey.

Commentators strike a geyser

I'm not a man readily given to exclamation marks but WHAT A GUSHFEST!

IRA founder condemns Adams/McGuinness leadership

The first leader of the Provisional IRA, Billy McKee, has strongly criticised the current Sinn Fein leadership in an open letter.

Thirty years on, Bobby Sands’s stature has only grown

Over a period of seven months nine other men followed Bobby, dying on a hunger strike that Thatcher described as “the IRA’s last card”. How wrong she was.

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.

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.

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.

It’s time to stop

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

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.

Bombing Omagh

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

To impunity and beyond

The most potent force for revelation in Irish politics is the man whom Charles Haughey, with all the emotion conjured by the receipt of huge bank drafts, affectionately called “Big Fella”, Ben Dunne.

SF photocall shows its a party without borders

There was powerful symbolism when Sinn Fein brought together the party’s TDs and MLAs at Stormont this week.

My name is Jude, and I’m a wrong-thinker

I wish I wasn’t but I’m afraid I am. Twist and turn, duck and weave, in the end the brutal truth confronts me: I am a wrong-thinking person. How do I know? Because when people start a sentence with “All right-thinking people will...” I end up disagreeing with them.

The Tribulations of Brendan Lillis

The Life Sentence Review Board is said to consider the case of Brendan Lillis on the 22nd of March. If it fails to act humanely and release him the West Belfast man may well end his days in prison.

When oppressed overcome fear it doesn’t come back

When I see popular uprisings like those that have been happening across the Middle East over the last month I am brought back in time to my teenage years and the streets of Belfast circa 1968.

Tipping point

I was never quite sure what the phrase ‘tipping point’ meant until my experience last Friday of trying to motivate people to come out and vote for Sean Crowe in the constituency of Dublin West.

Radical change is what we really need

When there’s overwhelming agreement about anything in Irish politics, it is usually wrong.

Two ‘outsiders’

You don’t normally hear opponents come out and say “We don’t like you, Adams – you’re from the north”. It’s more often slipped in obliquely.

Poll could turn out to be electoral revolution

This election is like no other in living memory.

One small island

The last exodus prompted a campaign for emigrant voting rights in the 1990s. The same is happening again.

The fight-back is just beginning

The general election in the Twenty-Six Counties is being fought against the backdrop of two momentous events: the greatest economic crisis to face the statelet since its foundation, and the surrendering of what was left of economic sovereignty to the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

Representative policing?

The phasing out of 50:50 recruitment provisions would reduce the number of Catholics joining the PSNI and impact badly on the need to ensure that the PSNI reflects the society it polices.

How the Markets fell in love with Prince Charles

Sometimes I feel ashamed to be a Catholic and one such occasion happened last week.

Bombers unite community

There are still individuals stuck in the trench in Belfast.

No civil rights without national rights

The narrative of an out-of-control regiment running amok might have more credibility if Bloody Sunday was an isolated incident.

Political pantomime now a circus of despair

It’s almost impossible to know where to begin any commentary this week - the Dail circus may see a few more surreal performances before the citizens finally move in and close it down.

Fianna Fail split down the middle by dithering

There’s an eerie congruence between Brian Cowen and Gordon Brown.

The end of Fianna Fail?

The final session of the 30th Dail began with further indignity being piled on the head of a dying government.

Adams didn’t trade lives for votes

How could Gerry Adams have known what mileage there was in the electoral route for republicans?

The Tragedy of 1980

The state papers of most interest to me concern the build-up to the 1980 hunger strike, the communications within government and agencies during it, and whether the republican leadership’s analysis and depiction of what was happening has subsequently proved correct

Has anything really changed?

As 2010 draws to a close, has it been a momentous year for Irish Republicans in the Occupied Six Counties, or is it more of the same?

Tell us the truth about Pat Finucane

For real reconciliation, we need acknowledgement of British security services’ relationship with loyalism during the conflict

The appalling vista of two elections

Any day now I’m expecting to see a headline saying ‘Kitchen sink narrowly misses Gerry Adams’.

A new type of politics

The general election, when it comes, will be the most important in recent decades.

UUP looks like its about to self-destruct

Tom Elliott supplied the denial headline without even the public accusation - “Elliott denies he’s a political dinosaur,”.

National debasement disguised as a rescue plan

The Programme of Financial Support for Ireland will be subject to three-month reviews “of conditionality”, observance of “quantitative performance criteria” and “respect for EU Council decisions and recommendations”.

Donegal may be start of much greater upheaval

It is too early to estimate the size of the earthquake on the political Richter scale but suffice to say in its wake it has upended a political system that is now sitting on the edge of the precipice and could topple any minute.

Scale of the catastrophe has not hit us yet

We didn’t need Ajai Chopra, our IMF minder, to tell the junta (ie, what is left of the Government) and the mandarins that the “sensible” solution to our crisis was to inflict further misery on those already victimised by the policies of the junta and the mandarins.

Government’s destruction of Ireland is complete

The spin, the lies, the denials, the delusions, the conceit and the arrogance added insult to ignominy.

The declaration of dependence

A satire on the 1916 Proclamation of the Republic in response to the arrival in Dublin this week of IMF and ECB officials.

Running in Louth: how big a gamble?

In retrospect, it was an obvious move. So obvious that none of the pundits even sniffed it

Austerity plan must be resisted

The Dublin government last week published its much anticipated declaration of war on the working class.

Moving the money around

The problem of unbalance in the North's economy was not one of inability or “troubles”, it was one of a British policy of inhibiting local initiative and filling up the gaps - for stability’s sake.

Harney deserving of special shame

Step forward Mary Harney, to a position of lonely eminence: the worse tanaiste ever.

A timetable for withdrawal

Fergal Moore sets out the approach of Republican Sinn Féin to the possibility of talks with the British Government.

Free Conor Casey

The recent internment of Conor Casey at the behest of the British establishment is nothing short of a disgrace.

For your community – act now

That, on the day an ailing Margaret Thatcher was being treated in a private hospital, British Tory chancellor George Osborne was rising at Westminster to wield his ideological axe was highly ironic.

Politicians content to let us wait in the dark

The ineptitude of our current masters is nowhere as clear as in this: they can’t even give us the illusion of control.

Big stars, blood relatives and one guilty silence

Cork sports star Donal Óg Cusack has been mooted as a possible candidate for Sinn Féin at the next electio

Bombing Derry

It was entirely appropriate that Martin McGuinness’s condemnation of the IRA operation came from the Tory conference.

Derry bomb desecrates October 5th

It was totally inappropriate that there should be a bombing in Derry on October 5th.

Is there anyone else who can run the country?

There is a sense of apprehension now about how our country is being run that I don’t recall having witnessed before.

Conjuring truth from the tricks of memory

I have known Gerry Adams for almost forty years and there is no way would I ever enter him for a ‘Memory Man’ competition.

Wright Inquiry and State collusion

Last week’s finding that there had been no State collusion in the killing of Billy Wright said more about the unwillingness of the British authorities to come clean about their own role than about the circumstances of Mr. Wright’s death.

Anti-Catholic prejudice encouraged during Pope’s visit

You would have thought the Pope represented a doctrine based on evil rather than one based on Christianity.

Occupied Ireland - No change

Much has changed since the days of ‘81 in the occupied six counties in the North of Ireland.

Peace comes dropping slow

The Middle East peace talks, which formally opened in Washington on Thursday, have been given one year. It’s a tall order.

Organising the fightback against the Tory assault

The attack on the welfare state in the Six Counties is out in the open.

Ardoyne riots

This summer’s Belfast riots must have been the most anticipated for some time, being widely predicted throughout politics and the media.

Facing up to the reality of an economic nightmare

As the country grinds to a halt, we should maintain some sense of decency and call a halt to the Anglo rescue.

Truth and justice for all

Elements in the intelligence agencies could be using a method of drip-feeding information into the media to undermine political progress.

Common criminals or political law-breakers?

There are ongoing attempts to criminalise Republicans still engaged in armed actions against the British state.

The framing of Gary Donnelly

The PSNI, MI5 and PPS displayed stunning myopia in relation to this prosecution of anti-Stormont Republican Gary Donnelly.

How my dad was murdered by the British state

Internment - indefinite imprisonment without trial - was reintroduced into the North of Ireland on August 9 1971 at 4am.

Prejudice must end against former political prisoners

Coiste na nlarchimi is a national organisation dedicated to upholding the rights of former political prisoners and ensuring that society’s institutions do not discriminate formally or informally against ex-political prisoners.

Why label disillusioned Republicans as criminals?

Those who pretend dissident Republicans are unimportant, dismiss them as criminals, ignore them or expect Sinn Fein to control them, have badly miscalculated.

SDLP displaced by Sinn Fein

You can discern a real shift in the position of the SDLP.

Sinn Fein grip on the ghettoes loosens

A number of explanations have been put forward for the sustained outbreak of rioting across the North of Ireland following the Orange marches

Gerald Donaghey, Saville and the nail bombs

The Saville Report devotes more space to Gerald Donaghey - 17 years-old when shot dead on Bloody Sunday - than to any other individual.

WikiLeaks and British lies in Ireland

The British army's role in the deaths of civilians in Afghanistan will come as no surprise to the people of Ireland.

Resolving contentious orange marches

It is the obstinate insistence by the loyal orders to march through Catholic areas, and their refusal to talk, that is at the heart of the perennial violence that marks the marching season.

Reflecting on Saville

While welcoming the Saville verdict of unalloyed innocence I was dismayed by the lack of clarity in relation to the guilty.

Men of no property

No one spoke to the Ardoyne protestors to find out why they saw fit to block the road.

The twelfth

The Orange marching season always provides its fair share of problems.

Orange marches and pigswill

It's absolutely unbelievable what happens here over the Twelfth period.

Hunger striker helped others laugh through tough times

It does not happen very often that the publication of this column coincides with the anniversary of one of the 10 men who died on hunger strike in the H-Blocks in 1981.

Why we can’t let parade rules trample over civil rights

There will be a civil rights march in Derry on October 5.

Robinson ditched by NIO and DUP will follow suit

As a political figure Peter Robinson has been terminally weakened.

Bloody Sunday’s architects

The Saville report has underscored the difficulty of “truth and reconciliation” inquiries.

Saville missed the failures of leadership

The Bloody Sunday operation emerged at the intersection between the political and the military, in a grey space which left plenty of room for manoeuvre by individuals.

Not a bad day for the British army

Derry is still dizzy from the eruption of joy which greeted the Saville report’s recognition on Tuesday that all of the Bloody Sunday wounded and dead were unarmed civilians gunned down by British paratroopers for no good or legitimate reason.

Saville’s truth brings hope

A thumbs-up sign, shortly after 3.30pm, squeezed through the narrowest of gaps in an upstairs window in Derry’s Guildhall, was the first indication in almost 40 years that something of huge significance was happening for the relatives of those murdered on Bloody Sunday.

A 38-year wait for the truth

On Tuesday, the Bloody Sunday Inquiry will publish its 5,000-page report into the mass killing of protesters in 1972, an event that was unique among Troubles atrocities and that changed the North profoundly.

Freedom flotilla

The Flotilla was an heroic effort to highlight the imprisonment of one and a half million people by the Israeli state and the humanitarian crisis that the siege has created.

Double standards and simple solutions

Has any politician - unionist, nationalist or republican - stood up and said UVF decommissioning was clearly a fraud?

Prison lessons have not been learnt

Prison reform which was painfully won by people, most of whom in normal society would not have been in prison at all, must not have to be struggled for again because of the unwillingness of those in authority to recognise reality inside prisons, or out of them.

The unhappy fate of unionist leaders

The disintegration of British union supporters in Ireland has come not from their opponents outside but from their friends inside.

Maghaberry And David Ford

A conversation came back to me on learning of the visit by British micro-minister for Justice David Ford to Maghaberry Prison

New proconsul has much to learn

We have had some pretty ropey proconsuls here in the last thirty-eight years. The signals from the latest one are not good.

Release Saville report now

It is crucial that the new Northern Ireland Secretary of State Owen Paterson ensures that the Saville Inquiry findings into Bloody Sunday are published without any further delay.

It was just like the old days in Fermanagh/South Tyrone

To help Bobby Sands, republicans came in from all over Ireland; they did the same for Michelle Gildernew.

Things may never be the same again

The British electorate has not so much spoken as seemingly held its political nose, by delivering its most remarkable election result since 1929.

More guns than votes

Each time a republican activist is labelled a criminal, particularly by those who were republicans in the era of Bobby Sands, it is a sleight on the enormous sacrifice made by him and his comrades.

Making it quite clear

Sometimes a politician says something and an issue that’s been swirling around in the public consciousness suddenly takes on a clear, sharp form.

Tactical voting is part of the electoral landscape

Tactical voting is part of the electoral landscape of the six counties and when done for progressive reasons it strengthens the nationalist democratic forces for progress and weakens the undemocratic forces of unionism.

Ireland is ripe for an alternative

Imagine, for a moment, that we are in the 1890s. It is not as big a stretch as it might seem.

Tactical voting will have a ripple effect

If, as a result of vote-splitting or diffused voting, a disproportionate number of unionist MPs are elected you can be sure that this will be flaunted to demoralise the nationalist people.

Nothing but a date

It cannot be easy being a republican political prisoner in the North these days.

Acrobatics will win no new votes for Sir Reg

Elections here always throw up the worst excesses of tribalism among unionists.

Violence and after

The bomb that went off near the MI5 headquarters in Holywood last night didn’t do much damage but it does bring into focus a number of issues.

McKee floored puny Robinson

For years at election time Robinson was the DUP’s Wizard of Oz. Now, when the party needs him most he’s exposed as a diminutive political figure behind a curtain.

A time to remember with pride

I too, this Sunday, will remember with pride those IRA members I knew who died young so that we could live in a united and free country.

Culture of ‘moving on’ sets us back years

Every single aspect of State policy, every red cent of available cash and of discretionary borrowing, is shaped by a demented, obsessive drive to save banks, at least two of which are beyond saving.

Truth & Justice: Foreign concepts to the 6-County state

While nationalist politicians are proclaiming desperately the dawn of yet another new beginning in the affairs of the Six County state, their touted future justice minister, the British government and its police force are quietly going about the work of solidifying the status quo in occupied Ireland

People can become the architects of the future

it is precisely at the point when all seems lost that people, about to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task facing them, are liberated by their own strength and that of others.

No political home for advocates of a just society

All the parties in the Dail are willing to go into government with either Fianna Fail or Fine Gael, knowing one or other of these parties will be the major party of government and will set the agenda for that government.

Trial of Gerry McGeough brings back echoes of the old days

The trial of Gerry “McGeough raises a number of issues.

A moment to savour for Sinn Fein

A crucial juncture has been reached by Sinn Fein, amazingly in partnership with the DUP.

Why MI5 is free to operate here

Once devolution is complete, the north, as far as accountability is concerned, will be a limbo-land for spooks to cavort in.

Crossing the line

If you are going to invoke a tragedy on the scale of the famine to flog your products, why stop at Ireland's greatest one?

Cooking the Bloody Sunday report

The British government's attempts to change the findings of a judge in order to conceal evidence of its security services’ wrongdoing has ramifications for the victims of the Bloody Sunday massacre and their families.

Orange Order must stop being aloof from change

The Orange Order acts as if it has no responsibility for the decades of conflict, as if it is as harmless an organisation as the girl guides or the boy scouts.

SF jumped through DUP’s hoops and fell short

The long-awaited Hillsborough Agreement is a sham with grave consequences for the nationalist community.

The Johnstons and the McKinneys - and the Paras

In taking the side of the Paras in relation to Bloody Sunday, Unionist leaders facilitated the killing by the same force of some they will have regarded as their own.

Cosy assumptions challenged by unionist pact

The recent coming together by unionists with the purpose of denying government to anyone but themselves has publicly called the equality bluff.

New beginning?

Almost a decade later, it is now abundantly clear that, instead of delivering a ‘new beginning’, the PSNI has simply continued with the same failed anti-working class and anti-republican agenda of the RUC and Royal Irish Constabulary before them.

Time for Robinson to show leadership

It’s too early to claim that the Hillsborough Agreement is a done deal.

Made in Ulster?

A week is a long time in politics. This week, and a wee bit more, has been a long time coming.

Pirouetting on the cliff-edge

Sinn Fein need to be careful their electorate doesn't conclude that so-called power-sharing hasn;t resulted in little beyond the amused contempt of the DUP.

Reaching for the Orange card

It is important to factor the context into the current crisis gripping power-sharing.

Unionists now puppets in Cameron’s political game

Unionists never learn do they?

DUP puts party before peace process

It is not easy being a democrat because you have to accept the will of the people at an election even when you do not like the result.

Ruling greeted by the sound of silence

The British government contemptuously announced after the Strasbourg judgment that the discredited and unlawful Section 44 powers will remain in use.

Time for abuse inquiry

The Stormont administration needs to exercise its responsibility for protection of children and young people.

Robinson now a prisoner

Peter Robinson is now the prisoner of his party’s hardliners. They are keeping him in custody until they can agree a method of disposing of his political carcass.

Abuse of political power is real issue

Peter Robinson performed a sleight of hand trick brilliantly last week.

Power-sharing in North now hanging by a thread

It is very tempting to ridicule the extraordinary state of affairs that has crashed down on the Robinson family.

Partition argument central

There has never been a time in the history of Irish republicanism when republicans were not faced with challenges in terms of bringing about an independent and a united Ireland.

Still waiting for the new beginning

It is clear that we are still waiting for the new beginning to policing and justice that was promised.

Beannacht

I thought I might deal with some of the events in the life of my clan and in my own life. Events which are now in the media. But on reflection it’s too near Christmas for all that.

Two angry men and a Taoiseach

Limavady wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, all handshakes and chuckles.

Step low

Pretty much as low as we are likely to find this side of Christmas. A lender repossessed the home of a Waterford couple which they shared with their special needs child.

An insidious budget

The budget says a lot about the economics and media commentators who have praised it for grappling with the fiscal crisis, while remaining indifferent to the social consequences.

Groundhog Day

Martin McGuinness has promised “serious consequences” and “a full-blown crisis” if a date for devolving policing and justice powers to the north is not agreed before Christmas and it won’t be.

Don’t blame the DUP

Unfortunately, in sport as in politics, resentment isn’t always directed at the right target.

Still a distance to travel to establish equality

Even though there is still a distance to travel to establish equality in the six counties it has to be acknowledged that we have travelled a long way from Craig’s ‘Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People’.

Long way down from London

There are few things that sum up the failure of the Provisional IRA campaign more definitively than the recent call by one of its former leaders for people to inform on those republicans still wedded to the notion of armed struggle.

More strikes needed

The best and sure fire way to victory is an indefinite general strike where public and private sector workers unite in a common battle to save jobs and protect our services.

Section 44

Police harassment is still a fact of life on the streets of working class communities.

Ireland and the Berlin Wall

The celebrations for the Fall of the Wall dividing Berlin were spectacular and understandable. Not so understandable was some Irish politicians joining in.

Workers standing up to defend jobs and services

In recent times it has become increasingly clear that the Irish government intends pursuing an economic strategy which is essentially ignoring the advice from the unions and appears to be on a collision course which could result in widespread industrial action.

Selling out for queen’s head is second nature for DUP

The 20 million pounds that’s going to be shovelled into the families of the former part-time RUC reserve is a profoundly dishonourable deal and not just because it’s so obviously a bribe.

If Libya pays out, then why shouldn’t the British?

Well-informed sources in the North were suggesting last week that a large compensation package from Libya for the victims of the troubles may soon become available.

The Basque fight is a European fight

The arrest in the past two weeks of Arnaldo Otegi and nine of his comrades from the ‘outlawed’ Batasuna party and the pro-independence trade union LAB is another sign of the oppressive methods being employed the Spanish government to stamp out the Basque nationalist left.

Was there a deal?

The hunger strikers were never dupes but could only make decisions on the basis of the information they had.

Protecting the fat cats

The revised programme for government in the Twenty-Six Counties offers nothing to the thousands who have lost their jobs over the last 12 months and face losing their homes.

It does matter if no-one likes you

No-one likes us - we don’t care.’ The Millwall football club’s chant which came to wider public attention when Millwall reached the 2004 FA final could equally apply to the DUP.

Death in custody

When an Irish republican dies in British police custody it is certain to give rise to an atmosphere of suspicion and recrimination.

There was no deal

The final article by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams for the Irish News on the recent controversy over the 1981 hunger strike.

Leading from the front is only way forward

Peter Robinson is facing what every single leader of unionism has faced since at least the late 1960s.

Lisbon passed, democracy damaged

When the ruling class in the Twenty-Six Counties wants something bad enough it will do pretty much anything to get it.

Lisbon - Vote early and often

If you have a vote on Lisbon, use it to support democracy and freedom and VOTE NO.

Stature of ten men unassailed

Out of the five demands the only thing the British were offering to the hunger strikers after four men had died was that they could wear ordinary clothes, “provided these clothes were approved by the prison authorities.”

New SDLP leader must heal division with Sinn Fein

There is only one certainty to emerge from several days of media interviews with Mark Durkan about his leadership of the SDLP and that is he does not want to continue to lead the party.

A plank in the DUP election platform

Peter Robinson made a speech last week calling for decisions to be taken by a weighted-majority vote in Stormont.

Might Sinn Fein merge with Labour?

Gerry Adams would be well advised to seek a much closer formal alliance with the Irish Labour Party rather than move away from Left politics.

The true cost of violence in Ireland

They talk about the violence of the past 40 years - as if what people suffered in Ireland’s northeast before the 1960s was not violence.

A message to the elites

There are plenty of good reasons to vote ‘No’, again, on Lisbon - far more than there are reasons to vote ‘Yes’.

Three good reasons to spurn Lisbon once again

The deceivers and manipulators are out again.

Baggott’s reputation will quickly be put to the test

The past, present and future of policing in the six counties emerged unexpectedly in the north’s media last week.

Pushing back regressive policing

When Suzanne Breen wrote after the verdict in her case, declaring it a triumph for press freedom across Europe, it can hardly be said she was exaggerating.

Final solution is no longer possible

Forty years after the attacks on homes and people in 1969, we are hearing new descriptions of what happened.

Craven Commission again fails to protect the weak

The Parades Commission’s decision to allow Friday’s Orange Order march through Rasharkin without restriction was disgraceful.

A decadent police

A new residents group has been set up to ‘give support to a community who have suffered ongoing abuse from the police.&rsquo

Unionist wild men played a part in starting Troubles

Few people know that about a fortnight before the Battle of the Bogside the RUC’s Belfast Commissioner requested that British troops be deployed against unionist mobs on the Shankill Road.

9th of August

Anthony McIntyre on internment morning, 38 years ago.

A revealing glimpse into Dodds’s world

´A statement this week is a revealing glimpse into Dawdsland, a place of denial and distorting mirrors.

Felon setting

Tony Catney believes he is the victim of a smear campaign being orchestrated by his former colleagues in Sinn Fein.

Emergency surgery to save an economic Frankenstein

The time is fast approaching when working class people will need to stand up and fight for a better society.

Order must change how it conducts its affairs

The one organisation that cannot escape a major share of responsibility for the outbreak of violence in Belfast’s Ardoyne on Monday night past is the Orange Order.

Reshuffle magnifies shortage of political talent

The most obvious conclusion of Peter Robinson's reshuffle is the astonishing mediocrity of the personnel available in the DUP assembly party.

Spot the difference

At one level, the north of Ireland has changed markedly over the past ten years. But for real change, you need to look deeper.

‘Clarified’ Lisbon Treaty the very same

Despite the predictable media hype, and bogus claims of doing down the Brits, nothing has changed in terms of the Lisbon Treaty, writes Aengus O Snodaigh, Sinn Féin Dail spokesman on European affairs.

Time for a realignment in Irish politics

Almost one-third-of-a-million people voted for Sinn Féin candidates across Ireland in the recent EU elections - the exact figure, 331,797 people.

Time for DUP to tell their people the truth

The current DUP position where they work with Sinn Féin, or profess to work alongside them, while saying they are smashing them, simply invites ridicule.

Electorate assesses value of its vote

This Thursday and Friday the people of Ireland go to the polls in a rare all-Ireland plebiscite - an election to the European parliament.

Consigning Irish children to a regime of torture

The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse, published this week, left no one in any doubt that children in the Twenty-Six County state were never treated equally

Elections - an exercise in participatory democracy

Members of the small republican political party eirigi agreed at its annual conference to 'tactically contest elections at a time of our choosing'.

Bobby Sands and Margaret Thatcher

Two personalities from opposite ends of the political spectrum, who helped shape their respective worlds and are inextricably linked through decisions they took over 30 years ago had anniversaries last week.

Give them absolutely nothing

Would society really be better off had Suzanne Breen not spoken to the Real IRA?

Supergrasses: They’re Back!

The British state is increasing its erosion of civil liberties for Irish citizens.

Pseudo groups are locked into political fantasy world

Three very distinct and separate voices were heard across the Irish media last weekend.

‘Get off our backs’

Veteran Derry republican Gerry McCartney argues that the recent killings of two British soldiers and a PSNI officer by dissident republican groups will do nothing to achieve Irish unity.

Easter Sunday in Duleek

It is difficult not to feel a surge of emotion racing through the veins when reflecting on what the men and women of 1916 gave up in order to make a stand against a malign foreign power.

Force of argument is way forward

The 1916 Rising was the end product of more than a century of protest, largely peaceful, since the brutal suppression by the British government of the 1798 Rebellion.

Can intelligence services be trusted?

There is a connection between the civil action brought by relatives of Omagh bomb victims and the arrests in relation to the killing of the two soldiers in Antrim and the PSNI officer in Lurgan.

Intimidation of Shell to Sea campaigners

Over the course of recent weeks the state has intensified its intimidation of Shell to Sea campaigners.

Who is McGuinness to talk of treachery?

Many years ago I looked up to Martin McGuinness. Most within the ranks of the Provisional IRA did likewise.

A quantum shift

Anyone who is surprised that “the dissidents” are still actively fighting will have had their head in the sand for the past number of years. And, of course, they are certainly not reading this.

Society needs to make decisions about core values

The partition of Ireland not only divided the territorial integrity of the nation and its people, it also led to the underdevelopment of politics on a left-right axis.

UVF/PSNI collusion sentences fail to convey horror

Last week’s case demanded deterrent custodial sentences and not someone jauntily walking free making contemptuous gestures to cameramen.

Finucane an indictment of British collusion

Armed only with his sharpened legal brain Pat Finucane was a formidable obstacle for those in the British government and military.

Spat between unionists completely meaningless

You probably didn’t notice the little spat between the DUP and UUP about meeting loyalists, but it’s worth examining as a perfect example of the parallel universe unionists live in.

Suspicions well grounded over collusion in report

So far the British government has managed to protect itself and its agencies from those seeking to probe deeper into this sinister world.

1919-2009 - Compare and Contrast

Those who paraded themselves in the Mansion House on Tuesday past have little right to claim the inheritance of the revolutionary republicans and socialists who established the First Dail.

Much to be optimistic about

In the face of this economic crisis the argument for stronger not weaker government intervention in the economy needs to be heard.

Christmas has ended - so should Gaza siege

The reoccupation by Israel of the Gaza Strip and the slaughter of its Palestinian inhabitants form one of the most shameful episodes, among a long list of others, for the international community since the state of Israel was set up in 1948.

Hunger strikers’ contribution will endure

It is the contribution of the hunger strikers which will endure and make the difference to peace, justice and freedom - not that offered up by Cruise O’Brien.

A Cabinet that keeps hitting the panic button

The Dublin government's reaction to recent challenges shows it may be out of its depth.

Vilifying the dead

If the current enquiries are anything to go by, truth is not part of Britain's agenda.

Assassinating Rosemary Nelson’s character

It now appears that just as she was attacked by them in life, Rosemary Nelson is now to be attacked in death.

Another corner turned on road to new Ireland

A Six-County Department of Justice could be functioning by the early months of the new year.

V Day

The triumphalism of the British Army regiment on public display in the heart of Belfast punched yet another gaping hole in the approved narrative of the peace process.

Crucial that DPP role be scrutinised

As the families of those murdered on Bloody Sunday deal with the news that they must wait another full year to learn the outcome of the Saville Inquiry, the family of Robert Hamill must be bracing themselves for the start of the long-delayed inquiry into events surrounding his murder.

Army parade cannot airbrush murder legacy

The consequences for the people of this island - nationalist, unionist, republican and loyalist - of English interference in our affairs was the backdrop against which the centre of Belfast became a contested space last Sunday morning.

Idea that SF could ignore march is absurd

The idea that Sinn Féin could ignore a march through Belfast city centre by a regiment in the British army is patently absurd.

British soldiers not welcome on Irish streets

The Royal Irish Regiment’s mercenaries from the war against Afghanistan arrived in Belfast this month to a chorus of approval from their supporters in Ireland.

Hiding behind the police

The presumption of innocence until proven guilty has never applied to Republicans and the Northern Bank robbery suspects were no exceptions.

Time for October 5th

The main trigger of the 1968 Civil Rights demands, equality, has still to be resolved.

PDs go down with the system they lauded

They were Ireland's nasty party but their arrogance prevented them ever listening to the electorate beyond their own narrow sectional interest group.

SDLP must stop selling nationalist rights

Nationalists must have viewed with dismay, disbelief and anger last week’s press conference with SDLP minister Margaret Ritchie sandwiched between two unionist ministers

Threats to DUP leadership coming from fringes

Allister is challenging the leadership of the DUP not from a solid, assured position but from the sidelines, from the fringes of unionism and he is causing them to lose their nerve.

Durkan ensured SDLP will never share power

Did he really say that? After initial disbelief, that was the first question a lot of people asked when they read reports of Mark Durkan’s weekend speech to the British-Irish Association (BIA).

Allister has the DUP running scared

The current impasse at Stormont is the price everyone here has to pay for the DUP’s exercise in political dishonesty in spring 2007.

British human rights record still among worst

Every three years members of the United Nations are required to submit a report on human rights in their state.

Whose Law?

The stalemate politics that has characterised the Six County assembly since its inception following the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 has continued during the recent spate of ‘functionality’ since the St Andrews Agreement.

Teaching Bush a bloody lesson

There’s an uncanny symmetry in the history of Russia’s treatment of Georgia and Britain’s treatment of Ireland over the centuries.

Sarkosy proved ‘No’ voters were right

When Mr Sarkozy the French President said Irish people must vote again on the Lisbon Treaty, he underlined how right Irish people were to vote against it.

Lost lives

No matter the motives for the current politically engineered Historic Enquiry, it will lack any credibility while the British continue to suppress the Stephens reports and while those who added to the pain and suffering of the bereaved, are not held to account.

Truth and lies

Evidence is now emerging that the bombing of McGurks Bar, like many atrocities in the early years of the conflict, may have been part of a policy of assassination by British intelligence services.

PSNI is failing to protect vulnerable Catholics

Inaction has thus far characterised the PSNI’s policing operation in defending Catholics in Stoneyford and in other parts.

Who should pay for the recession?

Why is the most objectively fair response to our economic difficulties the least acceptable to the economic and political establishment?

What price the Orange Card?

Are the people of the Six Counties to be again left high and dry due to the selfish interests of yet another British politician?

All is not well at Stormont

The £6 million for Irish language broadcasting is the clearest signal yet that all is not well with the power-sharing arrangements at Stormont.

Crisis? What crisis?

There is an obvious and simple way that the EU can respond to Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty: continue as it was.

Ireland can once more save Europe from the Dark Ages

Welcome to the most surreal week in the history of Irish politics.

‘Nasty party’ is Paisley’s legacy

He’s gone, the oul curmudgeon, and good riddance.

Britain firing blanks at loyalists

The British administration intends to do nothing to recover weapons held by unionist paramilitaries.

Arrogance, smugness and the Brits

Nobody knows for certain how much misery and bother has been caused through the ages by the insufferable smugness of the British ruling class.

Irish government is unionism's new best friend

Paisley's big hearty handshake with Bertie at Farmleigh House last year was the beginning of what will inevitably be a lengthy dalliance.

A split’s not always first thing on agenda

When friends and comrades disagree the fall-out is always specially painful, even terrible. But never hopeless.

Ex-prisoners should enjoy same rights as others

It is time former prisoners from the conflict took their place in society with the same rights and entitlements as everyone else.

What is Peter Robinson’s vision?

There is no clue yet about how the DUP leader-designate sees the future of unionism or even if he sees a future for unionism.

US investment will build a sustainable future

May's investment conference is crucial as we seek to deliver on the wider objectives of equality and sustainability.

Does a Bill of Rights need us?

A bill of rights in any shape or form must be viewed as a progressive thing.

Flying the flag

Don't assume you can trust a British politician any more than a DUP one.

More than two sides to the story

What Jonathan Powell has said about Bloody Sunday is revealing, not what he claims Martin McGuinness said.

Confident unionism is showing signs of stress

Unionists are trying to perpetuate the old hostile relationship between nationalists and the police.

Symbolism at heart of DUP stadium turnaround

The signals that the DUP has got cold feet about a sports stadium at Long Kesh are evidence of a wider malaise in unionism.

Paisley walks

Ian Paisley could not have imagined being pushed out of power after just a year in office.

Spain could learn lessons from Irish conflict

If the conflict in Ireland can be brought to a just end so can the conflict in the Basque country.

Existence of informers is unpalatable fact of life

Informers, agents and spies have been a part of Irish society for as long as the British government have been occupying Ireland.

Just who drafts MI5’s agenda?

Does anyone believe that even when justice and policing are devolved to Stormont that local politicians will have any control over agencies such as MI5?

The ache that still hurts

I don’t need any British Judge to tell me what happened on Bloody Sunday.

The real priorities

Behind the scenes, the political parties in the North have other matters on their minds.

Ian Og gets his come-uppance at long last

They say the Paisleys come as a package - if you get one, you get both.

The trouble with war

Don’t mention the war. Don’t mention the fact that thousands of British soldiers occupied the highways and byways of this wee place for over thirty years and that all of them had a licence to kill.

Unionists in pool can’t let go of the sides

Fascinating to watch unionists of all shades tying themselves in knots about human rights and devolution of justice and policing

Papers show cooperation got us further faster

The one clear lesson which emerges from the documents allowed to be released this year is that any time Irish officials managed to persuade the British to follow a line of action it was a success.

When language dies

Language analysts have estimated that there are more than 6,000 languages spoken in the world today and one minority language dies every two weeks.

A courtesy from Pope and Queen

If Pope Benedict and Queen Elizabeth visit Ireland each of them will have a chance to offer us a courtesy which has been too long delayed.

Abuse of privilege should be ended

Unionists are still naming people in the British House of Commons or Lords, accusing them of crime. This is an abuse.

Access to report crucial in quest for justice

The public exposure of the de Menezes case stands in marked contrast to the secrecy surrounding multiple killings by the Crown forces during the conflict in Ireland.

Finally on a path towards a new Ireland

For a new administration on a learning curve its six months in office has been surprisingly impressive.

Stunt will not make UDA disappear

It is depressing how many media outlets bought the NIO spin about the UDA standing down its ‘military wing’.

Tourists discover north’s deep-seated prejudices

Next time someone tells you that our commissions for equality and human rights are just money wasted on political correctness, consider the case of Frank Kakopa.

Chance for commission to show courage

On Saturday, November 24, Orangemen intend to march into the centre of Belfast to intimidate both an individual and a community.

Fianna Fail can become a 32-county organisation

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern delivered the graveside oration at Fianna Fail's annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration on Sunday. We present the text of his address.

FF is real beneficiary of Brown’s dithering

All the parties in the North exhaled a big sigh of relief when Gordon Brown bottled out of holding the election he had been threatening since August.

Irish language being used as political football

Attacks by unionists on the Irish language or the education department expose their wider attitude and lack of educational policies especially for their working-class supporters.

‘Whataboutery’ is classic avoidance technique

The wheedling and hand-wringing Margaret Ritchie faces until next Tuesday's deadline for UDA decommissioning is going to be epic.

SDLP will be devoured

It will be FF’s aim to become the dominant party in the North.

Right time for Paisley to step off

It was time for Paisley to step off the vehicle which he built and which gave him the respectability and momentum to take him to where he is today.

Consequences of the Flight of the Earls

Nationalists have never sought to undo the Plantation of Ulster which next year will be four centuries old.

Jumping to conclusions over ‘unity’ talk

The one contribution that stood out in this year's summer schools was Sir Kenneth Bloomfield’s talk to the Merriman School.

Taking pride in our cultures

The message is harsh and says, written hugely on a wall where the visitor can read it in great letters, “This is not Spain”.

A decade of injustice

Our leaders contrive ever more elaborate ways to get us into prison, and outsourcing seems to be one of them.

Withdrawal? What withdrawal?

It is not a withdrawal, the British garrisons are still there to try to hold the northeast of Ireland militarily and economically. And they have been given new extra oppressive powers to do it.

Omagh Civil Case - Justice or Stitch-Up?

Reviewing the ongoing Omagh civil case saga, one is left with an abiding sense of uneasiness at the immense inequality being applied to one of the defendants, Michael McKevitt.

Kid-glove treatment of UDA disgraceful

In one of the most scandalous uses of public money in the north, and that's saying something, successive proconsuls have been advised to try to bribe the UDA out of racketeering and extortion.

Body can build a more prosperous island

Further evidence of the ongoing transformation of Irish politics as a result of the peace process was again on display this week.

It ain’t easy being Green

The Greens by entering into coalition, have now joined a long list of once radical organizations who have chosen to become, as Chris Gaskin wrote, “the mud guard of the two failed civil war parties”.

Pattern of systemic inequality must be reversed

At the annual meeting of Lisburn council, SDLP councillors abandoned a long standing principle of their party - the principle of power-sharing.

PPS is undermining public confidence in justice

If ever there was a case for a speedy transfer of policing and justice powers to the north’s executive then it is shining out of the statement last week from the Public Prosecution Service (PPS).

English politicians care little about Six Counties

There was quite a revealing and disappointing moment for British secretary of state Peter Hain at the end of last week’s Question Time on the London-based BBC.

The DUP’s double standards are nauseating

How would anyone in the DUP, no matter how sanctimonious they may sound, know anything about policing and justice, let alone democratic standards?

UDA gangsters shouldn’t have it all their own way

It is quite obvious that, apart from everything else, the UDA are just far too emotionally unstable to be in charge of lethal weapons.

SF must learn quickly from election results

It is a mighty task but republicans have had setbacks more serious than last week’s election results.

Taking it on the chin

From the ecstasy of March to the agony of May, 2007 is turning out to be quite the rollercoaster year for republicans.

Assembly is merely a twig on the NIO branch

The Northern Ireland Office hasn't gone away, you know.

Face of Ireland changed in just 16 minutes

On Tuesday everyone in Stormont was entitled to feel proud.

Politics and the daily grind

Some tales from the Celtic Tiger as you consider your options and as the country winds itself up to go to the polls.

The writing is on the wall for ‘Britishness’

Tomorrow’s election results in Scotland are going to increase the isolation of unionists in Ireland even more.

Photocalls do not reflect street-level reality

The Paisley-Adams deal represents not a compromise or accommodation between the ideologies that had defined the two men’s parties but the willing negation of each.

Choosing prestige over power?

David Trimble joining the British Conservative Party is a sad event.

The people have spoken

There are still commentators who can’t accept that Sinn Féin and the DUP are carrying out the wishes of the voters.

Alternative Ulster

Strange parallels between those who thought the political process could never be reconciled are beginning to emerge.

Making headlines for the right reasons

The unthinkable, indeed unbelievable is happening before our very eyes.

An omen of good days to come

It is difficult to decide which captures best the ground-breaking nature of the event - the photo or the statements.

It’s time PSNI was accountable for its actions

In the past week we’ve had two very serious incidents involving the PSNI and the British Army.

A good news election story for republicans

With a brilliant election result behind him Gerry Adams will lead northern republicans southwards with the intention of building on his success.

DUP chokes on its own history

Elections are supposed to provide answers. When the people speak, the politicians are supposed to respond accordingly. Not so in the North.

Brown doesn’t give tuppence about this place

We’re at present in the lull before the storm - and what a storm it will be.

Power-sharing in North must not be stopped

By the standards of western democracy, the election in the North must be one of the most bizarre ever to have taken place.

Apologies are the latest cheapo wheeze

Has Peter Hain been outed for the political opportunist he is?

Policing no longer a tool of the British state

For centuries policing was an instrument of British state power and the armed wing of unionism. Now it can be neutralised.

Unionism will pay dearly if Blair is humiliated

There will be an election unless Paisley has the guts to say he will not share power with Sinn Féin.

Repeating the pattern of the top brass

Anybody wondering how Ronnie Flanagan came to believe he’d get away with claiming memory loss about his role in collusion should recall Mike Jackson and Bloody Sunday.

Reunification is solution to partition problem

Overwhelming is the word that springs to mind to describe the decision and the mood at Sinn Féin’s Ard Fheis last Sunday when more than 800 delegates backed the party leadership’s policing proposal.

Sit and watch intra-unionist bigot-fest

Only when the election is safely over and the DUP has consigned its UUP rival to oblivion will Paisley be able to contemplate delivering on his political obligations.

The wrong thing to do

Yes, there is an alternative to supporting the British Crown forces in Ireland.

New route to a United Ireland

The goal of a united Ireland remains absolute but the means by which it can be achieved no longer needs to involve armed actions.

The final step

There was no great surprise at the end of it. Who expected a different result?

DUP’s creative ambiguity has limited lifespan

For the first time in his 50 years in politics Ian Paisley snr is facing a reality he probably thought he would never have to face.

SF is up for the challenges of peace making

Evidence that the leadership of Sinn Féin is set once again to stretch republicans to the outer limits of their commitment to the peace process is very obvious.

DUP’s mindset is fossilised in 17th century

The current DUP leadership is a political Jurassic Park but if the mindset exhibited on the Today programme is anything to go by, then the prospect the coming men offer is back to the future.

Sinn Féin and Policing the North

Those with experience of Sinn Féin manoeuvring will have recognised recent signs that a policy change is in the air.

DUP dissenters can afford to wait a year or so

The DUP is a victim of its own success.

SF quite right to make policing a deal-breaker

Unionists like to claim that nationalists are a kind of sub-species who enjoy criminality and endorse lawlessness.

Time won’t change stark choice DUP faces

With Martin McGuinness as his co-equal deputy first minister, Ian Paisley is now shakily wearing the crown of transitional first minister.

Britain being made to squirm

The truth is that the British government couldn't care less what the taoiseach says about 1974-76 any more than the Russian government cares about what John Reid says about anything

Carry on regardless

Regardless of the pandemonium Michael Stone caused outside the Assembly, his appearance only served to distract from the confusion and mistrust inside.

Unionists still believe they own the north

You could be forgiven for thinking that the only issue in Irish politics at present is whether Sinn Féin ‘will sign up to policing’.

Proconsul’s jiggery-pokery comes at a price

A lot of people, including the majority of the local meedja, seem to think the judge called for an inquiry into her appointment.

Paisley gets to say yes, again

Gerry Adams recalls the recent St Andrews negotiations and how Ian Paisley said 'Yes' for the first time in 50 years.

On the cusp of a historic development

If the DUP come into the St Andrews process, it will be a final acknowledgement by this most recalcitrant unionist constituency that the days of domination, inequality and discrimination are gone for ever.

Is it a country or a region? It’s a basket case

When unionist politicians give a knee-jerk reaction it is the mentality they reveal that still shocks.

BBC out of step with its own protocol

Many people were incensed that the BBC - an organisation funded by the licence-paying public - would provide an uncritical programme live glorifying the RIR.

Ian Og in his da's shoes?

Is the DUP really a political party, or the political wing of a religious sect, or a family business?

Chance to put politics of partition behind us

It is a deal in waiting and what a deal it could be.

How tides have turned

The St Andrews Agreement will bring about a seismic change in the North.

Serving Judas, Not Justice

It remains far from clear that the absence of evidence is preventing a proper resolution of the O’Hagan murder

The DUP is preparing for a seismic shift

There is a rustling in the unionist undergrowth to indicate that the DUP may be preparing for a sea change in its approach to power-sharing.

CRC article relates more to unionist thinking

The British has created a series of shop-window fronts to give the false impression, particularly to those looking from abroad, that Britain is addressing the unique problems here.

Ministers have lost interest in north-south links

The nature and extent of all-Ireland arrangements are likely to become political issues in the South instead of matters on which all Irish parties agree and take for granted as a national objective.

Renaissance Republicanism

It is hardly surprising three dozen or so Irish Republicans considered getting together in Toomebridge to have a chat about the future of their country and the role of Irish Republicanism within it.

Peelers Give You Trouble

With Sinn Fein's ratification of the British constabulary on the political agenda, Martin Galvin join's Danny Morrison's call for a serious debate on the future of Irish Republicanism.

When one doesn't mind being called a Provo

The sincerity of those dissident republicans who believe that the strategy of the Republican Movement is wrong is easily tested.

Public commitment or public relations

Many Republicans believe that as part of the negotiations for a return to a DUP headed Stormont, Sinn Fein will be obliged to accept not only policing boards but the British constabulary.

Injustice must always be opposed and exposed

Britain’s history in Ireland is one of brutality and inhumanity, often characterised through the abuse of political prisoners.

Diplock claim equals justice denied

The British strategy on non-jury Diplock courts seems clearly and solely directed at Sinn Féin.

Hunger Strike Anniversary

News of the protest against criminalization, by Republican political prisoners at Maghaberry, will strike a chord deep within the hearts and memories of many nationalists and Republicans.

30,000 people know who the victors were 25 years ago

The public demonstration for the anniversary of the hunger strikers was a powerful evidence of people’s determination, and of their dignity.

Sectarian rhetoric

The issue of sectarianism has to be tackled head on whatever its source.

Nothing is true until it’s officially denied

No-one any longer believes a word this British government utters.

Nationalists have a right to proper policing

Any future decision by republicans to endorse policing in the six counties will be on a par with those landmark decisions which republicans have already taken over the last decade of the peace process.

Unionists still refuse to have open minds

One year on the unionists and their allies are still refusing to open their minds to the place the peace process can take us.

Israel must be held accountable

Israel is clearly once again guilty of a gross crime against humanity and it must be held accountable.

Paisley still trading on fears

Over the decades, one thing has not changed.

SF riding the tide in political sea change

Two strangers arrived at Stormont as the shutters went up for the summer.

Participation in partition - a denial of sovereignty

The Annual Republican Sinn Féin Wolfe Tone Commemoration to Bodenstown took place last month. The following oration was delivered by Dr Sean Maguire son of the late Comdt- General Tom Maguire, a survivor of the Second (All-Ireland) Dail Eireann. It is reproduced here in full.

No dumbing down of the Orange Order

Why try and dress up the Twelfth as something it is not?

Collusion issue is now an undisputed fact

For decades republicans raised the issue of collusion but were dismissed as propagandists. It is now an undisputed fact.

Timely reminder to second-class nationalists

In case any one is in any doubt about the purpose behind Orange marches the decision by the Parades Commission in relation to an Orange march on Belfasts Springfield Road is a timely reminder.

Violence rewarded, while Feile gets punished

Belatedly, unionists have come to recognise the concept of alienation - which they derided in nationalists.

Slave mentality rules

There is no political way we can say 'No' to, or change, what Peter Hain decrees.

DUP support would help Empey strategy

It was entirely understandable that nationalists and their political representatives would be cynical about the decision a few weeks ago by Reg Empey to take David Ervine into his assembly party.

Britain must come clean on Haddock

The confession by the former north Belfast Ulster Volunteer Force man Mark Haddock that he has been a Special Branch informer for the last 16 years is further damning evidence of collusion.

Unionists must choose to shape change

Robert McBride, former ANC activist, death row inmate, parliamentarian and now chief of police in East Rand, Johannesburg, recently brought a message to republicans across Ireland.

‘Assembly’ is hologram on the hill

The assembly meeting up at Stormont isn't the Northern Ireland Assembly established by the Good Friday Agreement.

Ballymena’s culture of hate

It has been fascinating to watch the DUP tip-toe politely around the funeral of Michael McIlveen.

‘Assisted suicide’ for UUP

Farewell to David Ervine and the Progressive Unionist Party.

A sinister hush over collusion evidence

One of the biggest scandals to hit these islands in recent years did not even merit a mention on our main radio or TV stations.

Things changed forever after Bobby Sands' death

There was nothing normal about our lives in the H-blocks during the years 1976-1981 so why should our thinking and actions be assessed according to a 'normal' system of measurement.

It takes lots of courage to break ranks

Brian Kennaway's new book The Orange Order: A Tradition Betrayed is causing quite a stir, mainly among Protestants, unionists and Orangemen

A few bad apples don’t make a bad barrel

The IMC has failed to report that almost 70 active members of a certain paramilitary organisation have been convicted of criminal offences.

Values of Rising need to be renewed

There needs to be a debate about what it really does mean to be Irish.

Shootings ‘cult of silence’ must end

Until Easter Sunday Neil McConville was the only person the PSNI had shot dead.

Rising played pivotal part in Irish history

Shortly before 1pm on Easter Monday 1916, outside Dublin's GPO, the British empire started to crumble.

1916 and all that...

To justify or to sympathise or, at the minimum, to understand, 1916, is to justify, sympathise or understand the IRA’s armed struggle in the North.

Who killed Denis Donaldson?

Few in the media or among mainstream political parties have dared to consider British involvement.

Sham assembly just like old times

Tomorrow’s performance by Blair and Ahern promises to be a perfect example of “the triumph of hope over experience”,

‘Feudal lord’ has illusions above his station

If ever there was a politician on the make, it’s Peter Hain.

April 6, 2019