
Speaking in Milford, Donegal, President Michael D Higgins
delivered an address for the official commemoration
of the Great Hunger by the 26 County state. President Higgins’ address in full.
Published May 25, 2023

Inequality in the treatment of republicans and loyalists when it comes
to receiving bail was highlighted this week when a loyalist charged with
possession of an assault rifle and large quantities of drugs and cash,
and two others accused of forcing a young Catholic family to flee their
home, were all quickly released on bail.
Published May 11, 2023

They have been commemorating the wrong anniversary. Instead of
celebrating the partition of Protestants and Catholics into two separate
groups in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, would it not be more
appropriate to commemorate one of the few historical occasions when
political unity overcame sectarian division?
Published May 11, 2023

Like any other Republican I would rather stand on a terraced street in
silence with an unbowed and unbroken Republican family as they remember
their husband, father and grandfather than stand in the presence of the
enemy that murdered him as they crown their next leader.
Published May 4, 2023

The speech delivered by Caoimhe Ní Loingsigh at the Easter commemoration in Carrickmore organised by the Tyrone National Graves
Association and the 1916 Societies.
Published April 27, 2023

As we approach 25 years since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement
(GFA) it is worth reflecting and challenging some of the false
narratives that have been peddled since then.
Published April 13, 2023

A tribute to sectarian murder victim Sean Brown written by the famed poet Seamus Heaney in 1997.
Published April 6, 2023

Liam Lynch, chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army, died one
hundred years ago this week. He was killed whilst trying to escape an
encirclement by pro-Treaty forces in south Tipperary.
Published April 6, 2023

The remarks of Sinn Féin First Minister-elect
Michelle O’Neill at the National Press Club in Washington DC last week.
Published March 23, 2023

‘Sliocht Róisín’ is an independent project aimed at recording in print
all Republican casualties 1916-24. The preface to
Volume 1, 1916-19, by historian and author Lorcan Collins.
Published March 23, 2023

An official wreath-laying ceremony took place in Donegal on Sunday to
commemorate the killing of four anti-Treaty IRA men - including south
Derry man, Séan Larkin - by Free State soldiers close to Stranorlar on
March 14 1923.
Published March 16, 2023

Luke Burke and Michael Grealy, known as Mullingar’s ‘two forgotten
martyrs’, were executed on 13 March, 1923. An oration
delivered by Peter A Rogers in Keady on Sunday for the Luke Burke
Centenary Commemoration.
Published March 16, 2023

On of the most significant months of the conflict took place 35 years
ago. In this article written for the tenth anniversary, Laura Friel
looked back at the Gibraltar and Milltown killings.
Published March 9, 2023

The National Flag of Ireland, often referred to as the tricolour,
was first flown 175 years ago this week
Published March 9, 2023

A number of commemorations are taking place in the coming weeks to mark
the centenary of Civil War events, including an atrocity against
Republicans in Kerry known as one of the worst of the conflict.
Published March 2, 2023

A lot of myths, distortions and downright lies surround the Orange
Order, most of them generated by the Order and its apologists.
Published February 2, 2023

On Bloody Sunday, we march for
all those everywhere who have lost family and friends and had their
children’s hopes of happiness shattered by the armoured cars and tanks
and guns of imperial armies.
Published January 26, 2023

A large crowd gathered on Wednesday evening in the New Lodge area of
Belfast for the commemoration of Francis Liggett, a 24-year-old newlywed
Volunteer shot dead by undercover British soldiers, fifty years ago this
week.
Published January 19, 2023

‘Reality and common sense’ must play a part in any discussion of the Dublin government’s failure to manage the migration and refugee issue, according to Aontú.
Published January 19, 2023

This week 100 years ago, five brave IRA Volunteers were executed by the Free
State authorities. A leaflet distributed at the time praised the heroism of the republican prisoners.
Published January 12, 2023

Despite heavy pro-establishment spin by government officials in the
release of ‘declassified’ state papers in Dublin and Belfast, and complete censorship in London, some other interesting details did emerge.
Published January 5, 2023

A round-up of messages issued by republican organisations to mark the
New Year.
Published January 5, 2023

Mary Lou McDonald’s grand-uncle was one of the Grey Abbey Martyrs killed
by the Free State 100 years ago. The Sinn Fein leader delivered a speech
at the Heritage Centre in Kildare town last weekend to mark the
anniversary.
Published December 22, 2022

An essay on the life and sacrifice of rebel and martyr Liam Mellows, by
Anti-Imperialist Action.
Published December 15, 2022

Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll were killed 40 years ago this week as the
car they were driving was fired on by the RUC at Armagh in what has
become known as ‘The Mullacreevie Park Massacre’.
Published December 8, 2022

The current Irish republican prisoner list for December 2022, as
collated by Irish Republican Prisoner News Facebook page from public
lists by prisoner welfare groups and family/friends of independent
prisoners. Its tips on writing to prisoners are included.
Published December 8, 2022

An oration read by Francie Mackey, national chairperson
of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, at an event last weekend to
remember IRA Volunteer Patsy Duffy in Derry.
Published December 1, 2022

The centenary of the execution of four young rebels by the Irish Free
State has been marked in Kilmainham Jail.
Published November 24, 2022

Sinn Féin’s First Minister-designate Michelle O’Neill argues that there
should be no fundamental change to the Good Friday Agreement without the
consent of the people.
Published November 24, 2022

IRA Volunteer Stanislaus Carberry was killed as he travelled in a
hijacked car on the Falls Road in west Belfast, 50 years ago this week.
Published November 10, 2022

The prepared text of the address by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald
to her party’s ard fheis (annual conference) last weekend.
Published November 10, 2022

At Halloween 1973 in Dublin, one of the most audacious, cleverly planned
jail escapes in Irish history occurred.
Published November 3, 2022

One hundred years ago this month, the Free State government in Dublin
approved an emergency measure to allow the executions of IRA prisoners.
By Wayne Sugg.
Published October 27, 2022

Saoradh has begun a campaign to defend and support the singing of Irish
rebel songs and to end their equation with sectarianism by an
anti-Republican lobby. An opinion piece by Paul Dunphy.
Published October 27, 2022

Signs that the next generation of young Irish people are ready to throw
off the shackles of colonialism has deeply unnerved the pro-British
establishment.
Published October 20, 2022
A growing movement is taking on all those who seek to profit from the ‘criminal’ housing policies of the establishment in Ireland.
Published October 13, 2022

Sometimes decades of political change can happen within periods of
months. That’s one way to characterise developments in Ireland over
recent times.
Published October 6, 2022

An account of the 1983 Long Kesh prison breakout, which occurred
39 years ago this week.
Published September 29, 2022

Society must reflect and include the entirety of its people, not part of
them. Inclusivity is vital to the well being of any community, whether a
nation, the global village or a local populace.
Published September 22, 2022

Over 100 years on since the magnificent banner was hoisted outside of
Liberty Hall, Dublin by the Irish Citizens Army, those words again come
into direct correlation with the present, “We serve neither King nor
Kaiser, but Ireland!”
Published September 15, 2022

Britain’s fourth British Prime Minister since 2016 started her political
career as an accountant and a political moderate but is now leading one
of the most right-wing governments in British history.
Published September 7, 2022

IRA Volunteers Joseph O’Sullivan and Reginald Dunne were hanged by the
British, 100 years ago this month.
Published August 18, 2022

An essay written by Bobby Sands in 1979 while protesting against the
criminalisation of republican prisoners. Because protesting prisoners
were not allowed books or writing materials, this essay was composed on
a square of toilet paper and smuggled out of the prison.
Published August 4, 2022

On August 1, 1922, Irish revolutionary Harry Boland succumbed to wounds received at the Grand
Hotel in Skerries, County Dublin at the hands of pro-Treaty
forces, 100 years ago this week.
Published August 4, 2022

The historian, author and independent republican activist, Peter A.
Rogers was a guest speaker at the recent Bodenstown commemoration for
Anti-Imperialist Action, speaking on behalf of the Spirit of Irish
Freedom Society, Westmeath.
Published July 21, 2022

Cathal Brugha was born Charles William St. John Burgess in Dublin on 18
July, 1874. He adopted the Irish version of his name as his nationalist
views took hold after he joined the Gaelic League in 1899.
Published July 14, 2022

The family of Michael Leonard, who was shot dead by the RUC almost 50
years ago have called for a fresh inquest into the 24-year-old’s death
after new evidence emerged suggesting his killing had not been properly
investigated.
Published July 6, 2022

The Irish Civil War began a century ago this week with an attack on
republicans at the Four Courts in Dublin, the centre of the Irish
judicial system.
Published June 30, 2022

A hundred years ago this week, a group of leading republicans visited Bodenstown
churchyard to hear a stirring oration by Liam Mellows over the grave of
the father of Irish republicanism, where supporters of Irish freedom
now pay homage every year.
Published June 23, 2022

The full text of remarks By First Minister-Designate, Michelle O’Neill,
at Sinn Féin’s Wolfe Tone Commemoration, in Bodenstown, County Kildare
on Sunday, 19 June.
Published June 23, 2022

The Scottish government has set a date of October 2023 for a second
independence referendum. In a forward to a series of papers, Scottish
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has begun to set out the arguments in
favour of independence for Scotland.
Published June 16, 2022

An exhibition centred on a unique banner has opened in Kilmainham Gaol
Museum in Dublin.
Published June 9, 2022

Boris Johnson's government are pursuing an anti-Agreement agenda which is disingenuously wrapped up in pro-Agreement rhetoric, writes First Minister-designate Michelle O’Neill.
Published June 1, 2022

Irish Republicans, and indeed Republicans throughout the world, will
never celebrate the lives of any monarch and especially one who resides
in massive palaces in England.
Published May 26, 2022

A large crowd gathered in Tyrone on Sunday past to honour the memory of
eight brave volunteers of the East Tyrone Brigade killed in action at
Loughgall on 8 May 1987, while a new monument was unveiled across the
border in Monaghan.
Published May 12, 2022

Sinn Féin’s performance in the Assembly election saw an increase in its
vote share to 29%, with more of its candidates elected on the
first count than in 2017.
Published May 12, 2022

A look at three key contests for nationalists in today’s Assembly
election, and the complete list of candidates.
Published May 5, 2022

An opinion piece by Saoradh Doire member, Barry Millar, whose family
have all faced the effects of British occupation and political
repression, particularly in recent months.
Published April 7, 2022

An account of the daring capture of the British ship Upnor 100 years ago
this week, from the papers of Michael Burke, O/C Cobh IRA.
Published March 31, 2022

Several hundred people attended a commemoration in Derry this week to
mark the 50th anniversary of the shooting of two local IRA men by
British forces in the Bogside area of the city.
Published March 24, 2022

The irony of British Imperialism pontificating about ‘illegal
Occupations’ of Sovereign Nations can not be lost on many.
Published March 3, 2022

A look back at a famous incident from the conflict, 31 years ago this week.
Published February 10, 2022

“You can read English history and still know nothing about Irish history
but you can’t read Irish history and not learn something about English
history.” An extract from a new self-published book, by Eddie Mulligan.
Published February 3, 2022

Survivors of Bloody Sunday recall their experiences that day, by Martha McClelland (first published in 1997).
Published January 27, 2022

How the Bloody Sunday killings set off an unprecedented wave of protests
in the 26 Counties - and prompted words but no action from the
government, by Jack Madden.
Published January 27, 2022

The 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday massacre takes place later
this month, and the city of Derry is hosting two programmes of events to
commemorate the 14 who were killed by British soldiers and address
the continuing refusal of the British authorities to offer truth and justice
for the victims.
Published January 20, 2022

Political representatives and other dignitaries took part in an official
state ceremony at Dublin Castle to mark the centenary of the start of
the withdrawal of British forces from the 26 Counties, 100 years ago
this week. Aontú leader Peader Tóibín on why he didn’t take part.
Published January 20, 2022

A round-up of the state papers which have been selected for release for
the New Year from archives in Belfast, Dublin and London.
Published December 30, 2021

Sunday, December 12 marked the 101st anniversary of the Egyptian Arch
ambush in Newry. An account by local republicans of a fateful night in which three IRA volunteers,
William Canning, Peter Shields and John Francis O’Hare, lost their lives.
Published December 18, 2021

The victim impact statement delivered by Stephen
Travers at Belfast High Court on Monday, 13 December, at the conclusion
of the legal action against the British state for its role in the
Miami Showband massacre.
Published December 18, 2021

One of the most important meetings of an Irish Cabinet took place on
December 3, 100 years ago this week, when the negotiations which led to
the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the partition of Ireland were being
discussed.
Published December 3, 2021

An opinion piece by Belfast republican Seán Ó Murchú and his take on the
current situation facing republican prisoners this December.
Published December 3, 2021

December is the month for remembering republican political prisoners. This is the current up to date Irish republican prisoner list for 2021, with addresses and tips for writing to prisoners.
Published November 26, 2021

A tribute by Republican Sinn Féin to Dan Hoban, a
lifelong republican and a former internee in the Curragh internment
camp, where he was married.
Published November 20, 2021

Saoradh held its annual conference in Newry recently with empty seats at
the top table to represent those members of its National Executive who
have been interned.
Published November 20, 2021

The full text of the prepared address to the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis 2021 by Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald TD.
Published November 6, 2021

An account by Des Dalton of the first days of the Anglo-Irish treaty negotiations one hundred years ago, which led to the partition of Ireland.
Published October 23, 2021

A statement issued on behalf of the family of vulnerable adult John Patrick Cunningham on the passing of former British soldier Dennis Hutchings.
Published October 23, 2021

The full text of the speech delivered by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald in response the annual Budget plans for the 26 County state set out by the coalition government in Dublin.
Published October 16, 2021

An opinion piece by republican activist Pete Cavanagh on the recent wave of suppression of civil rights of republicans in Derry by the British Crown Forces and their supporters.
Published October 9, 2021

A documentary marking the 40th anniversary of the end of the 1981 hunger strike is to premiere online this weekend.
Published October 1, 2021

Despite being tortured by the Redcoats, Anne Devlin, a housekeeper and confidante of Robert Emmet, refused to inform on the United Irishmen. An account of her life by Anti-Imperialist Action on the anniversary of her death, 160 years ago this week.
Published September 25, 2021

A three-metre tall statue of Irish revolutionary Roger Casement has been installed on the south Dublin coast near the place of his birth. Using cranes at Dún Laoghaire Baths, the bronze sculpture of Casement was placed high on a plinth.
Published September 18, 2021

The Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association call for the direct opening of visits, both social and legal in Maghaberry and Hydebank gaols.
Published September 11, 2021

The family of 14 year-old schoolgirl, Annette McGavigan, who was shot dead in Derry by the British Army in 1971, have written the following open letter to the British Direct Ruler Brandon Lewis accusing his government of treating them shamefully.
Published September 4, 2021

Anti-Imperialist Action offer their critique of the Provisional IRA ceasefire, which began on August 31, 1994, 27 years ago this week.
Published September 4, 2021

Nineteen-year-old Irish republican Joe Whitty died on hunger-strike on
the 2nd September 1923, 98 years ago this week.
Published August 27, 2021

An account of the life of Thomas McElwee, the ninth hunger striker in
the 1981 protest to die, 40 years ago this week.
Published August 14, 2021

A new community-organised 1981 Hunger Strike mural in the Beechmount
area of Belfast was unveiled last weekend as part of 40th anniversary
commemorations.
Published August 7, 2021

A look back at a dark week forty years ago when two Irish republican hunger-strikers succumbed within 24 hours of each other.
Published July 31, 2021

The time to set a firm date for a referendum on Irish unity is now. The legal requirement for a border poll as envisioned in the 1998 Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement needs to be embraced and facilitated by the Irish and British governments.
Published July 24, 2021

A round-up of comments and reactions in the wake of the British announcement of its intention to introduce legislation to end investigations into state killings related to the conflict in the north of Ireland.
Published July 17, 2021

An account from 1981 of the background to Martin Hurson’s fast to the death, after forty-six days on hunger strike, 40 years ago this week.
Published July 10, 2021

An account of the brave life of Joe McDonnell, who died on hunger strike against the criminalisation of republican prisoners, 40 years ago this week.
Published July 3, 2021

Catholic children attending the Holy Cross primary school in north Belfast came under extended attacks from loyalist missiles, ranging from urine to blast bombs, beginning twenty years ago this week. The PSNI did nothing to stop the attacks. The following is a recent interview with one of the victims.
Published June 26, 2021

The former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once famously said that a week was a long time in politics – if ever that was evident it was here in the north over the past seven days.
Published June 26, 2021

An oration delivered by a Pádraig Ó Fearghail on behalf
of Anti Imperialist Action at the recent commemoration to Fenian and
‘Invincibles’ member, Michael Fagan, in Collinstown, County Westmeath
Published June 19, 2021

For more than six centuries, British policy in Ireland has been aimed at the destruction of the Irish language.
Published June 5, 2021

A statement from Linda Duffy, daughter of Harry Duffy, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of her father’s death.
Published May 29, 2021

A ceasefire has been announced to end Israeli shelling in Gaza and attacks on other Palestinian areas ahead of a global day of action on Saturday, May 22. A number of events are taking place in Ireland.
Published May 22, 2021

The second republican to join the H-Block hunger-strike for political status, a fortnight after Bobby Sands, was twenty-five-year-old Francis Hughes, from Bellaghy in South Derry. He died 40 years ago this week.
Published May 15, 2021

The violent imposition of partition one hundred years ago this week was a crime against the Irish people. The continuation and maintenance of partition perpetuates that crime. The democratic will of the Irish people cannot be expressed so long as partition remains.
Published May 8, 2021

Bobby Sands died on 5 May, 1981, 40 years ago this week. This article for IRIS recounts how he became inspired to join the Irish republican struggle and to lead the 1981 hunger strike against the criminalisation of political prisoners.
Published April 30, 2021

Of all the wonderful escapes and rescues of Irish political prisoners
from British dungeons down through the years none was as remarkable as
the rescue of six Fenian prisoners from the penal settlement of Western
Australia in 1876, 145 years ago this week.
Published April 24, 2021

An account of the workings of the brutal Maghaberry prison regime by Kieran McCool, who was arrested in a raid in Derry last month.
Published April 17, 2021

The imposition of Brexit by the Tories, with absolutely no regard for its impact on the north and our economy, has led to many people asking questions and considering new options and opportunities.
Published April 10, 2021

A round-up of the annual speeches and statements released by republican
organisations to mark the 105th anniversary of the
Easter Rising.
Published April 5, 2021

The heart of the matter is that Bobby Storey’s
funeral was an orderly, dignified tribute to a man seen as an
outstanding republican.
Published April 2, 2021

Disturbances have continued in Derry after intensely violent PSNI raids
in the Ballymagowan area of Creggan last weekend. A press conference
organised at Junior McDaid House on Thursday saw some of
those affected issue statements give emotional accounts of their
horrific experiences at the hands of the PSNI.
Published March 27, 2021

In the early hours of 7th March 1921, 100 years ago this week, the Mayor of Limerick, IRA officer George Clancy, former Mayor, Michael O’Callaghan of Sinn Féin and IRA volunteer Joseph O’Donoghue were all shot dead in their homes at night after curfew by the RIC.
Published March 13, 2021

An article by Saoradh Newry activist Cliodhna McCool on what being involved in republicanism means to her and the contribution women have made to the cause of Irish freedom.
Published March 13, 2021

One of the greatest losses of life incurred by the IRA during the War of Independence occurred at Clonmult, seven miles north of Midleton in County Cork, 100 years ago this week.
Published February 27, 2021

The arrest of a pro-Catalan independence rapper over his lyrics following a police stand-off has echoes with ongoing censorship in Ireland.
Published February 20, 2021

Volunteer Frank Stagg died on hunger strike on 12 February 1976, 45 years ago this week. The story
of his sacrifice by Jonathan O'Meara.
Published February 13, 2021

A former chief of staff of the INLA, Gino Gallagher was assassinated 25 years ago this week. In this article, Peter Urban of the International Republican Socialist Network recalls his comrade.
Published February 6, 2021

To believe that Drew Harris is not still in the employ of the Government which had placed him at the top levels of their intelligence apparatus in the six counties stretches credulity to the limit.
Published January 30, 2021

The Bloody Sunday March Committee is organising a week of online events and a virtual march for justice for the 1972 massacre of 14 civilians by British forces in Derry, under the banner ‘It’s Never Too Late For The Truth’. It has published a context and programme of events for the week.
Published January 22, 2021

A letter by lifelong republican Kieran ‘Zack’ Smyth to highlight his internment at the hands of MI5 has been published by the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association.
Published January 16, 2021

The New IRA and several republican political organisations have issued statements to mark the New Year.
Published January 9, 2021

A round-up of the state papers released so far in Dublin, London and Belfast in the annual release of newly declassified documents.
Published December 30, 2020

The police investigation known as ‘Operation Kenova’ is not interested in getting to the truth about Stakeknife or other British agents within the Provisional IRA, according to an intelligence veteran who says his evidence has been ignored.
Published December 19, 2020

Throughout December, events have been taking place across Ireland in support of republican political prisoners. A statement was issued by IRPWA-supported prisoners at Maghaberry.
Published December 19, 2020

This week marks the 100 year anniversary of the burning of Cork City by British Crown Forces. An account of the conflict before and the cruelty during the devastating Cork City fire.
Published December 11, 2020

We are already near the traditional month for remembering republican political prisoners.
Published November 27, 2020

The brutal, cold-blooded killing of three IRA prisoners by the British 100 years ago this week – and their ham-fisted attempt to cover it up – is an aspect of Bloody Sunday which is often overlooked.
Published November 27, 2020

One of the most shameful and shocking episodes in Britain’s blood-stained history took place in Dublin a century ago this week.
Published November 20, 2020

One hundred years ago this week, the IRA carried out one of its most successful operations. The British secret service in Ireland was decimated when 13 senior intelligence officers were executed and many more fled into Dublin Castle.
Published November 14, 2020

Taoiseach Micheál Martin this week became the first Fianna Fáil leader to wear a poppy to mark the British Legion’s Remembrance Day. He was criticised for doing so by Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín, who explains his comments.
Published November 14, 2020

Irish political prisoners confined in the infamous H-Blocks of Long Kesh
commenced a hunger strike on October 27, 1980, 40 years ago this week.
Published October 31, 2020

Kevin Barry was hanged at the age of 18 by the British in Mountjoy Jail
on 1 November 1920, 100 years ago this week. He was the first republican
to be executed by the British after the 1916 Rising, but his martyrdom
inspired the republican side in the War of Independence.
Published October 31, 2020

Terence MacSwiney, an Irish playwright, author and Sinn Féin Lord Mayor
of Cork, died 100 years ago this week in a hunger strike strike which
brought the Irish Republican campaign to worldwide attention.
Published October 23, 2020

Amid calls for the legacy investigation into the actions of
British agents inside the Provisional IRA to be expanded, the 32 County
Sovereignty Movement recall the brutal ambush twenty years ago this week
of 26-year-old Joe O’Connor.
Published October 16, 2020

The attempt to close the book on Bloody Sunday is an insult to the
victims’ families and to the rule of law. It is a stark indication of
where this British government is headed, writes
former British soldier Richard Rudkin.
Published October 16, 2020

MI5's tactics and its paid agent have renewed the bonds of friendship between Ireland and Palestine.
Published October 2, 2020

The President of Ireland Michael D Higgins has said Britain must face up
to its history of reprisals in Ireland, and that the sack of Balbriggan
100 years ago was rooted in assumptions of racial superiority.
Published September 19, 2020

A local account of the 1921 Sinnott’s Cross ambush, a small but
successful operation of the Kilkenny IRA in the War of Independence, by
Clogga Ireland.
Published July 31, 2020

The
following oration was delivered at the Sinnott’s Cross Monument in
Mooncoin, at an event organised recently by the Independent Republicans
of South Kilkenny, by John Murphy of the 32CSM.
Published July 31, 2020

Former republican prisoner Alex McCrory speaks out on the current situation for
prisoners at Maghaberry as they face a ban on family contact due
to the coronavirus.
Published July 24, 2020

An English academic has uncovered new details of the Orange Order’s ‘riding the goat’ initiation rituals, which involve acts of violence to hammer home the order’s strict secrecy.
Published July 17, 2020

In memory of them both, here is a still relevant interview with the late Bobby Storey from July 2011 on the death thirty years earlier of hungerstriker Joe McDonnell, and discussing the attack on Joe’s funeral.
Published July 11, 2020

The British Army sealed off an area encompassing nearly 3,000 homes in west Belfast, 50 years ago this week. They ransacked over a thousand homes and businesses and killed four civilians.
Published July 3, 2020

A High Court judge has said that she will order the extradition of 58-year-old Dundalk man, Liam Campbell, to Lithuania for Real IRA arms offences allegedly committed there 14 years ago. After a process which has taken 12 years, the order is to be officially delivered on July 13. The following is an analysis of the latest bid to extradite him by Cait Trainor (damnyourconcessions.com)
Published June 26, 2020

Pressure is growing for Ireland to act against a new plan by Israel to further annex and re-partition Palestine. The 26 County state won a seat on the influential United Nations Security Council last week, but at the cost of its planned sanctions against Israel’s illegal settlements. The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign outlines what is at risk and calls on the Irish people and politicians to act now.
Published June 26, 2020

Republicans in Tyrone have marked the 100th anniversary of the first
Volunteer killed on active service in the IRA’s Northern Campaign during
the War of Independence.
Published June 19, 2020

The call, made by the head of the unelected 26-County Administration,
Leo Varadkar, for the removal of the statue of the Irish patriot Sean
Russell in Fairview Park in Dublin, is a display of historical
illiteracy.
Published June 19, 2020

For anyone who cares to peel back the veneer, the matter of who funds a payments scheme for the injured isn’t the only issue to be resolved.
Published June 12, 2020

What happened in Ireland over the last 100 years can be understood as a counter–revolution supported by the privileged classes in Ireland and in Britain.
Published June 5, 2020

‘Red’ Hugh O’Donnell is one of the most romantic figures in Irish history. He was a sixteenth-century Irish nobleman who brought his country to the very brink of expelling the English occupation.
Published May 29, 2020

Saoradh have sought public attention for the case of former Republican Prisoner, Vinny Kelly, who has been persecuted since his release last year.
Published May 29, 2020

Internment is a policy which has seen frequent use in Ireland. It was used by the British in the years after the 1916 Rising and during the Tan War.
Published May 15, 2020

Between the years 1983 and 1987, twenty-five Republican funerals were attacked by the RUC and British troops. This was seen as a desecration of the most sacred ritual, the ritual of burying your dead with dignity.
Published May 1, 2020

As the daily Covid-19 death count inexorably
grinds its way towards 1,000 lives lost, it is becoming increasingly
clear that many of these deaths were completely avoidable.
Published April 24, 2020

A round-up of statements and speeches issued for the Easter commmemorations 2020.
Published April 17, 2020

An Easter statement issued in the name of the leadership of
the Republican Movement (Republican Sinn Féin)
Published April 10, 2020

Pearse Doherty, Sinn Féin Finance Spokesperson, looks at
government policy in the South as the financial implications of the
Coronavirus become clear.
Published April 10, 2020

A political analysis of the current economic and healthcare crises by Saoradh.
Published March 27, 2020

Having carried out a costly 12 month long forensic investigation into
the Renewable Heat Initiative or ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal, Patrick Coghlin
has failed to identify any individual responsible for the fiasco.
Published March 20, 2020

The admissions by former members of the secret, plain-clothes ‘Military Reaction Force’ suggest they were responsible for killing Irish civilians in the 1970s, writes Richard Rudkin.
Published March 13, 2020

A commemoration was held last weekend in Dungannon to mark the legacy of Tyrone socialist
poet Charlie Donnelly, who died in the Spanish Civil War.
Published March 6, 2020

Would you like to see Sinn Féin in government in the south? Or
would they do better to form the opposition in the Dáil?
Published March 6, 2020

A speech made at a Sinn Féin event in Waterford on Sunday night, when poll-topping candidate David Cullinane TD expressed the delight of many in his party at overcoming a history of demonisation, vilification, and state repression, is published in full below, along with an introduction by his election agent.
Published February 14, 2020

All the declared candidates in Saturday's general election in the 26
Counties. Candidates with an asterisk are outgoing TDs, republican
candidates are in bold.
Published February 7, 2020

Surely Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin are not using this death which happened thirteen years ago as a way of halting Sinn Féin’s rise in the polls?
Published February 7, 2020

An
extract from a dossier titled ‘Humans of the Housing Crisis’ prepared by
Sinn Féin of suffering in Ireland as a result of the housing crisis. It
was compiled from submissions received by the party over six days from
Tuesday 3rd December.
Published January 31, 2020

Think about it. The north is being removed from the EU tonight against
the wishes of its people and without its consent.
Published January 31, 2020

Tributes have been paid following the death of Seamus Mallon, the former SDLP deputy leader and deputy First Minister who was closely involved in the peace process of the 1990s.
Published January 24, 2020

The context provided by the organisers for the 2020 Bloody Sunday march.
Published January 24, 2020

The main elements of the new deal for Six-County power-sharing agreed
by the Dublin and London governments and five political parties in the
north of Ireland.
Published January 17, 2020

The recent attempt by an unelected member of the House of Lords to pass
through a ‘Referendums Criteria Bill”, that will gerrymander any future
referenda must serve as a strong reminder to all that the unstated
Border Poll voting threshold for a referendum on Irish Unity needs
addressed now.
Published January 17, 2020

A summary of some of the information contained in declassified state
papers which were released by officials over the Christmas break in
Dublin, Belfast and London.
Published January 3, 2020

Historian Mary McNeill says of Jemmy Hope; “He represented the almost
inarticulate aspirations of the strongly revolutionary element among the
Presbyterian labourers both rural and urban: he was indeed the most
radical of the United Irishmen – in some respects the greatest of them
all.”
Published December 21, 2019

No one should be forced to simply accept the fact that their
family members were murdered by the state. But Boris Johnson has now admitted he doesn’t care.
Published December 21, 2019

A rundown on the outcome of the British general election
in each constituency in the north of Ireland.
Published December 14, 2019

December is the traditional time to remember republican political
prisoners. The following is an up to date list as maintained by the
Irish Republican Prisoner News Facebook page, with addresses of the
prisons for sending cards and good wishes.
Published December 7, 2019

A snapshot of the 18 constituencies ahead of Thursday’s Westminster general election.
Published December 7, 2019

The last three unmarked graves of the 14 people killed un the first
Bloody Sunday massacre in Dublin 99 years ago have been replaced with
commemorative headstones.
Published November 30, 2019

Lifelong Republican Péig King of Tyrone and Dublin passed away this
week. She held many senior positions in the republican movement and
Cumann na mBan and is a former patron of Republican Sinn Féin. Her
funeral took place with full republican honours in Glasnevin Cemetery on
Friday.
Published November 23, 2019

The full text of the address by Mary Lou McDonald to
the Sinn Féin annual party conference in Derry last weekend.
Published November 23, 2019

This week’s initiative by Ireland’s Future is an
important contribution to the ongoing debate around Brexit, the issue of
rights, the need to defend the Good Friday Agreement, and the imperative
of planning for Irish unity.
Published November 9, 2019

Catalonia’s peaceful struggle for freedom has erupted into revolutionary
street actions and huge demonstrations after shocking prison terms were
handed down by a Spanish court to the former leaders of the Catalan
government who had organised a peaceful independence referendum.
Published October 18, 2019

A deal announced between the EU and the British government allows for
a form of special status for the North of Ireland in regard to
single-market regulations, customs and VAT, following a transition
period and subject to periodic consent being granted by the Stormont
Assembly. A round-up of quotes and statements ahead of
a vote on the deal at the Westminster Parliament.
Published October 18, 2019

The biggest ever demonstration for Scottish independence was held last
weekend in Edinburgh. A sea of blue and white moved through the Scottish
capital as an estimated 200,000 people marched in good cheer despite
damp and windy weather conditions.
Published October 12, 2019

The family of an Italian anti-fascist who died fighting ISIS in northern
Syria has appealed for support for the Kurdish people against a Turkish
invasion.
Published October 12, 2019

The first organised IRA action against the British Army in 1919 since
the Rising was followed by the first revenge raids, 100 years ago this
month.
Published September 21, 2019

This week saw thousands of Irish schoolchildren join others worldwide in
a global protest against man-made climate change. The following is an
address to the United Nations by Greta Thunberg, the Swedish student
who began the school strike campaign.
Published September 21, 2019

The address delivered to this year’s National Hunger
Strike Commemoration in Bundoran, organised by Republican Sinn Féin, by
political activist and writer, Sean Bresnahan.
Published September 14, 2019

A first-hand account of a violent and highly
orchestrated attack on a peaceful legal march for Irish Unity in
Glasgow, Scotland last weekend.
Published September 7, 2019

There is an agreed, viable and credible way for this region to return to
the EU. Why are so many on this island still so afraid of endorsing this
way forward?
Published September 7, 2019

A proposal for the current political situation by the Éire Nua U.S.
Campaign, which is seeking the support of the United States Congress and
House of Representatives to end the partition of Ireland.
Published August 30, 2019

Dominic Corr recounts how he was burned out of his home on 14th August 1969.
Published August 23, 2019

Statements issued by three republican parties to mark the anniversary of
the Battle of the Bogside, when the cause of equality crystallised into
a campaign for freedom.
Published August 17, 2019

An oration delivered by Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin at the funeral
of Margaret Doherty, mother of 1981 hunger striker Kieran Doherty, who passed away last weekend.
Published August 9, 2019

The following is the full text of a speech delivered by Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson last
Sunday at the hunger strike commemoration organised by the party in Strabane, County Tyrone.
Published August 9, 2019

We all kind of knew it would end like this. As the UK and Theresa May
thrashed in futile fashion and the EU negotiators raised their eyebrows
when they were talking to her and rolled their eyes when they weren’t,
we all knew that the horror-show had yet to reach a climax. With Boris
Johnson’s installation as British prime minister, we know that the sh*t
should start flying any week now.
Published July 26, 2019

This address was distributed as leaflets in unionist districts of
Belfast by IRA Volunteers and published in newspapers in July 1932.
Published July 12, 2019

Sinn Féin MEP for Midlands North-West Matt Carthy delivered the keynote
address at the party’s Wolfe Tone commemoration in Kildare last weekend.
He said that Sinn Féin remain determined to deliver the vision of Wolfe
Tone “of a new Republic that can achieve so much more”.
Published June 22, 2019

A short biography of the late IRA hero by Republican Sinn Féin.
Published June 15, 2019

The mainstream media are indifferent to political policing when
republicans are involved, Saoradh argues.
Published June 8, 2019

The elections last weekend are being seen to have had major
implications for politics in Ireland and Britain, not least for Sinn
Féin.
Published June 1, 2019

Former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams responds to a call by former SDLP
Deputy Leader Seamus Mallon that the Good Friday Agreement should be
rewritten and a United Ireland should now be contingent on the
agreement of a majority of Unionists.
Published May 25, 2019

Flowers have been laid at a memorial for the victims of the
Dublin-Monaghan bombings - as victims’ families and survivors called
for full disclosure of all sensitive documents relating to the
atrocities.
Published May 18, 2019

With days to go before its first local election in the 26 Counties,
Aontú’s first elected councillor, Dr Anne McCloskey, looks at a critical
point in the establishment of Ireland’s newest republican political
party.
Published May 18, 2019

This week marks the 32nd anniversary of the Loughgall Martyrs, eight
volunteers of the Irish Republican Army who died in a gun battle
commenced by ambush by British occupation forces in the village of
Loughgall, Armagh.
Published May 11, 2019

An oration delivered to this year’s Ronan MacLochlainn Commemoration by
Mr Francis Mackey, National Chairman of the 32 County Sovereignty
Movement.
Published May 11, 2019

A round-up of the main Easter statements, messages and orations
delivered by republican groups to mark the anniversary of the Easter
Rising.
Published April 27, 2019

Lyra McKee’s last tweet on the night of Holy Thursday contained a
photograph of journalists and onlookers standing feet away from a PSNI
vehicle during a riot in Derry. It became her last report on the
“madness” as she described it, that tragically cut her life short.
Published April 27, 2019

The text of the speech delivered by the President of
Ireland Michael D Higgins at the official opening of Áras Uí Chonghaile, the James
Connolly Visitor Centre, on the Falls Road in west Belfast on Friday.
Published April 20, 2019

The following is the oration delivered at the annual Easter
commemoration in Duleek this weekend by independent republican Cáit
Trainor.
Published April 20, 2019

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.
Published April 6, 2019

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.
Published March 30, 2019

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.
Published March 30, 2019

Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton collectively known as the
Craigavon Two, this week pass the 10th anniversary of their
incarceration.
Published March 23, 2019

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”.
Published March 23, 2019

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.
Published March 9, 2019

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.
Published March 9, 2019

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.
Published February 16, 2019

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.
Published February 16, 2019

There is plenty
that we can learn today from the history of the Republican Court of a
century ago.
Published February 9, 2019

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.
Published February 9, 2019

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”.
Published February 2, 2019

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.
Published February 2, 2019

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”.
Published January 26, 2019

The context for this years’s Bloody Sunday March.
Published January 26, 2019

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.
Published January 19, 2019

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.
Published January 19, 2019

On 21 January 1919, 100 years ago this week, the first meeting of the parliament of the revolutionary,
all-Ireland Irish Republic took place.
Published January 12, 2019

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’.
Published January 5, 2019

A round-up of statements issued at the turn of the year by the leaders
and leaderships of Sinn Fein and republican organisations.
Published January 5, 2019

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.
Published December 22, 2018

Resilient is too inadequate a word to describe Sinead and Michael
Monaghan. Both have suffered immeasurably during the conflict.
Published December 22, 2018

The address to the recent Ard Fheis of the 32 County
Sovereignty Movement, given by national chairperson Francis Mackey.
Published December 8, 2018

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.
Published December 1, 2018

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.
Published December 1, 2018

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.
Published November 24, 2018

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.
Published November 10, 2018

It’s time to look at the wider picture of how the poppy pays tribute to so many crimes down the years.
Published November 10, 2018

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.
Published November 3, 2018

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.
Published October 27, 2018

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.
Published October 27, 2018

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.
Published October 20, 2018

When all disputes and diversions have been explored, we come back to one core awkward fact.
Published October 13, 2018

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.
Published October 6, 2018

An address delivered by Sean Bresnahan to the Ruairi O
Bradaigh Memorial School in Roscommon.
Published October 6, 2018

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.
Published September 29, 2018

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.
Published September 29, 2018

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.
Published September 22, 2018

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.
Published September 15, 2018

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.
Published September 8, 2018

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.
Published September 8, 2018

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.
Published September 1, 2018

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.
Published September 1, 2018

A protest is to be held in Derry to mark the 900th day of Tony Taylor’s
internment at Maghaberry Prison.
Published August 25, 2018

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.
Published August 25, 2018

The bereaved of Omagh have never been short of sympathy. But they have
been starved of truth.
Published August 18, 2018

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.
Published August 11, 2018

The full text of Mary Lou McDonald’s speech at Sinn
Fein’s annual 1981 hunger strike commemoration in Castlewellan, County
Down last weekend.
Published August 11, 2018

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
Published August 4, 2018

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.
Published August 4, 2018

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.
Published July 28, 2018

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.
Published July 21, 2018

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.
Published July 14, 2018

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.
Published July 7, 2018

An oration delivered in Duleek, County Meath by Cait Trainor on the 10th
anniversary of the opening of their hunger strike memorial garden.
Published June 30, 2018

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.
Published June 30, 2018

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.
Published June 23, 2018

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.
Published June 23, 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.
Published June 16, 2018

The full text of the keynote speech by Sinn Fein
Deputy Leader Michelle O’Neill to the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis 2018.
Published June 16, 2018

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.
Published June 9, 2018

A look at the fateful Rising of the United Irishmen, which took place 220 years ago
this month.
Published June 2, 2018

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.
Published May 26, 2018

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?
Published May 19, 2018

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.
Published May 12, 2018

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.
Published May 12, 2018

Sinead McCool describes what it’s like to endure PSNI harassment and a
raid against your family’s home in 2018
Published May 5, 2018

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.
Published May 5, 2018

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.
Published April 28, 2018

A speech delivered earlier this month by Peter A Rogers
at the independent republican Easter commemoration in Duleek, County
Meath.
Published April 21, 2018

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.
Published April 14, 2018

The principles of the Good Friday Agreement are now central to our
future, argues Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald.
Published April 14, 2018

A round-up of the main statements and orations by republicans at Easter
1916 commemorations this year.
Published April 7, 2018

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.
Published April 7, 2018

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.
Published March 31, 2018

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.
Published March 24, 2018

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.
Published March 17, 2018

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.
Published March 17, 2018

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.
Published March 10, 2018

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.
Published March 3, 2018

Variety, a leader among Hollywood publications, has given Black 47, the
first ever movie set in Famine times in Ireland, a rave review.
Published February 24, 2018

Arlene Foster has dipped deep into her political bag of tricks
and produced a very old, tried-and-trusted Paisley technique.
Published February 17, 2018

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.
Published February 17, 2018

An article written by Jim Slaven of the James Connolly Society to mark the 150th year since the birth of the Irish patriot.
Published February 3, 2018

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.
Published February 3, 2018

An account of one of the most important incidents in the War of Independence in central county Cork, 97 years ago this week.
Published January 27, 2018

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.
Published January 27, 2018

The official introduction and programme for the week of events in Derry
culminating in the annual march to commemorate the Bloody Sunday
massacre.
Published January 20, 2018

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.
Published January 20, 2018

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!
Published January 13, 2018

A round-up of the statements traditionally issued this time of year by
republican organisations.
Published January 6, 2018

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.
Published January 6, 2018

A summary of some of
the information contained in declassified state papers which were
released by officials this week in both Dublin and London.
Published December 30, 2017

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.
Published December 30, 2017

December is traditionally the month to remember republican prisoners
with cards and letters. The current up to date Irish republican
prisoner list.
Published December 16, 2017

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.
Published December 16, 2017

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.
Published December 9, 2017

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.
Published December 9, 2017

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.
Published December 2, 2017

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams on his party’s historic annual conference.
Published November 25, 2017

When I hear what the EU negotiators are telling the UK, I invariably
feel a jolt of pleasure.
Published November 11, 2017

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.
Published November 4, 2017

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.
Published October 28, 2017

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.
Published October 21, 2017

Say you don’t consider this part of Ireland
British and you’re likely to provoke anger
from unionist politicians.
Published October 7, 2017

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.
Published September 30, 2017

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.
Published September 23, 2017

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.
Published September 16, 2017

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.
Published September 9, 2017

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.
Published September 2, 2017

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.
Published August 26, 2017

The speech delivered by Sinn
Fein's Gerry Kelly at the party’s National Hunger Strike Commemoration.
Published August 19, 2017

The DUP can’t stand up to the UDA because they might need them again soon to prevent change.
Published August 12, 2017

The British bear a great responsibility for the visceral hatred of Catholics by loyalists who support this artificially
constructed colony.
Published August 5, 2017

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.
Published July 29, 2017

Is the stage now set for the politics that once informed an entire movement in the North to re-emerge?
Published July 22, 2017

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.
Published July 15, 2017

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams on the Stormont talks process which
collapsed this week.
Published July 8, 2017

As they say in Belfast, the dogs in the street could see there was no
prospect of a deal to restore power-sharing.
Published July 8, 2017

To the surprise of no-one the Stormont talks foundered on the DUP's
adamantine refusal to concede an Acht na Gaelige.
Published July 1, 2017

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?
Published June 17, 2017

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.
Published June 10, 2017

Nationalists have come to appreciate the power and value of their vote.
Published June 3, 2017

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.
Published May 27, 2017

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.
Published May 20, 2017

Last Saturday’s formal statement of the EU’s negotiating position is of
enormous importance for Ireland north and south.
Published May 6, 2017

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.
Published April 29, 2017

The general election couldn’t come at a worse time for Northern Ireland.
Published April 22, 2017

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.
Published April 14, 2017

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.
Published April 7, 2017

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.
Published April 1, 2017

For the first time in my lifetime, the Irish question is no longer a
question of if, but of when.
Published March 24, 2017

How much of our thinking is wishful? Quite a bit, I suspect.
Published March 17, 2017

If ever citizens needed proof of the power and the importance of their vote, it was this election, writes Gerry Adams.
Published March 10, 2017

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.
Published March 10, 2017

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?
Published March 4, 2017

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.
Published February 24, 2017

Arlene Foster’s characterisation of Sinn Fein as a ‘crocodile’ is very
disturbing indeed for a number of reasons.
Published February 17, 2017

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.
Published February 10, 2017

You have to go back a long way to find a proconsul as directionless as the current specimen.
Published February 3, 2017

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’.
Published January 27, 2017

The opinions of Sinn Fein’s republican opponents on the current state of
politics in the north of Ireland.
Published January 27, 2017

Martin McGuinness’s IRA career and reputation uniquely fitted him for his role
as chief conciliator with the British establishment.
Published January 20, 2017

A political commentary by Kevin Meagher, former Special Adviser to the last
Labour Government in Britain, about the new potential for Irish
reunification.
Published January 13, 2017

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.
Published January 6, 2017

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.
Published December 24, 2016

An analysis by the new republican political party, Saoradh, of the
latest crisis within the northern Executive.
Published December 17, 2016

After GAA chief Aogan o Fearghail called for scrapping
the Irish flag and the national anthem from Gaelic sports, commentator
Joe Brolly responded.
Published December 10, 2016

After five deaths at the jail in the past year, prisons campaigner
Alec McCrory raises concerns about the situation in Maghaberry.
Published November 26, 2016

The internment of Tony Taylor strikes at the very heart of democracy and
the right to a fair trial.
Published November 12, 2016

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.
Published November 5, 2016

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.
Published November 5, 2016

Last week’s Tory party conference
exposed once again the British establishment’s largely xenophobic view
of the world outside of England.
Published October 22, 2016

The spin is that last week’s Budget spreads the benefits to all.
It doesn’t.
Published October 15, 2016

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.
Published October 15, 2016

Pauline Mellon on the Ardoyne parades dispute, from her blog,
‘The Diary of a Derry Mother’.
Published October 8, 2016

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.
Published October 1, 2016

Mark
Thompson of Relatives for Justice responds to the BBC Spotlight
documentary on the death of British double-agent Denis Donaldson.
Published September 24, 2016

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.
Published September 17, 2016

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.
Published September 10, 2016

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.
Published August 27, 2016

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness says that the debate on an united Ireland
has begun and can’t be stopped.
Published August 6, 2016

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.
Published July 30, 2016

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.
Published July 23, 2016

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.
Published July 16, 2016

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.
Published June 25, 2016

Let’s hope the Police Ombudsman’s report on the Loughinisland killings
becomes a model for future investigations by his office.
Published June 18, 2016

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.
Published June 11, 2016

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.
Published May 28, 2016

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.
Published May 21, 2016

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.
Published May 7, 2016

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.
Published April 30, 2016

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.
Published April 23, 2016

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.
Published April 9, 2016

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.
Published March 26, 2016

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.
Published March 19, 2016

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.
Published March 12, 2016

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.
Published March 5, 2016

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.
Published February 27, 2016

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.
Published February 20, 2016

It's worth noting that Britain’s security elite systematically invests
time and energy in long-term planning and forecasting.
Published February 13, 2016

Nothing has
changed and no one is held accountable in Ireland, and this is a government promising more of the same.
Published February 6, 2016

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?
Published January 23, 2016

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.
Published January 16, 2016

You’d have to wonder what the executed leaders of the Rising would make of Ireland's leaders of today.
Published January 9, 2016

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.
Published December 30, 2015

Just two weeks before Christmas, a law-abiding mother, daughter,
sister, grandmother and friend to many was
committed to prison.
Published December 12, 2015

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.
Published November 28, 2015

Robinson's opponents in the DUP made no secret of their belief that he was an electoral liability.
Published November 21, 2015

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.
Published November 13, 2015

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.
Published November 6, 2015

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.
Published October 31, 2015

Another week, another crisis in the peace process which passeth all
understanding.
Published October 23, 2015

Former prisoners should be legally recognised as full and equal members of society like everyone else.
Published October 16, 2015

The British government's Northern Ireland Office snuck out its policy
paper on implementing the Stormont House Agreement last week.
Published October 10, 2015

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.
Published September 26, 2015

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.
Published September 19, 2015

What has Stormont delivered for working-class nationalists? Zilch.
Published September 19, 2015

Local Republicans and residents’ groups analysis of the PSNI, MI5 and
repressive state apparatus and legislation is the correct
one.
Published September 12, 2015

Since the current Stormont is now more unpopular than the old one, many
might wonder why Sinn Fein is trying to preserve it.
Published September 12, 2015

How quickly we forget. When it suits. Are we about to disgrace ourselves again?
Published September 5, 2015

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.
Published August 29, 2015

There was a joke in 1997. What’s the difference between the Stickies and
the Provos? Answer: 25 years.
Published August 29, 2015

Maghaberry is an injustice that undermines the very fabric of our
society.
Published August 22, 2015

Are the Provisional IRA about to re-commence their armed campaign? Do unionist politicians really think so?
Published August 22, 2015

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.
Published August 15, 2015

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.
Published August 8, 2015

Britain has not in fact demilitarised but simply
returned to levels of troop deployment consistent with her needs during
‘peacetime’
Published August 8, 2015

Local councils, Stormont and the British government subsidise the UDA and UVF by employing their bosses and local henchmen.
Published July 25, 2015

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?
Published July 18, 2015

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, writing for Leargas, warns that the 1998
Good Friday peace Agreement ‘hangs by a thread’.
Published July 11, 2015

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.
Published July 4, 2015

MI5 retains the ability to dictate the terms on which its activities might be
examined
Published June 27, 2015

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.
Published June 20, 2015

Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice has criticised the DUP for attempting to exclude republicans from the 'reconciliation' process.
Published June 6, 2015

New York lawyer and long-time republican activist Martin Galvin on the
recent arrest and internment-by-remand of Ardoyne republican Dee Fennell.
Published May 30, 2015

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.
Published May 23, 2015

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.
Published May 16, 2015

For Britain, the election result in Scotland is is the biggest constitutional drama since the abdication.
Published May 9, 2015

Martin McGuinness on why you should vote for Sinn Féin candidates in this week’s Westminster general election.
Published May 2, 2015

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.
Published April 25, 2015

For this government, it is easier to deal with the notion
of individual loss and sacrifice than promote the ideas of the
Proclamation.
Published April 18, 2015

Tactical voting when used strategically can make a
dramatic change. It can also positively contribute to progressive
politics.
Published April 18, 2015

This election is going to confirm a change in British politics which has
been happening for at least a decade.
Published April 4, 2015

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.
Published March 21, 2015

The dispute is simply a sign of what is to
come with the other aspects of the agreement: flags, Orange marches and
the past.
Published March 14, 2015

There are three political/peace processes jostling
for primacy here. None of them are
working.
Published March 7, 2015

It gets closer every day, and as it does the politicians in the south
get more and more uneasy.
Published February 28, 2015

The refusal to allow votes to Irish emigrants is tied up
with the attitude of successive governments to the question of
emigration.
Published February 21, 2015

To dismiss Britain’s colonial
atrocities, no such effort is required. Most people appear to be unaware
that anything needs to be denied.
Published February 14, 2015

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.
Published February 7, 2015

While there may be a semblance of peace our
quest for justice seems to involve endless promises and sham processes.
Published January 31, 2015

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.
Published January 17, 2015

Who will guard the guards themselves?
Published January 17, 2015

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.
Published January 10, 2015

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.
Published January 3, 2015

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.
Published January 3, 2015

Understanding why there is a crisis doesn’t require a lot of deep
political analysis. It’s pretty obvious.
Published December 20, 2014

The responsibility for yesterday’s debacle at Stormont lies scattered
around the feet of our clueless proconsul.
Published December 13, 2014

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.
Published November 29, 2014

A discussion document circulated by the Irish Republican Socialist Party to their members.
Published November 22, 2014

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.
Published November 15, 2014

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.
Published November 8, 2014

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.
Published November 1, 2014

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.
Published October 25, 2014

This week in the Assembly we witnessed the latest example of DUP bad
faith.
Published October 18, 2014

The British government has no intention of allowing the truth to be told about its
forces’ role in the conflict.
Published October 4, 2014

I’d never really thought to analyse the question ‘who won the war?’
because by my assessment the war is far from over.
Published October 4, 2014

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.
Published September 27, 2014

A look at the significance to Ireland of the Scottish
independence referendum by Colum Eastwood MLA of the SDLP.
Published September 20, 2014

A republican analysis of the Scottish independence referendum by the Republican Network for Unity.
Published September 20, 2014

If the vote is No, the debate about Scotland’s future in the UK will
only intensify.
Published September 13, 2014

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.
Published September 13, 2014

The view of the Republican Network for Unity on the 20th anniversary
of the Provisional IRA ceasefire
Published September 6, 2014

The IRA cessation opened up the space for the development of the peace
process.
Published August 30, 2014

For every incident that happened this year or last year you can cite one
exactly the same or worse 50 years ago.
Published August 30, 2014

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.
Published August 23, 2014

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.
Published August 9, 2014

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.
Published August 2, 2014

MI5’s
interests will take precedence over the rights of raped children.
Published July 26, 2014

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.
Published July 19, 2014

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.
Published July 12, 2014

Commemorations by the establishment seek to provide us with history not as it was, but as they would prefer it to have been.
Published July 5, 2014

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.
Published June 28, 2014

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.
Published June 21, 2014

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.
Published June 14, 2014

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.
Published June 7, 2014

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.
Published May 31, 2014

Allister is now a player. He can't be
ignored in any attempt to create a unionist pact for the 2015 general
election.
Published May 31, 2014

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.
Published May 22, 2014

Painful though it is to admit it, the only politician talking sense over
the past week was Peter Hain.
Published May 10, 2014

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.
Published May 3, 2014

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.
Published April 11, 2014

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.
Published April 5, 2014

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.
Published March 29, 2014

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.
Published March 1, 2014

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.
Published February 21, 2014

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
Published February 15, 2014

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.
Published January 31, 2014

Without any doubt, the release from prison of Lurgan man Martin Corey
will be welcomed by all persons with an interest in justice.
Published January 25, 2014

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,
Published January 25, 2014

Irish Republicans have stretched ourselves in the negotiations and we
are up for the challenge the Haass proposals contain, writes Gerry Adams.
Published January 17, 2014

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.
Published January 11, 2014

As families and friends gathered for a Christmas vigil in protest at
internment, the Republican Network for Unity released this commentary on
the situation.
Published December 28, 2013

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.
Published December 20, 2013

It's interesting to compare people's comments on bomb attacks by
different organisations.
Published December 14, 2013

Few other political leaders in this country or indeed in Britain have
been scrutinised to the same degree of bias as Gerry Adams.
Published December 6, 2013

By how long did the dishonest, sneaky, secretive
unjust behaviour of the MoD prolong the conflict?
Published November 15, 2013

The promise by Enda Kenny that the 26-County state is on course to “retrieve our
economic sovereignty and independence”. is an illusion.
Published November 8, 2013

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.
Published November 1, 2013

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.
Published October 25, 2013

They targeted the vulnerable again: women with babies, the
vulnerable elderly, the vulnerable youth, poor people dependent on
prescriptions.
Published October 18, 2013

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.
Published October 11, 2013

Sinn Fein spokesmen have been queuing up to express disappointment at
what they complain is a lack of unionist leadership. Where have they
been?
Published October 11, 2013

There has been much exploitation and manipulation of people bereaved and
injured in our conflict - playing on emotions and grief for political
capital.
Published October 4, 2013

The temptation to spoil the ballot in today’s 26 County referendum on
Seanad abolition is understandable.
Published October 4, 2013

Gerry Adams writes on the referendum next weekend to abolish the upper chamber of the Dublin parliament, the Seanad.
Published September 27, 2013

Eamon Gilmore made a speech in Cambridge at the weekend to the
British-Irish association. It made depressing reading for a number of
reasons.
Published September 20, 2013

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.
Published September 13, 2013

Why did Peter Robinson, and him in Florida, send a letter that threatens
the very existence of the Stormont institutions?
Published September 6, 2013

In traditional unionist fashion the DUP has ridden the past year's wave
of violence to hold back progress.
Published August 30, 2013

When you strip it down to fundamentals, last weekend demonstrated
exactly the same unionist attitudes and mindset as they held in 1968.
Published August 17, 2013

An article by Sean Bresnahan on the upcoming Tyrone event to commemorate
two IRA volunteers who died in 1973.
Published August 9, 2013

Internment or Detention Without Trial is nothing new to Irish people and
has been used every few decades throughout our Nation’s occupation.
Published August 2, 2013

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.
Published July 26, 2013

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.
Published July 19, 2013

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.
Published July 12, 2013

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.
Published July 5, 2013

The worm has turned and ‘Big Liv’ stands vindicated, able to point the
finger at those who conspired to unjustly secure a worthless conviction.
Published June 28, 2013

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.
Published June 21, 2013

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.
Published June 14, 2013

What you’ve watched in the last fortnight is the political equivalent of
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in physics.
Published June 7, 2013

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.
Published May 31, 2013

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.
Published May 24, 2013

Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams on reports that hunger strikers have been hospitalised and are being force-fed at Guantanamo Bay.
Published May 17, 2013

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.
Published May 17, 2013

Micheal Martin reminds me of the Skibbereen Eagle. Not in appearance,
more in tone and self-image.
Published April 26, 2013

Any doubts that Sinn Fein has been transformed in the past couple of
years were dispelled by the weekend ard fheis in Castlebar.
Published April 19, 2013

For the people of Ireland, and especially the north, the Thatcher
years were among some of the worst of the conflict.
Published April 12, 2013

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.
Published April 12, 2013

As presently constituted the
Parades Commission is entirely unrepresentative of the nationalist
community or indeed of the Catholic community.
Published April 5, 2013

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.
Published March 29, 2013

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?
Published March 22, 2013

Everyone here and a lot of people in Brazil know Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson are conducting a charade at vast public expense.
Published March 15, 2013

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.
Published March 8, 2013

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.
Published March 1, 2013

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.
Published March 1, 2013

The mighty party Edward Carson once led with iron-fisted certitude is
now stumbling, drunkenly towards an inglorious end.
Published February 22, 2013

I love St Valentine’s Day. But with it comes sad memories, especially of
the year 1976.
Published February 15, 2013

A look back at New Lodge Six massacre on the fortieth anniversary
of their killing and a look ahead.
Published February 8, 2013

The PSNI is becoming too cosy with unionist paramilitaries.
Published January 25, 2013

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.
Published January 18, 2013

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.
Published January 11, 2013

2012 again saw the dialogue of the deaf at Stormont, and all the evidence suggests 2013 won’t be any different.
Published December 28, 2012

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.
Published December 21, 2012

Most shameful of all is that disorder arose because nationalists and
republicans engaged in a democratic act of decision-making.
Published December 14, 2012

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.
Published December 14, 2012

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.
Published December 7, 2012

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.
Published November 30, 2012

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.
Published November 16, 2012

Unionists are scared stiff of even talking about a border poll because
it immediately throws up a series of unwelcome questions.
Published November 9, 2012

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.
Published November 9, 2012

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.
Published October 26, 2012

A little bit of history was made in the Seanad chamber in Leinster House
last Friday.
Published October 19, 2012

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.
Published October 12, 2012

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).
Published October 5, 2012

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?
Published October 5, 2012

Independent councillor Angela Nelson reports on her visit to Maghaberry
jail to visit protesting republican internee, Gerry McGeough.
Published September 28, 2012

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.
Published September 21, 2012

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.
Published September 14, 2012

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?
Published September 7, 2012

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.
Published August 31, 2012

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.
Published August 24, 2012

A look at last week’s announcement of a regrouped IRA by Aphex Acid of
the UCD Discussion group, the Frank Ryan society.
Published August 3, 2012

A different take on last week’s announcement, by socialist republican
Tommy McKearney.
Published August 3, 2012

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.
Published July 27, 2012

A resident’s analysis of events in north Belfast this week.
Published July 20, 2012

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.
Published July 13, 2012

This week saw the latest charm offensive launched by the Orange Order.
Published July 6, 2012

Irish republicans have
frequently been prepared to take bold and historic initiatives and risks
for peace to break stalemates and find agreements.
Published June 29, 2012

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.
Published June 29, 2012

The address by Cait Trainor, Ard Chomhairle member to the annual
RSF commemoration at Bodenstown, June 10, 2012.
Published June 15, 2012

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.
Published June 8, 2012

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.
Published May 31, 2012

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.
Published May 31, 2012

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.
Published May 25, 2012

The public is being asked to vote for the Fiscal Treaty on Thursday May
31 on the basis of misinformation and mistruths and fear.
Published May 25, 2012

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.
Published May 18, 2012

Europe’s financial crisis has mutated into a political crisis, and its
“fiscal compact” will make things worse, not better.
Published May 11, 2012

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.
Published May 4, 2012

Barely 15 years
since the 1998 Irish peace pact was signed, the British are ignoring the
law, obstructing justice and inhibiting peace.
Published April 27, 2012

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.
Published April 20, 2012

This time of year brings to mind our generations long struggle for
independence.
Published April 13, 2012

No
government can impose a tax in the long term with which 40-50 per cent don’t subscribe.
Published April 6, 2012

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.
Published March 30, 2012

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.
Published March 23, 2012

What does Gerry Adams mean by a united Ireland? People have a right to know what they're voting for.
Published March 16, 2012

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.
Published March 9, 2012

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.
Published February 24, 2012

Former RUC and PSNI Detective Chief
Superintendant Norman Baxter may find policing in Kabul these days more congenial than policing in Belfast.
Published February 17, 2012

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?
Published February 10, 2012

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.
Published February 10, 2012

On the 40th anniversary of the paratroopers’ massacre in Derry, it is
remarkable how much Britain has exploited this event to its advantage.
Published February 3, 2012

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.
Published January 27, 2012

It is going to happen. Slowly, slowly catchee monkee. Just watch Alex
Salmond walking the naive and intemperate Cameran into his elephant
trap.
Published January 20, 2012

It's a long way from the Village area of Belfast to Stormont, but two simple actions would help considerably to tackle sectarianism.
Published January 13, 2012

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.
Published January 6, 2012

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.
Published January 6, 2012

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.
Published December 30, 2011

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.
Published December 23, 2011

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.
Published December 16, 2011

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.
Published December 9, 2011

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.
Published December 2, 2011

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.
Published November 25, 2011

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.
Published November 17, 2011

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.
Published November 10, 2011

Martin McGuinness is a trail blazer. That much must be clear. Even to
his detractors.
Published November 3, 2011

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.
Published October 26, 2011

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.
Published October 20, 2011

Two contrasting views about how republicans can attempt to come to terms
with political change.
Published October 14, 2011

A carefully constructed a narrative about the origins of the 26-County state is being challenged.
Published October 7, 2011

The IRA is an intrinsic part of this nation’s history; of its political
evolution.
Published September 30, 2011

The events of the past week suggest the party is over for Fianna Fail.
Published September 24, 2011

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.
Published September 18, 2011

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.
Published September 11, 2011

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.
Published September 11, 2011

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
Published September 6, 2011

A British cabinet minister has appointed a secret commission with the power to revoke the parole of political prisoners just for being accused.
Published August 30, 2011

Without street pressure and political lobbying the Justice Ministry
would have kept Brendan Lillis hidden deep within the bowels of the
British penal establishment.
Published August 24, 2011

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.
Published August 19, 2011

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.’
Published August 13, 2011

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.
Published July 24, 2011

The distinction between ‘legal’ union flags and ‘illegal’ loyalist
flags, as raised by the Ballyclare riots, is a pure Orange herring.
Published July 19, 2011

The humanitarian
grounds for releasing Brendan Lillis far outweigh the political considerations that
are feeding into his ongoing imprisonment.
Published July 19, 2011

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.
Published July 14, 2011

On Saturday, the Sinn Fein Lord Mayor
of Belfast laid a laurel wreath at the City Hall cenotaph, to the annoyance of unionists.
Published July 8, 2011

No-one in any part of the political or police system should take peace
for granted.
Published July 3, 2011

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.
Published June 27, 2011

This week, the Government marked 100 days in office and zero days in
power.
Published June 22, 2011

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.
Published June 12, 2011

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.
Published June 6, 2011

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”.
Published June 6, 2011

The ‘Dublin Lockdown of 2011’ didn’t go unnoticed by that city’s
citizens, but was notable for how casually it was imposed.
Published May 30, 2011

Now that the Windsor visit is over, what are the benefits and what exactly has changed as a result?
Published May 24, 2011

The visit by the Queen of England to this part of Ireland has to be
seen as part of a journey.
Published May 24, 2011

I'm not a man readily given to exclamation marks but WHAT A GUSHFEST!
Published May 20, 2011

The first leader of the Provisional IRA, Billy McKee, has strongly
criticised the current Sinn Fein leadership in an open letter.
Published May 17, 2011

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.
Published May 5, 2011

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.
Published April 30, 2011

There are now two political elites in Ireland and two dysfunctional
regimes in the statelets they claim the right to govern.
Published April 25, 2011

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.
Published April 25, 2011

If it hadn't been for four or five asthma seizures, I'd probably be
talking with a Glasgow accent and voting Scot Nat.
Published April 18, 2011

Sinn Fein believes that the conditions which in the past led
to republican armed actions have fundamentally changed.
Published April 13, 2011

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.
Published April 8, 2011

The death of a PSNI member will be a source of consolation to only
the fundamentalist few.
Published April 4, 2011

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.
Published March 29, 2011

There was powerful symbolism when Sinn Fein brought together the party’s TDs and MLAs at Stormont this week.
Published March 25, 2011

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.
Published March 21, 2011

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.
Published March 16, 2011

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.
Published March 10, 2011

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.
Published March 6, 2011

When there’s overwhelming agreement
about anything in Irish politics, it is usually wrong.
Published March 2, 2011

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.
Published February 25, 2011

This election is like no other in living memory.
Published February 21, 2011

The last exodus prompted a campaign for
emigrant voting rights in the 1990s. The same is happening again.
Published February 15, 2011

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.
Published February 15, 2011

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.
Published February 11, 2011

Sometimes I feel ashamed to be a Catholic and one such occasion happened
last week.
Published February 7, 2011

There are still individuals stuck in the trench in Belfast.
Published February 2, 2011

The narrative of an out-of-control regiment running amok might have more
credibility if Bloody Sunday was an isolated incident.
Published January 29, 2011

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.
Published January 25, 2011

There’s an eerie congruence between Brian Cowen and Gordon
Brown.
Published January 21, 2011
The final session of the 30th Dail began with further
indignity being piled on the head of a dying government.
Published January 13, 2011

How could Gerry Adams have known what mileage there was in the electoral
route for republicans?
Published January 9, 2011

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
Published January 4, 2011

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?
Published December 29, 2010

For real reconciliation, we need acknowledgement of British security
services’ relationship with loyalism during the conflict
Published December 21, 2010

Any day now I’m expecting to see a headline saying ‘Kitchen sink
narrowly misses Gerry Adams’.
Published December 17, 2010

The general election, when it comes, will be the most important in
recent decades.
Published December 14, 2010

Tom Elliott supplied the denial headline without even
the public accusation - “Elliott
denies he’s a political dinosaur,”.
Published December 10, 2010

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”.
Published December 7, 2010
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.
Published December 3, 2010

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.
Published November 26, 2010

The spin, the lies, the denials, the delusions, the conceit and the
arrogance added insult to ignominy.
Published November 22, 2010

A satire on the 1916 Proclamation of the Republic in response to the
arrival in Dublin this week of IMF and ECB officials.
Published November 19, 2010

In retrospect, it was an obvious move. So obvious that none of the
pundits even sniffed it
Published November 16, 2010

The Dublin government last week published its much anticipated
declaration of war on the working class.
Published November 12, 2010

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.
Published November 8, 2010

Step forward Mary Harney, to a position of lonely eminence: the worse
tanaiste ever.
Published November 5, 2010

Fergal Moore sets out the approach of Republican Sinn Féin to the
possibility of talks with the British Government.
Published November 1, 2010

The recent internment of Conor Casey at the behest of the British
establishment is nothing short of a disgrace.
Published October 28, 2010

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.
Published October 24, 2010

The ineptitude of our current masters is nowhere as clear as in this:
they can’t even give us the illusion of control.
Published October 19, 2010

Cork sports star Donal Óg Cusack has been mooted as a possible candidate
for Sinn Féin at the next electio
Published October 14, 2010

It was entirely appropriate that Martin McGuinness’s condemnation of the
IRA operation came from the Tory conference.
Published October 12, 2010

It was totally inappropriate that there should be a bombing in Derry on
October 5th.
Published October 8, 2010

There is a sense of apprehension now about how our country is being run
that I don’t recall having witnessed before.
Published October 4, 2010

I have known Gerry Adams for almost forty years and there is no way would I
ever enter him for a ‘Memory Man’ competition.
Published October 1, 2010

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.
Published September 27, 2010

You
would have thought the Pope represented a doctrine based on evil rather
than one based on Christianity.
Published September 24, 2010

Much has changed since the days of ‘81 in the occupied six counties in
the North of Ireland.
Published September 20, 2010

The Middle East peace talks, which formally opened in Washington on
Thursday, have been given one year. It’s a tall order.
Published September 16, 2010

The attack on the welfare state in the Six Counties is out in the open.
Published September 14, 2010

This summer’s Belfast riots must have been the most anticipated for some
time, being widely predicted throughout politics and the media.
Published September 9, 2010

As the country grinds to a halt, we should maintain some sense of decency and call a halt to the Anglo rescue.
Published September 6, 2010

Elements in the
intelligence agencies could be using a method of drip-feeding information
into the media to undermine political progress.
Published September 2, 2010

There are
ongoing attempts to criminalise Republicans still engaged in armed
actions against the British state.
Published August 30, 2010

The PSNI, MI5 and PPS displayed stunning myopia in relation
to this prosecution of anti-Stormont Republican Gary Donnelly.
Published August 27, 2010

Internment - indefinite imprisonment without trial - was reintroduced
into the North of Ireland on August 9 1971 at 4am.
Published August 23, 2010

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.
Published August 20, 2010

Those who pretend dissident Republicans are unimportant,
dismiss them as criminals, ignore them or expect Sinn Fein to control
them, have badly miscalculated.
Published August 16, 2010

You can discern a real shift in the
position of the SDLP.
Published August 13, 2010

A number of explanations have been put forward for the sustained
outbreak of rioting across the North of Ireland following the Orange
marches
Published August 10, 2010

The Saville Report devotes more space to Gerald Donaghey - 17 years-old
when shot dead on Bloody Sunday - than to any other individual.
Published August 6, 2010

The British army's role in the deaths of civilians in Afghanistan will
come as no surprise to the people of Ireland.
Published August 2, 2010

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.
Published July 26, 2010

While welcoming the Saville verdict of unalloyed innocence I was
dismayed by the lack of clarity in relation to the guilty.
Published July 22, 2010

No one spoke to the Ardoyne protestors to find out why they saw fit to block the road.
Published July 19, 2010

The Orange marching season always provides its fair share of problems.
Published July 16, 2010

It's absolutely unbelievable what happens here over the Twelfth
period.
Published July 12, 2010

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.
Published July 8, 2010

There will be a civil rights march in Derry on October 5.
Published July 6, 2010

As a political figure Peter Robinson has been terminally weakened.
Published July 1, 2010

The Saville
report has underscored the difficulty of “truth and reconciliation”
inquiries.
Published June 28, 2010

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.
Published June 24, 2010

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.
Published June 21, 2010

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.
Published June 17, 2010

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.
Published June 14, 2010

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.
Published June 11, 2010

Has any politician - unionist, nationalist or republican
- stood up and said UVF decommissioning was clearly a fraud?
Published June 4, 2010

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.
Published May 31, 2010

The disintegration of British union supporters in Ireland has come not
from their opponents outside but from their friends inside.
Published May 27, 2010

A conversation came back to me on learning of the visit by British micro-minister for Justice David Ford to Maghaberry Prison
Published May 25, 2010

We have had some pretty ropey proconsuls here in the last thirty-eight
years. The signals from the latest one are not good.
Published May 20, 2010

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.
Published May 17, 2010

To help Bobby Sands, republicans came in from all over Ireland; they did the
same for Michelle Gildernew.
Published May 14, 2010

The British electorate has not so much spoken as seemingly held its
political nose, by delivering its most remarkable election result since
1929.
Published May 10, 2010

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.
Published May 8, 2010

Sometimes a politician says something and an issue that’s been swirling
around in the public consciousness suddenly takes on a clear, sharp
form.
Published May 4, 2010

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.
Published April 29, 2010

Imagine, for a moment, that we are in the 1890s. It is not as big a
stretch as it might seem.
Published April 26, 2010

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.
Published April 22, 2010

It cannot be easy being a republican political prisoner in the North
these days.
Published April 19, 2010

Elections here always throw up the worst excesses of tribalism among
unionists.
Published April 15, 2010

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.
Published April 12, 2010

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.
Published April 8, 2010

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.
Published April 2, 2010

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.
Published March 29, 2010

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
Published March 25, 2010

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.
Published March 22, 2010

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.
Published March 15, 2010

The trial of Gerry “McGeough raises a number of issues.
Published March 11, 2010

A crucial juncture has been reached by Sinn Fein,
amazingly in partnership with the DUP.
Published March 11, 2010

Once devolution is complete, the north, as far as accountability is
concerned, will be a limbo-land for spooks to cavort in.
Published March 8, 2010

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?
Published March 4, 2010

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.
Published March 1, 2010

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.
Published February 25, 2010

The long-awaited Hillsborough Agreement is a sham with grave
consequences for the nationalist community.
Published February 18, 2010

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.
Published February 15, 2010

The recent coming together by unionists with the purpose of denying government
to anyone but themselves has publicly called the equality bluff.
Published February 11, 2010

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.
Published February 8, 2010

It’s too early to claim that
the Hillsborough Agreement is a done deal.
Published February 8, 2010

A week is a long time in politics. This week, and a wee bit more, has
been a long time coming.
Published February 4, 2010

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.
Published February 1, 2010

It is important to factor the context into the current crisis gripping
power-sharing.
Published February 1, 2010

Unionists never learn do they?
Published January 28, 2010

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.
Published January 28, 2010

The British government
contemptuously announced after the Strasbourg judgment that the
discredited and unlawful Section 44 powers will remain in use.
Published January 25, 2010

The Stormont administration needs to exercise its responsibility for protection of children and young people.
Published January 21, 2010

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.
Published January 18, 2010

Peter Robinson performed a sleight of hand trick brilliantly last week.
Published January 14, 2010

It is very tempting to ridicule the extraordinary state of affairs that
has crashed down on the Robinson family.
Published January 11, 2010

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.
Published January 8, 2010

It is
clear that we are still waiting for the new beginning to policing and
justice that was promised.
Published January 2, 2010

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.
Published December 28, 2009

Limavady wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, all handshakes and chuckles.
Published December 21, 2009

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.
Published December 17, 2009

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.
Published December 14, 2009

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.
Published December 10, 2009

Unfortunately, in sport as in politics, resentment isn’t always directed
at the right target.
Published December 7, 2009

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’.
Published December 3, 2009

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.
Published November 30, 2009

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.
Published November 26, 2009

Police harassment is still a fact of life on the streets of working
class communities.
Published November 23, 2009

The celebrations for the Fall of the Wall dividing Berlin were
spectacular and understandable. Not so understandable was some Irish
politicians joining in.
Published November 19, 2009

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.
Published November 12, 2009

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.
Published November 5, 2009

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.
Published November 2, 2009

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.
Published October 29, 2009

The hunger strikers were never dupes but could only make decisions on the basis of the
information they had.
Published October 26, 2009

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.
Published October 22, 2009

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.
Published October 19, 2009

When an Irish republican dies in British police custody it is certain to
give rise to an atmosphere of suspicion and recrimination.
Published October 16, 2009

The final article by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams for
the Irish News on the recent controversy over the 1981 hunger strike.
Published October 13, 2009

Peter Robinson is facing what every single leader of unionism has faced
since at least the late 1960s.
Published October 8, 2009

When the ruling class in the Twenty-Six Counties wants something bad
enough it will do pretty much anything to get it.
Published October 5, 2009

If you have a vote on Lisbon, use it to support democracy and freedom
and VOTE NO.
Published October 1, 2009

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.”
Published September 28, 2009

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.
Published September 24, 2009

Peter Robinson made a speech last week calling for decisions to be taken
by a weighted-majority vote in Stormont.
Published September 21, 2009

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.
Published September 17, 2009

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.
Published September 14, 2009

There are plenty of good reasons to vote ‘No’, again, on Lisbon - far
more than there are reasons to vote ‘Yes’.
Published September 10, 2009

The deceivers and manipulators are out again.
Published September 7, 2009

The past, present and future of policing in the six counties emerged
unexpectedly in the north’s media last week.
Published September 3, 2009

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.
Published August 31, 2009

Forty years after the attacks on homes and people in 1969, we are
hearing new descriptions of what happened.
Published August 27, 2009

The Parades Commission’s decision to allow Friday’s Orange Order march
through Rasharkin without restriction was disgraceful.
Published August 27, 2009

A new residents group has been set up to ‘give support to a community who have suffered ongoing abuse from the police.&rsquo
Published August 20, 2009

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.
Published August 20, 2009

Anthony McIntyre on internment morning, 38 years ago.
Published August 14, 2009

´A statement this week is a
revealing glimpse into Dawdsland, a place of denial and distorting
mirrors.
Published August 7, 2009

Tony Catney believes he is the victim of a smear campaign being
orchestrated by his former colleagues in Sinn Fein.
Published July 31, 2009

The time is fast approaching when working class people will need to
stand up and fight for a better society.
Published July 24, 2009

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.
Published July 17, 2009

The most obvious conclusion of Peter Robinson's reshuffle is the astonishing mediocrity of the
personnel available in the DUP assembly party.
Published July 10, 2009
At one level, the north of Ireland has changed markedly over the past
ten years. But for real change, you need to look
deeper.
Published July 3, 2009

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.
Published June 26, 2009

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.
Published June 19, 2009

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.
Published June 12, 2009

This Thursday and Friday the people of Ireland go to the polls in a rare
all-Ireland plebiscite - an election to the European parliament.
Published June 4, 2009

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
Published May 29, 2009

Members of the small republican political party eirigi agreed at its annual
conference to 'tactically contest elections at a time of our choosing'.
Published May 22, 2009

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.
Published May 15, 2009

Would society
really be better off had Suzanne Breen not spoken to the Real IRA?
Published May 8, 2009

The British state
is increasing its erosion of civil liberties for Irish citizens.
Published May 1, 2009

Three very distinct and separate voices were heard across the Irish
media last weekend.
Published May 1, 2009
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.
Published April 24, 2009

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.
Published April 17, 2009

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.
Published April 10, 2009

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.
Published April 3, 2009

Over the course of recent weeks the state has intensified its
intimidation of Shell to Sea campaigners.
Published March 27, 2009

Many years ago I looked up to Martin McGuinness. Most within the ranks
of the Provisional IRA did likewise.
Published March 19, 2009

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.
Published March 13, 2009

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.
Published March 6, 2009

Last week’s case demanded deterrent custodial sentences and
not someone jauntily walking free making contemptuous gestures to
cameramen.
Published February 27, 2009

Armed only with his sharpened legal brain Pat Finucane was a formidable
obstacle for those in the British government and military.
Published February 20, 2009

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.
Published February 13, 2009

So far the British government has managed to protect itself and its
agencies from those seeking to probe deeper into this sinister world.
Published February 6, 2009

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.
Published January 23, 2009

In the face of this economic crisis the argument for stronger not
weaker government intervention in the economy needs to be heard.
Published January 16, 2009

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.
Published January 9, 2009

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.
Published January 2, 2009

The Dublin government's reaction to recent challenges shows it may be out of its depth.
Published December 19, 2008

If the current enquiries are anything to go by, truth is not part of
Britain's agenda.
Published December 12, 2008

It now appears that just as she was attacked by them in life, Rosemary
Nelson is now to be attacked in death.
Published December 5, 2008

A Six-County Department of Justice could be functioning by the early months of the new year.
Published November 28, 2008

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.
Published November 21, 2008

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.
Published November 13, 2008

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.
Published November 7, 2008

The idea that Sinn Féin could ignore a march through Belfast city
centre by a regiment in the British army is patently absurd.
Published October 31, 2008

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.
Published October 24, 2008

The presumption of innocence until proven guilty has never applied to
Republicans and the Northern Bank robbery suspects were no exceptions.
Published October 17, 2008

The main trigger of the 1968 Civil Rights demands, equality, has still
to be resolved.
Published October 10, 2008

They were Ireland's nasty party but their arrogance prevented them ever
listening to the electorate beyond their own narrow sectional interest
group.
Published October 3, 2008
Nationalists must have viewed with dismay, disbelief and anger last
week’s press conference with SDLP minister Margaret Ritchie sandwiched
between two unionist ministers
Published September 26, 2008
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.
Published September 19, 2008
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).
Published September 12, 2008
The current impasse at Stormont is the price everyone here has to pay
for the DUP’s exercise in political dishonesty in spring 2007.
Published September 5, 2008
Every three years members of the United Nations are required to submit
a report on human rights in their state.
Published August 29, 2008
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.
Published August 22, 2008
There’s an uncanny symmetry in the history of Russia’s treatment of
Georgia and Britain’s treatment of Ireland over the centuries.
Published August 15, 2008
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.
Published August 8, 2008
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.
Published August 1, 2008
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.
Published July 25, 2008
Inaction has thus far characterised the PSNI’s policing operation in
defending Catholics in Stoneyford and in other parts.
Published July 18, 2008
Why is the most objectively fair response to our economic
difficulties the least acceptable to the economic and political
establishment?
Published July 11, 2008
Are the people of the Six Counties to be again left high and dry due to
the selfish interests of yet another British politician?
Published July 4, 2008
The £6 million for Irish language broadcasting is the clearest signal
yet that all is not well with the power-sharing arrangements at
Stormont.
Published June 27, 2008
There is an obvious and simple way that the EU can respond to Ireland’s
rejection of the Lisbon Treaty: continue as it was.
Published June 19, 2008
Welcome to the most surreal week in the history of Irish politics.
Published June 12, 2008
He’s gone, the oul curmudgeon, and good riddance.
Published June 6, 2008
The British administration intends to do nothing to recover weapons held by unionist paramilitaries.
Published May 30, 2008
Nobody knows for certain how much misery and bother has been caused
through the ages by the insufferable smugness of the British ruling
class.
Published May 23, 2008
Paisley's big hearty handshake with Bertie at
Farmleigh House last year was the beginning of what will inevitably be
a lengthy dalliance.
Published May 16, 2008
When friends and comrades disagree the fall-out is always specially
painful, even terrible. But never hopeless.
Published May 8, 2008
It is time former prisoners from the conflict took their place in society with the same rights
and entitlements as everyone else.
Published May 2, 2008
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.
Published April 25, 2008
May's investment conference is crucial as we seek to deliver on the
wider objectives of equality and sustainability.
Published April 18, 2008
A bill of rights in any shape or form must be viewed as a progressive thing.
Published April 11, 2008
Don't assume you can trust a British politician any more than a DUP one.
Published April 4, 2008
What Jonathan Powell has said about Bloody Sunday is revealing, not what he claims Martin McGuinness said.
Published March 28, 2008
Unionists are trying to perpetuate the old hostile
relationship between nationalists and the police.
Published March 21, 2008
The signals that the DUP has got cold feet about a sports stadium at
Long Kesh are evidence of a wider malaise in unionism.
Published March 14, 2008
Ian Paisley could not have imagined being pushed out of power after
just a year in office.
Published March 7, 2008
If the
conflict in Ireland can be brought to a just end so can the conflict in
the Basque country.
Published February 29, 2008
Informers, agents and spies have been a part of Irish society for as
long as the British government have been occupying Ireland.
Published February 21, 2008
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?
Published February 15, 2008
I don’t need any British Judge to tell me what happened on Bloody Sunday.
Published February 8, 2008
Behind the scenes, the political parties in the North have other matters on
their minds.
Published January 31, 2008
They say the Paisleys come as a package - if you get one, you get both.
Published January 24, 2008
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.
Published January 17, 2008
Fascinating to watch unionists of all shades tying themselves in knots
about human rights and devolution of justice and policing
Published January 9, 2008
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.
Published January 3, 2008
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.
Published December 20, 2007
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.
Published December 12, 2007
Unionists are still naming people in the British House of Commons or
Lords, accusing them of crime. This is an abuse.
Published December 5, 2007
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.
Published November 28, 2007
For a new administration on a learning curve its six months
in office has been surprisingly impressive.
Published November 22, 2007
It is depressing how many media outlets bought the NIO spin about the
UDA standing down its ‘military wing’.
Published November 15, 2007
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.
Published November 8, 2007
On Saturday, November 24, Orangemen intend to march into the centre of
Belfast to intimidate both an individual and a community.
Published November 1, 2007
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern delivered the graveside oration at Fianna Fail's
annual Wolfe Tone Commemoration on Sunday. We present the text
of his address.
Published October 24, 2007
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.
Published October 17, 2007
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.
Published October 10, 2007
The
wheedling and hand-wringing Margaret Ritchie faces until next Tuesday's deadline for UDA decommissioning is going to be
epic.
Published October 3, 2007
It will be FF’s aim to become the dominant party in the North.
Published September 27, 2007
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.
Published September 20, 2007
Nationalists have never sought to undo the Plantation of Ulster which
next year will be four centuries old.
Published September 12, 2007
The one contribution that stood out in this year's summer schools was Sir Kenneth Bloomfield’s talk to the Merriman School.
Published September 5, 2007
The message is harsh and says, written hugely on a wall where the
visitor can read it in great letters, “This is not Spain”.
Published August 30, 2007
Our leaders contrive ever more elaborate ways to get us into prison, and
outsourcing seems to be one of them.
Published August 22, 2007
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.
Published August 16, 2007
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.
Published August 8, 2007
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.
Published July 31, 2007
Further evidence of the ongoing transformation of Irish politics as a
result of the peace process was again on display this week.
Published July 25, 2007
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”.
Published July 18, 2007
At the annual meeting of Lisburn council, SDLP councillors abandoned a long standing principle of
their party - the principle of power-sharing.
Published July 11, 2007
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).
Published July 4, 2007
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.
Published June 27, 2007
How would anyone in the DUP, no matter how sanctimonious they
may sound, know anything about policing and justice, let alone
democratic standards?
Published June 18, 2007
It is quite obvious that, apart from everything else, the UDA are
just far too emotionally unstable to be in charge of lethal weapons.
Published June 11, 2007
It is a mighty task but republicans have had setbacks more serious than
last week’s election results.
Published June 4, 2007
From the ecstasy of March to the agony of May, 2007 is turning out to
be quite the rollercoaster year for republicans.
Published May 29, 2007
The Northern Ireland Office hasn't gone away, you know.
Published May 21, 2007
On Tuesday everyone in Stormont was entitled to feel proud.
Published May 15, 2007
Some tales from the Celtic Tiger as you consider your
options and as the country winds itself up to go to the polls.
Published May 8, 2007
Tomorrow’s election results in Scotland are going to increase the
isolation of unionists in Ireland even more.
Published May 2, 2007
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.
Published April 27, 2007
David Trimble joining the British Conservative Party is a sad event.
Published April 21, 2007
There are still commentators who can’t
accept that Sinn Féin and the DUP are carrying out the wishes of the
voters.
Published April 15, 2007
Strange parallels between those who thought the political process could never
be reconciled are beginning to emerge.
Published April 10, 2007
The unthinkable, indeed unbelievable is happening before our very eyes.
Published April 5, 2007
It is difficult to decide which captures best the ground-breaking
nature of the event - the photo or the statements.
Published March 30, 2007
In the past week we’ve had two very serious incidents involving the PSNI
and the British Army.
Published March 24, 2007
With a brilliant election result behind him Gerry Adams will
lead northern republicans southwards with the intention of building on
his success.
Published March 18, 2007
Elections are supposed to provide answers.
When the people speak, the politicians are supposed to respond
accordingly. Not so in the North.
Published March 13, 2007
We’re at present in the lull before the storm - and what a storm it
will be.
Published March 7, 2007
By the standards of western democracy, the election in the North must
be one of the most bizarre ever to have taken place.
Published March 1, 2007
Has Peter Hain been outed for the political opportunist he is?
Published February 25, 2007
For centuries policing was an instrument
of British state power and the armed wing of unionism.
Now it can be neutralised.
Published February 20, 2007
There will be an election unless Paisley has the guts to say he will
not share power with Sinn Féin.
Published February 15, 2007
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.
Published February 10, 2007
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.
Published February 5, 2007
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.
Published February 1, 2007
Yes, there is an alternative to supporting the British Crown forces in Ireland.
Published January 27, 2007
The goal of a united Ireland remains absolute but the means by which it
can be achieved no longer needs to involve armed actions.
Published January 22, 2007
There was no great surprise at the end of it. Who expected a different
result?
Published January 17, 2007
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.
Published January 12, 2007
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.
Published January 8, 2007
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.
Published January 4, 2007
Those with experience of Sinn Féin manoeuvring will have recognised
recent signs that a policy change is in the air.
Published December 29, 2006
The DUP is a victim of its own success.
Published December 23, 2006
Unionists like to claim that nationalists are a kind of
sub-species who enjoy criminality and endorse lawlessness.
Published December 18, 2006
With Martin McGuinness as his co-equal deputy first minister, Ian Paisley is now
shakily wearing the crown of transitional first minister.
Published December 13, 2006
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
Published December 7, 2006
Regardless of the pandemonium Michael Stone caused outside the
Assembly, his appearance only served to distract from the confusion and
mistrust inside.
Published December 1, 2006
You could be forgiven for thinking that the only issue in Irish
politics at present is whether Sinn Féin ‘will sign up to policing’.
Published November 25, 2006
A lot of people, including the majority of the local meedja, seem to
think the judge called for an inquiry into her appointment.
Published November 19, 2006
Gerry Adams recalls the recent St Andrews negotiations and how Ian Paisley said 'Yes' for the first time in 50 years.
Published November 14, 2006
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.
Published November 9, 2006
When unionist politicians give a knee-jerk reaction it is the mentality
they reveal that still shocks.
Published November 4, 2006
Many people were incensed that the BBC - an
organisation funded by the licence-paying public - would provide an
uncritical programme live glorifying the RIR.
Published October 30, 2006
Is the DUP really a political party, or the political wing of a religious sect, or a family business?
Published October 25, 2006
It is a deal in waiting and what a deal it could be.
Published October 20, 2006
The St Andrews Agreement will bring about a seismic change in the North.
Published October 16, 2006
It remains far from clear that the
absence of evidence is preventing a proper resolution of the O’Hagan
murder
Published October 10, 2006
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.
Published October 5, 2006
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.
Published September 30, 2006
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.
Published September 25, 2006
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.
Published September 19, 2006
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.
Published September 15, 2006
The sincerity of those dissident republicans who believe
that the strategy of the Republican Movement is wrong is
easily tested.
Published September 10, 2006
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.
Published September 5, 2006
Britain’s history in Ireland is one of brutality and inhumanity, often
characterised through the abuse of political prisoners.
Published August 31, 2006
The British strategy on non-jury Diplock courts seems clearly and solely directed at Sinn Féin.
Published August 27, 2006
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.
Published August 22, 2006
The public demonstration for the anniversary of the hunger strikers was
a powerful evidence of people’s determination, and of their dignity.
Published August 18, 2006
The issue of sectarianism has to be tackled head on whatever its
source.
Published August 13, 2006
No-one any longer believes a word this British government utters.
Published August 10, 2006
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.
Published August 5, 2006
One year on the unionists and their allies are still refusing to open
their minds to the place the peace process can take us.
Published July 31, 2006
Israel is clearly once again guilty of a gross crime against humanity
and it must be held accountable.
Published July 25, 2006
Over the decades, one thing has not changed.
Published July 20, 2006
Two strangers arrived at Stormont as the shutters went up for the
summer.
Published July 17, 2006
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.
Published July 12, 2006
Why try and dress up the Twelfth as something it is not?
Published July 7, 2006
For decades republicans raised
the issue of collusion but were dismissed as propagandists. It is now
an undisputed fact.
Published July 2, 2006
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.
Published June 27, 2006
Belatedly, unionists have come to recognise the concept of alienation -
which they derided in nationalists.
Published June 22, 2006
There is no political way we can say 'No' to, or change, what
Peter Hain decrees.
Published June 17, 2006
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.
Published June 11, 2006
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.
Published June 6, 2006
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.
Published May 30, 2006
The assembly meeting up at Stormont isn't
the Northern Ireland Assembly established by the Good Friday Agreement.
Published May 27, 2006
It has been fascinating to watch the DUP tip-toe politely around the funeral of Michael McIlveen.
Published May 23, 2006
Farewell to David Ervine and the Progressive Unionist Party.
Published May 17, 2006
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.
Published May 13, 2006
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.
Published May 8, 2006
Brian Kennaway's new book The Orange Order: A Tradition Betrayed is
causing quite a stir, mainly among Protestants,
unionists and Orangemen
Published May 3, 2006
The IMC has failed to report that almost 70 active members of a certain paramilitary organisation have been convicted of criminal offences.
Published April 28, 2006
There needs to be a debate about what it really does mean to be
Irish.
Published April 24, 2006
Until Easter Sunday Neil McConville was the only person the PSNI had
shot dead.
Published April 21, 2006
Shortly before 1pm on Easter Monday 1916, outside Dublin's GPO, the British
empire started to crumble.
Published April 18, 2006
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.
Published April 14, 2006
Few in the media or among mainstream political parties have dared to
consider British involvement.
Published April 9, 2006
Tomorrow’s performance by Blair and Ahern promises to be a perfect
example of “the triumph of hope over experience”,
Published April 5, 2006
If ever there was a
politician on the make, it’s Peter Hain.
Published April 3, 2006