Irish Republican News: Archives

There have been calls for calm after two devices were thrown at the homes of former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and prominent republican Bobby Storey in Belfast overnight.

A meeting which took place between the DUP and the unionist paramilitary UVF in the early hours of Wednesday failed to convince the loyalist armed group to lower a giant bonfire, it has emerged.

A hate attack on a Catholic priest by supporters of an Orange Order parade in Glasgow has caused a major backlash and a call for a blanket ban on the openly sectarian organisation in the city.

A County Tyrone man has described how he was hospitalised after MI5 and PSNI tried to recruit him as an informer.

Irish senators on Wednesday passed a bill to ban the import of goods from Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

A Catholic man was dragged from his car and severely beaten in broad daylight in a rabid attack by loyalist thugs enraged by the failure of their bonfire nearby. It is believed the victim was attacked randomly and was only identified as Catholic by the football jersey he was wearing.

Steel barriers sealed off the nationalist Short Strand last Monday to facilitate the passage of a sectarian parade by the anti-Catholic Orange Order, infuriating local residents but without causing any of the violence seen in previous years.

There was some trouble in Derry last weekend amid tension in the city ahead of major sectarian marches to be held on Thursday by the Orange Order.

Calls for a fresh inquest into the McGurks Bar Bombing in Belfast have been rejected by the Six County Attorney General.

Sinn Fein has cast doubt on claims that a newly agreed British cabinet positon on Brexit could prevent a hardening of the border and a diminution of the rights of the citizens in the north of Ireland.

Republicans have mourned the passing of veteran IRA figure Sean Scott, of Ballyforan, near Ballinasloe in County Galway, whose funeral took place on Wednesday.

Widespread shock at the appointment of a sinister RUC figure as 26 County Garda police commissioner has been followed by a row after Sinn Fein vowed to “hold him to account”.

An elderly nationalist collapsed as he was arrested by PSNI police after he tried to remove provocative banners in praise of an infamous loyalist paramilitary in Moygashel, County Tyrone, on Thursday.

A series of choreographed political gestures could be preparing the way for a return of the Stormont Assembly as both Sinn Fein and the DUP have said they are ready to restore the Six County political institutions.

A conviction by the juryless ‘Special Criminal Court’ (SCC) in Dublin has been overturned on appeal, raising new questions over a court whose main purpose has always been to efficiently imprison Irish republicans.

The widow of murdered Belfast defence lawyer Pat Finucane has said she is optimistic that the Supreme Court in London will finally rule in favour of a full public inquiry into her husband’s death.

Sinn Fein has said the public appetite for a border poll in the North should be tested with a question in 2021 census.

Drew Harris, a current Deputy Chief Constable of the PSNI police in the Six Counties, is to become the new Garda police commissioner in the 26 Counties, it has been confirmed.

A secret MI5 report that resulted in the RUC (now PSNI) police protecting its agents and informers regardless of their role in the conflict has been made public after 38 years.

A judge in the non-jury trial of a prominent republican has admitted the prosecution was based entirely on allegations extracted by police threats and ordered him to be released, more than five and a half years after he was initially charged.

The British Crown Forces are refusing to release documents relating to top loyalist paramilitary Robin ‘The Jackal’ Jackson, a former British soldier linked to the Miami Showband massacre and other suspected acts of collusion.

Sinn Fein and Fine Gael have warned the British government against last-minute negotiations on the border ahead of a crucial June 28-29 summit to finalise a Brexit deal.

Sinn Fein wants to be part of an administration in Dublin after the next general election, party leader Mary Lou McDonald has confirmed, as she set out a change of strategy for her party.

The unionist paramilitary UVF are being blamed for an ‘Eleventh Night’ bonfire being built close to a children’s play park in a built-up residential area of Belfast.

There have been calls for greater efforts to tackle white-collar crime after former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David ‘The Drummer’ Drumm received only a six year sentence for his central role in a 7.2 billion euro fraud which marked a low point in Ireland’s financial crisis.

A British soldier who shot dead a man as he walked through a British Army checkpoint in the North of Ireland is to face prosecution.

Sinn Fein’s internal difficulties have worsened following a combative display by the party leadership at a weekend conference saw the party adopt a hardline pro-abortion stance, including a ban on dissent on the issue by its elected representatives.

The latest visit by British royals to Ireland has once again sown division among nationalists and republicans.

Sinn Fein faces difficult decisions today at the party’s annual conference as a row over the the party’s attitude to abortion threatens to overshadow the launch of its bid to enter government following the next 26 County general election.

A rally by far-right unionists and neo-Nazis at Belfast City hall last weekend has raised concerns over the increased visibility of fringe loyalist groups ahead of the sectarian marching season.

The Dublin government is to appeal the European Court of Human Right’s finding that 14 Irishmen were not tortured by the British Army in 1971.

With the 26 County housing crisis threatening to spiral out of control, Sinn Fein have begun a new campaign against the man most hold responsible for the scandal, Fine Gael Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy.

Nationalists and republicans are being urged to unite to support the Palestinian cause amid signs that the Irish establishment is seeking to protect Israel from the fallout over recent atrocities.

Peter Robinson, the former leader of the hardline unionist DUP, has suggested agreement on a strategy for phased reunification could allow him to support a Six County referendum on unity.

Loyalists have begun hoisting flags and banners and painting kerbstones in locations across the North in advance of the summer sectarian parades by the Protestant marching organisations.

One of the oldest republican prisoners in Maghaberry Prison, Sean O’Neill, has passed away from cancer in Limerick this week while still being actively sought by the British authorities in the North for “breaching bail”.

Sinn Fein and the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) were infiltrated by an undercover British police unit which is currently the focus of a major inquiry in England.

A rumoured alliance between Sinn Fein and Fine Gael appears closer this week after Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar launched the West Belfast festival, Feile an Phobail, on Friday.

A former political prisoner, who fled to the United States after being part of the 1983 mass escape from the H-Blocks of Long Kesh 35 years ago, is making a new attempt to clear his name.

The issue of women’s rights and access to abortion are now being placed alongside calls for same-sex marriage as part of an equality agenda being opposed by unionists.

Britain’s cartwheeling approach to Brexit and the north of Ireland has reached a critical point with a new plan to expand the Irish border into a ten-mile demilitarised ‘buffer’ zone.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has said she expects her party will endorse the provision of abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy following last Friday’s 26 County referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment, which gave a pregnant woman only an equal right to life as her unborn child.

The British Direct Ruler Karen Bradley has refused to meet Derry councillors to discuss the two-year internment of a republican political activist.

The younger brother of Derry plastic bullet victim, Stephen McConomy, says a new inquest into his death could provide his family with the “answers we deserve.”

Dozens of republicans gathered with friends and family of the late IRA Volunteer, George McBrearty in Derry on Sunday to commemorate the 37th anniversary of his death at the hands of SAS alongside his comrade Charles ‘Pop’ Maguire in 1981.

An overwhelming vote in favour of repealing the 8th amendment of the Irish constitution has opened the way for the liberalisation of Ireland’s abortion laws, with a final result of 66.4% to 33.6%.

The leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn visited Belfast this week to mark 20 years since the Good Friday peace agreement and added his voice to efforts to circumvent unionist intransigence.

A Catholic teenager has been hospitalised after being kicked in the head in a sectarian attack in Derry’s Waterside area.

The British government is to be asked to explain the disappearance of part of the body of Aidan McAnespie in 1988. The 23-year-old was shot dead by a British soldier close to a border checkpoint at Aughnacloy in County Tyrone as he made his way to a local Gaelic sports club.

Sinn Fein has criticised the BBC’s lack of coverage of Gaelic games in a meeting with representatives of the GAA (Gaelic Athletics Association).

Families who lost loved ones at the hands of unionist paramilitaries acting in collusion with the state have criticised comments made by a former Director of Public Prosecutions for an end to conflict-related prosecutions.

Ireland looks set to legalise abortion after an exit poll showed a referendum to remove the constitutional protection for the unborn passing by an overwhelming 68% Yes to 32% No.

Theresa May has privately ruled out a vote on Irish unity within the north of Ireland because it could produce a majority in favour, according to leaked reports from a secret Tory briefing.

There is growing concern in the north of Ireland over threats and attacks by loyalist gangs ahead of the summer marching season.

The hugely divisive referendum campaign on the Eighth Amendment draws to a close ahead of voting day next Friday with opinion polls showing support for the removal of Ireland’s constitutional protection for the unborn declining, but still likely to pass.

The ‘New IRA’ has responded to a call by former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams for rival republican groups to “go away”, with posters signed in the name of “The IRA” appearing in west and north Belfast.

A legal intervention has forced Crown prosecutors to revise a decision not to bring criminal charges against two former RUC Special Branch members who are believed to have directed and shielded loyalist serial killer Gary Haggarty.

The victims of the worst day of the recent conflict in Ireland should be told the truth, a campaigner has said.

Thousands protested in cities across the country this evening following a horrific mass murder by Israel of some 60 unarmed Palestinians in Gaza on Monday. It was the single deadliest day for Palestinians in several years.

Scores of Palestinians have been shot dead in Gaza as Israel’s declaration of independence was marked by a mass slaughter of protestors gathered at the border.

Former members of the British Crown Forces have been sharing photographs of the assassinated IRA Volunteers of Loughgall and gloating about how they held “parties” in the van in which three of the martyrs were killed, it has emerged.

Members of the IRA unit shot dead in a British Army ambush at Loughgall had been under surveillance for weeks, it was confirmed this week.

The resignation this week of the head of the 26 County Health Service Executive (HSE) has added to demands for full accountability in a scandal over cut-rate cancer testing and a subsequent cover-up which has claimed the lives of 17 women.

There has been a furious response to a statement by British Prime Minister Theresa May to her own parliament which deliberately misrepresented official figures on policing and claimed “the only people being investigated” are members of the Crown Forces.

Unionists have lashed out at the 26 County Minister for Foreign Affairs after he raised the two-year internment of republican prisoner Tony Taylor in the Dublin parliament.

The sectarian nature of the unionist-dominated Irish Football Association (IFA) has been highlighted by its playing of ‘God Save the Queen’ at the start of the association’s cup final.

A dodgy deal for cut-price cancer tests and a subsequent cover-up wrecked the health of hundreds of Irish women over the past decade, with 17 deaths attributed to the scandal.

Amid rapidly escalating tensions in Derry, three hoax bomb alerts have taken place, with two of them directed at the homes of members of the PSNI police and their parents.

Claims that a deceased unionist paramilitary may have been responsible for the deaths of victims of the Ballymurphy Massacre have been treated with scepticism by the relatives of those who died.

The mother of a teenager killed by a plastic bullet fired by the RUC (now PSNI) police 37 years ago has hit out at British state secrecy after it emerged that files on his murder are to remain under wraps for another 41 years.

An independent unionist councillor has drawn attention to the problem of unchecked hate speech by unionist politicians with an egregious and ridiculous attempt to insult Irish nationalists.

Former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has spoken of “a historic moment” in the Basque peace process after the ETA armed group announced a definitive end to the organisation.

Sinn Fein has retained its Westminster seat for the West Tyrone constituency after 26-year-old solicitor Orfhlaith Begley polled over 16,000 votes for the party in Thursday’s by-election.

The PSNI have taken to using saws and battering rams in raids on the homes of republican activists in Derry following appeals by Sinn Fein for “tangible action” against armed groups in the city.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has provoked outrage among republicans after she deliberately used the plantation name “Londonderry” for Derry at an event in the city on Wednesday.

Sinn Fein has helped a unionist farmer who opposes the party’s main Brexit policy get elected to the Dublin parliament’s upper chamber, the Seanad.

Britain’s ‘Brexit’ Minister was secretly parachuted in and out of Ireland for a photo-opportunity at the border this week in a humiliating exercise for the British Crown.

A seventeen-year-old girl was pointlessly shot dead by a British soldier while she hugged her boyfriend, a coroner has confirmed.

A bizarre graffiti attack at St Colmcille’s Church, Carrickmore, County Tyrone is being linked to next Thursday’s by-election to the Westminster parliament in the West Tyrone constituency.

A new ‘Border Force’ recruitment drive is being seen as the latest sign that the British government is planning to impose a hard border across Ireland after Brexit, and the manner of its implementation is in line with the extreme right-wing policies of the British government’s Home Office.

A claim that Catholics could soon outnumber Protestants in the Six Counties has been highlighted by nationalist parties to convince those with a unionist background to feel “at home” in a new, united Ireland.

Prisoner support groups have accused the Maghaberry administration of again targeting the families of republican political prisoners.

Twenty years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, republicans who were jailed for activities related to the conflict have said they are still facing barriers to employment and travel.

A new set of “principles” to commemorate the late Six County Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness have been advanced by Sinn Fein with the support of a prominent US politician.

The use of international air bombardments in the war in Syria has provoked anger and protest in Ireland.

The headquarters of the Irish Republican Socialist Party were raided by the PSNI police on Friday in the latest show of strength by the Crown forces against republicans in Belfast and Derry.

Saoradh has vowed to resist the criminalisation of republicans following a heavy-handed police arrest operation at offices shared by the small political party on Monday.

The nationalist SDLP has been condemned after it threatened to discipline its councillors in Newry who failed to support moves to rename a park in the town named for local hunger strike hero Raymond McCreesh.

Sinn Fein’s Mayor of Dublin, Micheal Mac Donncha, has caused a furore over his attendance at a conference in Palestine after Israel failed to prevent him from attending and which the Israeli prime minister then denounced as anti-semitic.

Major media outlets and prominent politicians have been taken in by a bogus statement and photograph claiming to represent a new Irish republican armed group.

Low-level corruption and incompetence have emerged as the defining characteristics of the Six County Executive’s handling of the notorious RHI scandal as the inquiry into the affair began addressing the issue of political leadership this week.

A 76-year-old woman injured during a Crown Force operation to disrupt an Easter 1916 commemoration in Lurgan has come to symbolise the defiance of republicans against a new effort to disrupt republican Easter parade colour parties.

A former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party has suggested loyalist paramilitaries could mount attacks against the Dublin government over its efforts to prevent a ‘hard border’ through Ireland.

The leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster, has said she could not tolerate living in Ireland if the island were to be reunited.

More than 40 members of the North Down UDA mounted a display of paramilitary power in Bangor, County Down following police searches of loyalist Dee Stitt’s home and two other properties.

Senior unionist politicians have been accused of engaging in racist commentary amid a controversy over the distribution of fascistic leaflets against immigrants.

There has been a general welcome in Derry after councillors formally backed a call for schools to ban British Armed Forces from accessing children.

Confrontations at Easter 1916 events across the North erupted in a mini-riot in Derry today as the annual march by the 1916 Commemoration Committee, supported by Saoradh, gathered in the Creggan estate in the city.

The PSNI have this afternoon attacked an Easter commemoration in Lurgan, County Armagh, injuring a woman and dramatically raising tensions ahead of a weekend of commemorative events.

There has been an outcry in Ireland after more than sixteen Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip on Friday as Israel used snipers and other weaponry against tens of thousands of demonstrators who had gathered along the Gaza-Israel boundary.

In a positive development in the campaign against internment by remand which has seen republicans jailed for years without charges being brought, Luke O’Neill has been granted bail.

On the twentieth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, a desultory media exercise by British Prime Minister Theresa May at a farm in County Down has added to the belief that political atrophy in London means there will be no revival of the Stormont powersharing institutions in the short term.

Two former British soldiers are to stand trial charged with murdering an Official IRA man in Belfast 46 years ago, a judge has ordered.

The position of the 26 County Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy is under increasing threat after a shock increase in the number of homeless people, particularly children, which has rocketed by almost 50 per cent in the last year.

In an emphatic ruling, a High Court judge has issued a “mandatory order” to civil servants in Belfast and London to provide long-denied funds for legacy inquests in the North of Ireland.

Unionists have reacted with outrage following a proclamation by the mayor of New York last weekend naming March 17, 2018 as ‘Gerry Adams Day’.

The Irish Republican Socialist Party has said it believes that two of its members were killed as part of a wider campaign against the party by the British government and are now the target of a potential cover-up.

At the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Newry, the national flag was flown despite attempts by Newry, Mourne and Down Council to ban it.

Sinn Fein has suspended one of its TDs, Offaly TD Carol Nolan, after she voted against holding a referendum to remove a constitutional ban on abortion this week.

The spokesperson on Ireland for the British Labour Party, Owen Smith, was dramatically sacked by party leader Jeremy Corbyn on Friday night in a row over the party’s position on Britain’s departure from the European Union.

A decision by the European Court of Human Rights has been described as a bad day for justice after it refused to revise a judgement that the ‘Hooded Men’ did not suffer torture at the hands of their British military captors in 1971.

The 26 County Taoiseach Leo Varadkar is facing calls to resign after he bragged about how he subverted the state’s planning process on behalf of Donald Trump’s business interests during the traditional St Patrick’s Day lunch in Washington DC.

Political prisoner Gabriel Mackle has been released following a period of internment lasting over four months, it has been confirmed. It is believed his release was made subject to legal conditions which have prevented him making a statement on the matter.

Sinn Fein has questioned the authority of the DUP negotiating team, headed up by party leader Arlene Foster, after the last round of talks to restore power-sharing in Belfast suddenly collapsed as a deal was imminent.

US President Donald Trump has said he will visit Ireland and will go to the border, according to reports from Washington DC.

People crossing the British-imposed border through Ireland would have to register in advance for permission under a deranged plan for Brexit being considered by Tories.

The brother of a County Tyrone man shot dead while trying to escape from Long Kesh internment camp almost 45 years ago has launched a legal action against the PSNI police and British Ministry of Defence.

Sinn Fein has warned that the DUP has “checked out” of any attempt to restore the powersharing institutions in Belfast as the Tory government in London introduced an effective Direct Rule budget for the North of Ireland.

Events have been taking place in west Belfast to commemorate three IRA Volunteers ambushed and executed by the British Army’s SAS in Gibraltar 30 years ago.

A High Court judge has found that the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, illegally blocked funding for inquests into killings in the north of Ireland.

Derry republican Tony Taylor has issued a statement from Maghaberry prison appealing for public support on the second anniversary of his internment.

Sinn Fein TD Caoimhghin O Caolain, the party’s longest-serving elected representative in the 26 Counties, has confirmed he will not stand in the next general election.

Sinn Fein has called on the manager of the ‘Northern Ireland’ soccer squad to withdraw comments in which he complained that “Catholic” players from the Six Counties had been convinced to play for the Irish national team.

The President of the European Council Donald Tusk has said issues relating to Ireland must be resolved before negotiations on Brexit can move ahead in other matters.

Thousands of people have taken part in a march for victims of the recent conflict in Belfast. They came together last weekend as they made their way to City Hall under the banner ‘Time for Truth’.

The British Prime Minister has claimed an EU proposal for a ‘common regulatory area’ between the EU and the North of Ireland would “threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK”.

The Fine Gael government in Dublin has been using public money for a marketing campaign that required Irish newspapers to make government propaganda look like news, it has emerged.

A prosecutor’s decision not to try the British soldier who shot dead a 15-year-old child in Derry in 1972 was “irredeemably flawed”, the High Court has ruled. Judges also ruled that the four-year delay by notorious former Crown Prosecutor Barra McGrory was “manifestly excessive, inexplicable, unjustified and unlawful”.

A former military intelligence whistle-blower in the British Army has offered to give evidence in secret court hearings about murders and collusion by the British Army.

A bank hired loyalist paramilitaries and ex-British army personnel to evict a family from their County Dublin home, according to anti-eviction activists.

Almost 24,000 homes and businesses across Ireland are without power amid one of the worst winter storms the country has experienced for decades. Much of the country heeded warnings to stay indoors amid extreme weather conditions overnight.

The European Union has published its fallback plan to effectively keep the north of Ireland in the single market and customs union after Brexit, in a 120-page draft withdrawal agreement.

Details of a draft talks agreement on the restoration of powersharing between Sinn Fein and the DUP have exposed the opposition of powerful unionist hardliners to even the most moderate accommodation with nationalism.

A concerted attack by British ‘Brexiteers’ to end Ireland’s famous 1998 peace deal may have motivated a US decision to appoint a new envoy to the north of Ireland.

There have been calls for an independent investigation after an elaborate listening device was found at the former home of a senior republican. The bug was discovered by a relative of Brian Keenan, who died from cancer in 2008.

Tensions are high in north Armagh following a three-day British Army and PSNI assault against the republican community in the area.

On the 30th anniversary of his death, an announcement by the 26 County Minister for Justice that he will not release a report into the killing of a Sinn Fein election worker has hurt the family.

The defacement of a bilingual road sign in Fermanagh has symptomised a new wave of anti-Gaelic and anti-Irish hate in the wake of the collapsed Stormont talks.

There is mounting concern that unionists in the north of Ireland are incapable of treating nationalists with respect after the DUP suddenly backed away from a deal which would have legislated for the rights for Irish language speakers.

An element of sectarianism has surfaced in the mainstream media as extreme unionism rallied in opposition to the Irish language this week.

A community association in Derry have called for the immediate release of republican Neil Hegarty, who was interned in Maghaberry prison in December just one day after he had been released after five years in prison.

The new Sinn Fein leader, Mary Lou McDonald, has been stamping her authority on the party in the wake of being selected as the successor to Gerry Adams, who quit the post last week.

A former republican prisoner and political activist has said there was an attempt by British military agents to recruit him at an airport in France.

Dublin city councillors have condemned a British property company’s efforts to have buildings around a national monument site opened for development.

The current phase of political talks in Belfast has ended after unionist hardliners in the DUP rejected measures to increase recognition for the Irish language in the north of Ireland.

Mary Lou McDonald today officially replaced Gerry Adams as Uachtaran Shinn Fein [President of Sinn Fein] at a special party conference in Dublin. The following is the full text of her acceptance speech.

As he hands over the reins to Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has been giving interviews and facing a welter of last-minute criticism from his political opponents.

With no sign of a British government solution to the issue of the Irish border, the European Union is reportedly preparing a draft of the British withdrawal treaty with the North of Ireland effectively having status within the EU.

The latest attempts to restore local power-sharing government in Belfast have made progress and should conclude next week, according to Sinn Fein.

Republican prisoners have condemned the authorities in Maghaberry prison over a new clampdown on educational and historical materials at the jail.

In a series of early morning raids in Dublin this week, eight republicans and their families were subjected to armed police forcing entry to their homes.

The political vacuum in the North continues to be filled by unionist anger at Sinn Fein over bizarre incidents and minor issues.

There was widespread shock this week after it was confirmed that loyalist Special Branch double agent Gary Haggarty could be freed within weeks despite pleading guilty to five murders, five attempted murders and hundreds of other crimes.

A group of republican prisoners at Maghaberry jail has said the suspension of armed actions by the breakaway IRA group known as Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH) last week will allow a “period of consolidation, expansion and preparation”.

Fifty years on from the launch of the civil rights movement, nationalists are contining to battle for equality in the face of systematic and opportunistic discrimination.

Victims of the conflict have announced plans for a mass march in Belfast to demand action on efforts to deal with the legacy of the conflict.

The Dublin government has paved the way for a referendum on abortion next May which has already provoked unanswered questions as to what is actually being proposed.

A former republican prisoner has accused his daughters’ Catholic school of becoming a tool of oppression after British Army soldiers were allowed to make a presentation.

The man alleged to have been the British Army’s most high-ranking agent in the Provisional IRA has been arrested and is being questioned about allegations that he murdered dozens of people while working undercover in the IRA’s feared internal security unit.

Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH) have confirmed no immediate plans to decommission their weapons following the breakaway IRA group’s announcement that it is to “suspend all armed actions against the British State”.

In a dramatic day at Belfast’s High Court, a judge who sought to quash a report which found British state collusion in the Loughinisland massacre is to step aside from the case.

The sister of a man shot dead on Bloody Sunday has said the erection of flags for the British Army’s Parachute Regiment outside Derry is “blind sectarianism”.

The new British Direct Ruler Karen Bradley has characterised the latest round of the talks process in Belfast as a final chance to salvage the devolved power-sharing institutions at Stormont.

A British MP has warned that new recruits could be deterred from joining the British Army because of the possibility of prosecution for war crimes.

Concerns have been expressed at the accelerating rate at which undocumented Irish people living in the United States are being deported back to Ireland.

The full text of today’s ceasefire statement by the breakaway IRA armed group, Oglaigh na hEireann. It was released at a press conference involving Fianna Fáil TD Eamon O Cuiv and senior trade union figures who have been in talks around the group’s future.

The breakaway IRA group Oglaigh na hEireann has announced a suspension of its armed actions, saying the “environment is not right for armed conflict” at this time, according to news reports this morning.

Mary Lou McDonald will succeed Gerry Adams as Sinn Fein leader, the party has confirmed, and will formally ascend to the leadership at a special Ard Fheis [conference] next month.

Sinn Fein has condemned new proposals to redraw the north’s electoral constituencies as a Tory/DUP gerrymander. A new revised plan is being prepared by the Boundary Commission which is a dramatic shift from previous plans.

A new phase of talks to restore the powersharing Stormont Assembly is to begin next Wednesday amid a difficult political climate.

Two decades after the murder of Fergal ‘Ricky’ McCusker by the LVF, his family have said they and other victims across the area “deserve answers, truth and accountability”.

A row has broken out over this year’s Bloody Sunday march in Derry, with some republican organisations preparing to boycott the event due to the appearance of a British soldier and other contentious names on advertising material.

A court bid by Gerry Adams to overturn two 1975 convictions for attempting to escape from prison has heard that his initial detention was illegal.

Sinn Fein’s Barry McElduff has resigned as West Tyrone MP following an outcry over an intended humourous video in which he used a loaf of bread as a prop.

Tributes have been paid to Rosaleen Sands, the mother of hunger striker and MP Bobby Sands, who passed away on Friday.

A short internet video intended as humourous by Sinn Fein MP for West Tyrone Barry McElduff caused a wave of sectarian recrimination this week when a loaf of bread he perched on his head inside a petrol station carried the word ‘Kingsmill’.

Prominent Derry councillor Gary Donnelly has again been arrested and released by Gardai in County Donegal in connection with the execution of British agent and Sinn Fein informer, Denis Donaldson.

Britain’s new Direct Ruler in Ireland Karen Bradley has visited the North where she was welcomed as a “good unionist” by DUP MP Ian Paisley.

Ahead of the 30th anniversary of the killing, the Dublin government has refused to release a report into the British army killing of Aidan McAnespie as he made his way to a Gaelic sports pitch.

The deputy leader of a far-right unionist group in Britain is to go on trial on charges of hate speech in Belfast, it was confirmed in court on Tuesday.

A 47-year-old English MP has been appointed as the new British Direct Ruler in the north of Ireland, taking over from the departing James Brokenshire. Karen Bradley has no known connection to Ireland.

The head of British government in the north of Ireland, James Brokenshire, has quit the Tory cabinet ahead of a major reshuffle by Prime Minister Theresa May.

The DUP has been accused of not facing reality after the hardline unionist party called for a return of full Direct Rule of the north of Ireland from London, and condemned comments by the 26 County Taoiseach that he supports a united Ireland.

A republican prisoner recently extradited into British jurisdiction was dragged away from a Christmas visit by prison warders before being subjected to a vicious strip search.

Miami Showband massacre survivor Stephen Travers says the 26 County government should be ‘getting answers’ from London about revelations emerging from declassified state papers.

The number of patients waiting for a hospital bed on trolleys in the 26 Counties reached a record earlier this week as the Dublin government admitted it was baffled by its own failures.

There have been calls for the Dublin government to hold a proper investigation into the Belturbet car bombing which claimed two lives of two teenagers 45 years ago this week.

A notorious Irish civil servant who claims that homelessness is “normal” and that some of those seeking shelter are trying to “game the system” has been reappointed as head of the Dublin government’s Housing Agency.

The Dublin government’s first intelligence on Sinn Fein’s peace initiative of 1987 claimed that Gerry Adams disapproved of some IRA actions and that the Sinn Fein leader saw the armed struggle as a “political liability”.

State papers released in Dublin have revealed how the late Taoiseach Charlie Haughey faced an assassination threat from MI5 while he was being brow-beaten by Margaret Thatcher into handing over wanted Irish republicans.

Sinn Fein and the DUP do not agree on when a new attempt to restore powersharing in Belfast will be made, with claims by East Derry MP Gregory Campbell that negotiations are to resume “within the next 10 days” not shared by Sinn Fein.

Unionists are seeking to quash findings of collusion between the RUC police and unionist paramilitaries in up to six Police Ombudsman reports following a surprise court judgment before Christmas.

The wife of a man killed in one of the worst loyalist massacres in Derry has called for the investigation into her husband’s death to be re-opened.

Unionists have protested after republican party Saoradh opened a new office in the centre of a County Tyrone town of Dungannon.

There was outrage in Ireland this week as British negotiators backed away from commitments on the Irish border reached in a deal with the European Union on the terms of its departure.

A court in Belfast has heard two days of summing up of the 13-year murderous rampage of PSNI Special Branch agent Gary Haggarty, the names of his victims read out, and the cold and callous way they were targeted and killed.

A letter to 26 County Taoiseach Leo Varadkar signed by more than 200 northern nationalists, urging him to protect the rights of citizens in the Six Counties, is a new attempt to bypass the North’s stalemated political process.

Relatives of victims of the Glenanne Gang have insisted PSNI Chief George Hamilton has a duty to abide by a court ruling ordering him to complete an investigation into dozens of loyalist killings.

The 26 County State is to to force the family of collusion murder victim Seamus Ludlow to pay costs after a legal challenge mounted as part of their justice campaign was rejected in the High Court in Dublin.

There were scenes of jubilation at the Dublin parliament this week when members of the deaf community celebrated the passage of a bill that officially recognises Irish Sign Language (ISL) as a language of the 26 County State.

A tsunami of spin in regards to the Irish border has scraped the British government into a second round of negotiations with the European Union over its departure, but at the expense of any confidence in the negotiations process.

North Belfast republican Damien ‘Dee’ Fennell has finally beaten an attempt to jail him over a speech he gave at an Easter Rising commemoration in County Armagh in 2015.

Less than 36 hours after he was released at the end of his sentence, Derry republican Neil Hegarty has been seized by PSNI at his home in the Creggan area and returned to the high-security Maghaberry prison in County Antrim.

Three homeless people have already died and more deaths are expected as an icy winter spell grips Ireland.

A decision to halt the prosecution of a former RUC man and two other on charges linked to the loyalist mob killing of Catholic man Robert Hamill is to be quashed, High Court judges has ruled.

The Dublin government has rushed legislation through parliament to join an EU militarisation project, with the complicity of Fianna Fail, in an apparent quid-pro-quo for the EU supporting its stance on Brexit.

As a draft deal on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union was being parsed today, unionists appeared to have won dramatic changes, heavily eroding a previous commitment to no regulatory divergence along the Irish border and adding clear guarantees of no regulatory barriers between the north of Ireland and Britain.

The full text of a draft agreement released this morning (in reference to Ireland) in negotiations on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.

Plans to seal a critical deal to advance negotiations on Britain’s departure from the EU ended in farce this afternoon when a last minute phone call from the DUP caused the British Prime Minister Theresa May to pull out at the last minute.

The failure of the British body politic to understand the implications of reinforcing the border through Ireland has dominated news coverage at a critical juncture in the negotiations over Britain’s departure from the EU.

Sinn Fein Senator Trevor O Clochartaigh has sensationally quit the party in the most serious fallout yet from an ongoing crisis within the organisation over internal management and controls.

Saoradh has accused MI5 of using a false flag ‘suspect device’ to justify raids on homes of republican families in north Belfast.

The possibility that negotiations aimed at restoring government in the North would resume this week has faded after Sinn Fein said there was no basis for the talks process to start up again.

The family of Jim Loughrey, murdered by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in November 1976, have said they want to know how someone can be a suspect in four murders, but never be arrested or questioned by the police.

A near-death experience for the 26 County government has led to the appointment of the Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Coveney, as as the new Tanaiste [Deputy Prime Minister], replacing the disgraced Frances Fitzgerald following her resignation this week.

The disgraced Irish Deputy Prime Minister, Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald, has resigned, preventing a 26 County general election before Christmas.

The 26 County minority government could collapse on Tuesday after Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar refused to back down over a motion of no confidence in the deputy prime minister, Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald.

A historic Sinn Fein Ard Fheis has paved the way for a smooth transition of power after two senior Sinn Fein members ruled themselves out of a potential party leadership contest.

A coroner’s court has found the British Army had no justification for shooting dead 25-year-old Joseph Parker at a Christmas dance in north Belfast in 1971. His wife, who was pregnant with their second child at the time, died before she could hear his shooting declared “not justified”.

Gerry Adams has described as “an act of bad faith” a move by the British government to add a new section about an amnesty for British crown forces onto a bill for the implementation of the 2014 Stormont House Agreement.

A stop-and-search operation by the PSNI targeted dozens of republican activists attending the Saoradh Ard Fheis in Derry last weekend.

Former Ulster Unionist Party Deputy Leader John Taylor, now styling himself ‘Lord Kilclooney’, has been forced to issue an apology after referring to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as “the Indian”.

The latest embarrassing revelation of attempts to silence a police corruption whistleblower has escalated dramatically tonight with apparent confirmation that a deal underpinning the minority 26 County government is at an end.

It was an emotional night for Sinn Fein supporters in the RDS last night as Gerry Adams confirmed he was making his last Presidential Address after more than 30 years at the head of the organisation.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams tonight confirmed he will stand aside as leader of the party next year, and gave credit to other members of the leadership who have stepped aside or are in the process of doing so.

Rulings that the murder of 11-year-old British Army victim Francis Rowntree was ‘not justified’ and that the rubber bullets fired at him were lethal have been widely welcomed, although 45 years late and following the recent death of his mother.

The prospect of a Sinn Fein Tanaiste serving under a Fine Gael or Fianna Fail Taoiseach is closer today after a controversial vote at Sinn Fein’s annual conference in Dublin this weekend.

Hard-right Tories and British tabloids have expressed fury after the EU and the Dublin government both insisted on a British commitment that there will be no ‘hard border’ -- physical installations or patrols -- following Britain’s departure from the EU.

Republican prisoners in the north of Ireland have hit out at the brutality they are routinely being subjected to, after three of their number at Maghaberry were assaulted by warders during a remand hearing.

Comments this week by the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and others in the Dublin government have sparked outrage among homeless charities and housing campaigners.

Former rock star and TV celebrity Bob Geldof has been accused of hypocrisy after returning his freedom of the city of Dublin in protest at disgraced Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi holding the same honour, while he retains the title of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Sinn Fein has said talks with unionists to restore the Six County Executive are over after it was confirmed today that the British government is pushing a ‘Northern Ireland’ budget bill through all stages of the Westminster parliament, a key step towards the return of full Direct Rule of the north of Ireland from London.

A prominent Armagh republican, Gabriel Mackle, has been interned on the orders of the British Direct Ruler James Brokenshire.

The British Prime Minister has spoken separately to the Sinn Fein and DUP leaderships to insist that hope remains for a talks deal to retain the Stormont Assembly.

The PSNI is being ordered by a High Court judge to finalise and publish an all-encompassing report into suspected British state collusion with a loyalist unit behind more than 100 murders.

Hundreds of people are being forced from their homes every year by loyalist paramilitaries, according to figures released this week.

Senior republican Eddie Copeland has asked for a new inquest into the death of his father.

The 30th anniversary of the Enniskillen bombing was widely commemorated this week in Ireland and Britain, but Adam Lambert, a young Protestant killed instead of a Catholic in a reprisal attack, was largely forgotten.

An attempt to inject urgency into the Stormont talks process this week failed to resolve a stand-off over the Democratic Unionist Party’s refusal to implement past agreements on equality and respect for nationalists, leading to speculation that the process has reached an endpoint.

A newly announced IRA group has claimed responsibility for a rocket reportedly discovered in the Poleglass area of Belfast following a telephone warning.

A retired RUC police detective has admitted a colleague involved in the investigation into the massacre of six Catholic men in County Down in 1994 was more interested in setting up another murder than catching the killers.

Sinn Fein has strongly rejected the latest attempt to rule out prosecutions of British soldiers for war crimes committed during the conflict in Ireland.

The Dublin government is being urged to declare a national emergency following the identification of landlord-operated slums and another rise in homelessness in the face of a chronic shortage of accommodation.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams TD has strongly criticised the Spanish government after eight Catalan ministers were sent to jails in Madrid on charges of “rebellion” and “sedition” over a referendum on independence.

Saoradh has protested against the detention of its chairperson, national organiser and two Belfast activists, after they were seized in early morning raids on Thursday.

Gerry Adams has said efforts to rescue the political institutions in the north of Ireland are struggling because unionist leaders have not adapted to a rights-based society.

In a significant legal development, a High Court judge has admitted that a group of 14 Irish nationalist internees were tortured by British state forces in 1971.

A judge in Dublin has warned that a republican facing extradition to British jurisdiction could be subjected to inhuman and degrading conditions in Maghaberry Prison.

An Irishman facing prosecution for alleged IRA actions and gunrunning should not be surrendered to Lithuania because of concerns over whether he would receive a fair trial, the High Court has heard.

The 26 County state has said it will not recognise Catalonia’s declaration of independence from Spain, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin.

Catalonia has declared independence from Spain, ahead of an expected attempt by Madrid to invalidate its autonomous powers.

The British government has said it is ready to send British soldiers into Irish border areas if Britain leaves the EU without a Brexit deal.

Fine Gael leader and 26 County Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has suggested the north of Ireland should remain under British rule in the short term, even if there a majority in favour of unification with the south.

Leaders of two of the main pro-independence organisations in Catalonia have been sent to prison without bail on charges of “sedition” by the Spanish government as fears grow that Madrid is on a course to ignite civil war.

One of loyalism’s most notorious mass murderers has been protected by the British state, according to a new documentary, as the former British soldier was named for the first time.

The PSNI police has insisted that unionist paramilitary flags are “historic” and break no laws -- but that a sign reading “F**k the DUP” constitutes a hate crime.

New investigations into the criminal actions of Irish bankers during the financial crisis have revealed that some of their customers committed suicide after being swindled out of their homes in a mortgage fraud.

An Irish political prisoner of the Egyptian government, Ibrahim Halawa, has been released following an internment of more than four years.

A woman in her 20s has been killed by a falling tree as hurricane force winds began hitting every county today in the worst storm Ireland has seen in fifty years.

Another loyalist ‘supergrass’ case has collapsed with the news that not one of the loyalists or Special Branch police named in court by informer Gary Haggarty will face prosecution.

New details of a corruption scandal have undermined efforts to restore the Stormont Assembly in Belfast, despite reports of progress in negotiations.

A republican jailed on IRA charges has launched a bid to overturn her conviction.

The PSNI police in the north of Ireland has refused to release a report on policing reform in the 1970s written by a British intelligence officer with openly racist views.

Members of the Catalan parliament have signed a declaration of independence from Spain but have agreed to suspend its implementation pending talks with the Madrid government.

The Dublin government has set aside five million euro for a new public relations department but said it has no funds to pay thousands of pensions blocked by a rule described by the Minister for Finance himself as ‘bonkers and unbelievable’.

Irish nationalists have united in solidarity with Catalonia and in condemnation of the attempted suppression of this week’s independence poll.

Sinn Fein could be facing a damaging split over its internal party management, according to reports. A number of rows and expulsions in recent months has seen some members already link up in a potential new national structure.

The PSNI has been forced to admit unionist paramilitaries were behind threats which caused four Catholic families to flee their south Belfast homes.

With only weeks left until a British-imposed deadline for a deal on power-sharing talks, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill and the DUP leader Arlene Foster have clashed in an unusual public event.

A republican protest is set to take place against the PSNI after dozens of incidents of harassment in recent weeks.

The Dublin government is being taken to the European Court of Justice over its refusal to collect 13 billion euro in taxes from US tech giant Apple.

Scores of polling station workers and voters alike have been injured in Catalonia as an official referendum on independence today was violently suppressed by the Spanish authorities in Madrid.

Catholic families in a cross-community housing development in Belfast have been ordered to leave their homes in a sectarian threat from the unionist paramilitary UVF.

Speaking at Sinn Fein’s main commemoration for hunger striker Thomas Ashe, who died as a result of force-feeding five days into a hunger strike in Mountjoy Jail in September 1917, Gerry Adams has said said his party is still committed to making a deal with the DUP to return to powersharing.

In a u-turn, the European Parliament is set to call for the North of Ireland to remain part of the EU single market and customs union.

Fresh inquests have been sought into the deaths of two IRA Volunteers in separate incidents in 1972 and 1973 after documents emerged which confirmed that the men were unlawfully killed by British soldiers.

Self-defence claims raised by a British soldier who shot an innocent teenager at point-blank range in Derry 45 years ago have been stripped of all credibility, the High Court has heard.

A sudden and violent attempt to suppress the Catalan independence movement by the Madrid government has shocked those struggling for self-determination across the world.

A demonstration in support of killer British troops was dramatically opposed by relatives and supporters of their Irish victims.

There are hopes that a church ban on the use of Irish flags to honour republicans will be dropped after a priest fulfilled the dying wish of a lifelong republican and allowed his coffin to be draped in the Irish tricolour and Starry Plough.

A fault at the controversial Corrib gas terminal operated by Shell in County Mayo has terrified local residents who do not believe a “burning off” process at the plant is safe.

The US administration has been urged to reverse a decision to abolish the post of special envoy to the north of Ireland.

Unionists have expressed their support for a residents’ group which has called for a social housing development to be “filled up with people from the loyalist/unionist community”.

There have been protests against the planned use of a paid informer in the non-jury trial of republican political activist Kevin Braney, the chairperson of Saoradh in Dublin.

Using a long-standing cover name, loyalist paramilitaries in the UVF have sought to be legalised in a plan which has brought anger and incredulity to its victims.

The president of Republican Sinn Fein, Des Dalton, has warned that that border checkpoints following Brexit could become a target for militant republicans amid a surge in interest in republican politics.

Loyalists planned widespread disturbances across the Six Counties in response to council threats against their bonfires, it has been revealed.

A man whose parents were killed when loyalist paramilitaries colluded with British Crown forces has won High Court permission to challenge the refusal of the state to oversee and fund an effective investigation.

There are concerns that Irish neutrality could be the price paid by the Dublin government for the European Union to defend its interest in the Brexit negotiations with Britain.

The Garda police Commissioner in the 26 Counties, Noirin O’Sullivan, has announced that she is retiring after a litany of scandals and disgraces finally overwhelmed fierce resistance in government circles to her relinquishing the post.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams has made the first step in his gradual withdrawal from front-line politics in a historic shift which he believes will help pave the way for a new generation of party leaders.

In the latest financial scandal to embroil the North’s largest unionist party, a newspaper has alleged that prominent DUP MP Ian Paisley Jr accepted holidays worth a hundred thousand pounds from a country he is now helping to secure a trade deal.

A belligerent British government statement, apparently ruling out a role for the 26 County government in the running of the Six Counties, has cast a shadow over efforts to restart powersharing talks in Belfast.

The mother of a two-year-old boy has told how they were refused entry to Maghaberry prison for a family visit because her son was wearing camouflage-patterned shoes.

A prisoner support organisation has said they have passed on a recording of a conservation in which a member of British military intelligence attempted to extract information about recently released remand prisoner Carl Reilly.

The flagship chat show of Ireland’s state-run TV network sparked outrage when a map of Ireland showed the Six Counties of the north of Ireland cut off.

A former RUC police officer this week said he believed the British government was aware of the activities of the Glenanne Gang’s death squads at the very highest level.

A decoy talks proposal by Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster for a ‘parallel’ process alongside the Stormont Assembly has been dismissed by northern nationalists as an attempt to muddy the political waters.

Sinn Fein has urged the Dublin government to block talks on future ties between Britain and the European Union as not enough progress has been made on agreeing the status of the border through Ireland once Britain exits the EU.

Two women who lost loved ones in the conflict have occupied the Museum of Free Derry in the city’s Bogside, refusing to get out at closing time and sleeping overnight on the floor after a row over a notorious exhibition which equates Bloody Sunday victims with their killers.

A junior Fine Gael Minister bizarrely sought to implicate Sinn Fein in the worst loyalist massacre of the conflict this week.

Leo Varadkar’s minority government in Dublin has been accused of crassly ignoring the housing crisis amid a spate of deaths among homeless people.

Five Catholic and mixed families have been forced out of their homes in Derry amid a pogrom by loyalist paramilitaries in the predominately Protestant Waterside area of the city.

A self-confessed IRA informer has been found dead in a swimming pool in Jamaica.

Secret links between the British government and the Catholic church have been revealed in classified government papers released this week.

A prominent Sinn Fein figure has said that party members have become disillusioned with the Stormont Assembly even as Sinn Fein issued a call for new efforts to restore power-sharing in the Six Counties.

Sinn Fein Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald has described Fine Gael’s attempts to introduce a mandatory ID Card for the 26 Counties “by the back door” as a textbook example of a government that does not believe it is accountable to the people.

The family of a teenager believed to have been shot by a British soldier on the grounds of a Belfast hospital more than four decades ago have condemned a two-year delay to the inquest into his death.

Claims by the British government that they wish to impose no additional border reinforcements in Ireland following their departure from the European Union are being treated with scepticism.

A nationalist bonfire went ahead in Derry last weekend following an agreement to relocate the fire away from a main road.

Two nationalist residents groups held protests against a coat-trailing loyalist march through the mainly nationalist village of Rasharkin on Friday night, August 18.

Republican Sinn Fein has denounced an arrest operation in the Armagh and Tyrone areas which saw several members of the party seized over a 24 hour period. In one instance a member was taken ill in the process and needed an ambulance to take him to hospital.

With the prospects of Irish reunification appearing to grow in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, some elements within the 26 County establishment have become increasingly nervous.

The number of homeless people in Ireland could reach 10,000 by the middle of next year if the low level of government activity continues, charities have warned.

A one-sided approach by council authorities to bonfires has been blamed for a riotous conflagration in nationalist areas of Belfast city centre this week which threatened to reignite conflict at sectarian interfaces in the city.

There is increasing speculation that Sinn Fein could become the junior partners in the next coalition government in the 26 Counties after the party leadership refused to rule it out.

A protest by a group called ‘Irish Socialist Republicans’ successfully disrupted a concert performance in honour of the British Army at a rural village in County Limerick this week.

Over a thousand people took part in an anti-internment parade through Belfast which was banned from the city centre last weekend, while two tiny loyalist and fascist events were allowed to take place there.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly has condemned the DUP for “cosying up to the UDA” while Sinn Fein was “standing up against armed groups from right across the community”.

Undercover police who spied on political groups have been identified by a judge-led public inquiry in England into illegal police operations.

An Irish parliamentary report on achieving Irish unity has placed the republican goal of a united Ireland in the context of 26 County constitutional parliamentary politics for the first time.

The 26 County Taoiseach has made his first visit north of the border since becoming Fine Gael leader, and called for a “unique solution” to the status of the Six Counties after Brexit and attending a Gay Pride event.

The PSNI police have been provided with the keys to every property in the tower blocks of republican north Belfast, it has emerged.

A dispute which saw unaligned republican prisoner Donal Billings undertake a brief hunger protest after he was removed from the republican wing of Portlaoise jail has ended amicably with his return to the wing.

Tensions remain high in the North following ‘the Twelfth’ marches by the Orange Order and sectarian bonfires earlier this month, and ahead of a confluence of nationalist, loyalist and far-right protests and counter-protests in Belfast on Sunday.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams has said he would “cancel his holidays now” to deal with outstanding issues and get Stormont’s Executive back up and running.

In a dramatic vindication for the grieving families, the High Court in Belfast has accepted that the PSNI wrecked an investigation into collusion by Britain in the notorious Glenanne Gang, which was responsible for killing 130 Catholics.

The widow of murdered defence lawyer Pat Finucane has been granted permission to take her bid for a public inquiry into his death to the highest court in England.

There is a growing media focus on the Orange Order in the north of Ireland after reports that the secretive anti-Catholic organisation has a violent initiation ritual known as ‘riding the goat’, and that its members were told not to use the phrase ‘Rest in Peace’ as it is too Catholic.

There are indications that the Dublin government may be waking up to the risks involved in reinforcing the partition of Ireland after it rejected the prospect of a new economic border to impose Brexit.

The British government may be planning to supplant the power-sharing Executive at Stormont with the ‘consultative committee’ set up as part of the deal with the Democratic Unionists to prop up the Tory government at Westminster, it has been warned.

Loyalists marched through a mixed community in south Belfast on Friday night in a show of strength in tribute to notorious UDA paramilitaries linked to a string of sectarian atrocities.

The Orange Order has refused to apologise after photographs emerged of supporters in Scotland wearing bizarre and shocking costumes expressing racist and sectarian hate.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams TD has said that Micheal Martin “needs to get serious about a United Ireland” following the Fianna Fail leader’s refusal to support the establishment of a parliamentary committee on Irish Unity.

A third attempt to extradite Liam Campbell to Lithuania is being opposed over the nature of the prison conditions in the country.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has launched a legal bid to overturn two historical convictions for attempting to escape from Long Kesh internment camp.

Nationalist and republican groups are coming together this weekend to again demand freedom for imprisoned Irish activist Tony Taylor.

Protests are being organised on behalf of a republican prisoner who is being kept in isolation among the general criminal cohort at Maghaberry jail.

The Democratic Unionist Party has caused a furore by issuing conflicting statements about the burning of a coffin effigy of the late Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness on a loyalist bonfire in east Belfast on Tuesday.

The height of the Protestant marching season passed more quietly than recent years as Orangemen and bandsmen largely respected the rulings of the Parades Commission, which adjudicates on the routes of contentious parades.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has expressed his surprise at remarks made by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, during an interview with Time Magazine, in which he says that he is ‘very much opposed’ to a referendum on Irish reunification.

Links between local councils and loyalist paramilitary groups continue to grow with the erection in north Down of banners carrying the motto of infamous UDA death squads.

Saoradh, the new republican political party, has alleged that British military intelligence (MI5) has been targeting Irish republicans in County Tyrone, in attempts to recruit British agents and informers.

An agreement between unionists and the Conservative Party at the Westminster parliament is set to be challenged in the courts.

Last night saw an almost 50% increase in bonfire-related emergency callouts since last year as state-funded loyalist ‘Eleventh Night’ blazes damaged property and threatened lives across the North.

Stung by criticism that it has conspired in loyalist paramilitary crime, Belfast city councillors have now attempted to limit the size of four ‘Eleventh Night’ bonfires, despite having previously funded and supported the infamously sectarian displays.

The outcome of the Jobstown trial is causing chaos for the political establishment in Dublin after an attempted frame-up failed to jail a sitting TD and other left-wing activists.

There are concerns that the European Union is ready to sacrifice Ireland in its Brexit negotiations after EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier declared that a “frictionless” EU border across Ireland is not possible following Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.

A complete ban on Orange Order marches is being considered in Glasgow, Scotland after council officials examined footage showing a sectarian and racist song being chanted at a parade last weekend.

Interned Derry republican Tony Taylor is to sue the British government for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment.

Dublin City Council this week passed a motion calling for the release of Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton, victims of a miscarriage of justice in March 2009. Gavin O’Reilly takes a fresh look at the case.

The collapse of talks to revive power-sharing has been described by Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill as a “monumental failure” by British Prime Minister Theresa May who she said had “set back decades of work” in the peace process.

A deal between the Tories and the Democratic Unionist Party could allow the unionist hardliners to control British policy in the north of Ireland for the lifetime of the current Westminster parliament.

The 26 County political establishment suffered a devastating blow on Thursday when a jury rejected an attempt to jail six political activists on accusations that they had ‘kidnapped’ former Taoiseach Joan Burton and her secretary.

Despite a sudden flurry of activity, the Stormont talks passed through another British-imposed deadline on Thursday, the fourth this year.

The DUP has immediately rejected a renewed Sinn Fein campaign to convince unionists of the merits of a united Ireland.

Loyalists have renewed sectarian intimidation at the Holy Cross Catholic Girls School in the Ardoyne district of Belfast by painting red, white and blue paint on kerbstones and the letters ‘LA’ at the entrance.

Saoradh, the Irish republican party formed last September, has experienced a serious split with the resignation of 23 members from its Belfast branch.

Socialist Paul Murphy TD and five other men have been found not guilty of falsely imprisoning former Tanaiste Joan Burton and her adviser during a 2014 water charges protest.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the Conservative party have completed a deal which will see the DUP prop up a minority Tory government.

English royals Elizabeth and Charles Windsor have delivered the legislative agenda of the presumptive minority government in London for the next two years which revolves around its uncertain plans to withdraw from the European Union.

Relatives of the victims of a notorious British state agent watched as Gary Haggarty answered guilty to a lengthy list of charges at Belfast Crown Court on Friday.

Talks between the Democratic Unionist Party and the British Conservatives have continued in London on a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement for the DUP to prop up a minority Tory government at Westminster.

A march is taking place in London today [Saturday] in opposition to the DUP and its policies.

There has been a public protest at the erection of loyalist paramilitary flags in South Belfast after the recently elected MP, Emma Little-Pengelly of the Democratic Unionists, claimed that she sees ‘no demand’ for their removal and that residents ‘do not want a fuss’.

The involvement and support of Belfast City Council for loyalist paramilitary bonfires reached farcical levels this week after 3,000 wooden pallets being stored by the council as fuel for the pyres ended up being stolen by persons unknown.

An attempt by British Prime Minister Theresa May to placate the North of Ireland parties over her plans to form a pact with hardline unionists saw Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams tell her that her government is “in clear breach of the Good Friday Agreement”.

A raid on the headquarters of the republican party Saoradh in Belfast has been described as an act of oppression amid the political upheaval of recent weeks.

An Orangeman accused of attacking nationalists in the manner of an Islamist terrorist attack has been found guilty of assault and causing grievous bodily harm.

In one of a number of incidents related to parade tensions, loyalists marchers belonging to the Apprentice Boys of Derry staged a mob attack on an Irish bar in Liverpool last Saturday evening.

The wife of interned republican activist Tony Taylor is hoping public protest and legal action will bring his freedom after a parole panel refused his release earlier this month.

The long goodbye of the outgoing 26 County Taoiseach has ended after he handed in his resignation to President Michael D Higgins, and his successor, Leo Varadkar, received his seal of office.

There was a surreal air in Belfast on Monday as talks aimed at restoring power-sharing in the north of Ireland went ahead, even as the DUP were separately negotiating to enter a deal on government with the Tories in London.

Sinn Fein has played down the impact of a deal between unionists and Conservatives as it emerged the Democratic Unionist Party will support a minority Tory government in London.

Stormont negotiations scheduled to recommence on Monday are unlikely to go ahead as the Democratic Unionists have turned their focus to London following the Westminster general election.

The political geography of the north of Ireland has been rewritten following the Westminster election as Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists entirely obliterated the smaller parties, with Sinn Fein emerging as the biggest winner with three extra seats.

A protest is being held in Derry on Sunday after interned republican activist Tony Taylor was again refused release from prison.

The families of six Catholic men all killed by the British army more than 44 years ago have asked the Six County attorney general for a new inquest.

The PSNI police has admitted it failed to disclose a murder bid in Belfast earlier this year as a behind-the-scenes vigilante battle against drug dealers was uncovered.

A nightmarish final Westminster election result has given the DUP the opportunity to form a highly unstable coalition with the Conservatives.

A surge in support for Sinn Fein has seen the party win seats in Foyle, South Down and Fermanagh/South Tyrone, wiping the rival nationalist SDLP off the Westminster political map.

The Conservatives are failing to gain seats and their majority in the House of Commons could even be in doubt as early results come in from the British general election.

A brutal murder by the unionist paramilitary UDA of a feud rival and its subsequent election endorsement of the DUP has dramatically raised the issue of collusion between unionist politicians and loyalist murder gangs ahead of next week’s Westminster election.

In a move which has brought the two nationalist parties in the North closer than ever politically, the SDLP is backing calls for a border poll on Irish reunification.

Sinn Fein North Belfast candidate John Finucane has received a chilling loyalist death threat as the election campaign entered its final week.

A protest was held on Friday afternoon, June 2, over the inclusion of the names of British soldiers and RUC members killed during the conflict in an installation at the Museum of Free Derry.

A smear campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn by the British Conservative Party took a sinister turn this week after the party promoted a “fake news” attack video over his views on the conflict in Ireland.

A former IRA Volunteer, John Crawley, delivered the main address at the unveiling of a new mural in honour of IRA martyr George McBrearty on the 36th anniversary of his death on Sunday.

Leo Varadkar is to become Ireland’s youngest and first openly gay Taoiseach. He defeated his rival for the Fine Gael leadership, Simon Coveney, in an internal party ballot today, replacing Enda Kenny who announced his retirement last month.

The collapse of the trial of notorious Irish bankster Sean FitzPatrick has increased suspicions that the 26 County state is deliberately facilitating white collar crime.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned of a resurgence of conflict in Ireland as a possible consequence of Britain leaving the EU.

A family including an 11-month-old baby have escaped injury after their house was paint-bombed and windows smashed in a sectarian attack.

British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was “on the right side of history” in his attitude to the IRA and Irish republicanism, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has said.

Videos of PSNI police abuse and harassment of republicans and the people of Derry have received hundreds upon thousands of views, likes and shares on the internet.

The family of a teenager killed by British soldiers 46 years ago have accused the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) of trying to obstruct a new investigation into her death.

The current Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar looks well placed to win the Fine Gael leadership contest and take over as head of the Dublin government.

The DUP is under intense pressure to reveal the source of a large donation received during the referendum on Britain’s EU membership last June.

The Westminster election campaign in the North has been marred by a series of pejorative insults over the past week.

The Gaelic Athletics Association has been accused of ignoring the anniversary of the murder of one of their senior officials 20 years ago as they attempt to curry favour with the British establishment.

A loyalist bonfire group has said unionists will never remove any flag “at the behest of Sinn Fein/IRA” after the party complained about flags erected near Belfast City Airport.

A Derry republican has described how FBI officers were taken off ISIS detail in the lead up to the world’s largest Thanksgiving parade in New York last November to question him about his political activism in Derry.

Enda Kenny has announced that he will step down as leader of the Fine Gael Party, effective at midnight, but will continue to fill the position of Taoiseach until June.

A visit by British royals to Ireland has again polarised republicans, with protests organised as leading Sinn Fein figures greeted Charles Windsor and his wife Camilla.

Remains found near Rouen in northern France have been identified as those of republican socialist Seamus Ruddy, who disappeared in unexplained circumstances 32 years ago.

An activist journalist and blogger has become the human face of the policing crisis in the 26 Counties after she took her life following a public humiliation at the hands of the Gardai.

In a surprise move, a date has finally been set for an inquest into the deaths of those shot in a bout of killing by British soldiers in Ballymurphy almost 50 years ago.

A major rally calling for the introduction of an Irish language act for the north is to be held in Belfast.

A Derry businessman who acted as a secret communication channel between British military intelligence and elements of the IRA leadership has died at the age of 82.

The republican armed group known as Oglaigh na hEireann has denied reports that it is involved in talks with the British or 26 County governments or that it is on the verge of disbanding.

In a significant political development, the youngest son of murdered defence lawyer Pat Finucane is to fight the North Belfast Westminster constituency for Sinn Fein.

Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill caused a controversy by her participation in the party’s event to commemorate the deaths of eight IRA Volunteers in east Tyrone, during which she called for a complete end to armed actions.

The Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement said they have concerns about the detention without trial of republican Tony Taylor in Maghaberry jail.

A man targeted by the PSNI as a potential state informer has secured an unprecedented court ruling to prevent the Crown forces from paying money directly into his bank account.

There is new hope that the remains of a republican socialist who was killed and secretly buried in mysterious circumstances in France will be found and his remains recovered.

An official statement by the European Union that it will accept a future united Ireland into the EU has been cautiously welcomed by republicans as bringing international diplomatic recognition for impending Irish unification.

The widow of an unarmed Belfast civilian shot and killed by British soldiers in 1971 has lived to see a coroner clear his name after 46 years of disinformation and lies.

The first weeks of the Westminster general election campaign in the north of Ireland have been dominated by suggestions of strategic pacts and alliances, which so far have made little headway.

Relatives of people killed by the British army have reacted angrily after a Westminster committee recommended a halt to the investigation and prosecution of soldiers for war crimes committed during the conflict.

A second arson attack on a Catholic church in Belfast city centre is being blamed on loyalists.

The trial of water-charge protestors accused of ‘falsely imprisoning’ former Labour leader and Tanaiste Joan Burton began this week as hundreds of supporters gathered near the court.

Crisis talks in the north of Ireland have been suspended until June following the decision of the British Prime Minister to call a snap general election, an unexpected move which angered politicians in Belfast and cast new uncertainty over the future of Stormont and its powersharing institutions.

Tens of thousands of republicans took to the streets of villages, towns and cities across Ireland last weekend to pay their respects to Ireland’s fallen heroes.

There have been calls for a public inquiry after a Louth man who shot and killed a Garda policeman and seriously injured his ex-girlfriend before killing himself was confirmed to have been a state informer who had been told to spy on IRA groups.

Unionists have expressed outrage at a gravestone erected for former deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness as republicans gathered to remember him a month after his passing.

The family of a Catholic man killed by loyalists in collusion with state forces has called for the release of details of a recently found arms cache which they believe could finally secure a conviction for his murder.

Over 80,000 people have signed a petition calling on Simon Harris, the 26 County health minister, to prevent a religious order from being handed ownership of a new maternity hospital.

In a surprise development, the British Prime Minister Theresa May has announced a snap Westminster general election for June 8th.

Sinn Fein has been urged to exonerate those republicans and others who were executed as ‘informers’ on the orders of a British double agent operating inside the Provisional IRA.

A demonstration by former British soldiers in Belfast city and a counter-demonstration by republican group Saoradh have both passed off peacefully on Good Friday.

A deal between the two main right-wing parties on water charges in the 26 Counties has reignited the controversy, despite claims that the charges have been scrapped “for most people”.

A decades-long justice campaign for a teenage boy shot dead by the British Army in Derry in 1972 has been fully vindicated after a coroner ruled this week that Manus Deery was ‘totally innocent’ and his murder ‘totally unjustified’.

Talks between the Stormont political parties have been extended into May amid a deadlock which Sinn Fein has blamed on unionists’ refusal to back a rights-based society.

Former British Direct Ruler in the North of Ireland, Theresa Villiers, has become the subject of ridicule after she expressed support for freedom and unity for the divided island of... Cyprus.

The Dublin government’s failure to secure any kind of veto for Ireland in the negotiations following Brexit has been strongly criticised as a dereliction of its duties.

Republicans and former British soldiers are set to stage opposing demonstrations in Belfast city centre on Good Friday.

Members of the PSNI Special Branch used a pair of shopping gift cards in an attempt to turn a Fermanagh activist into an informer, as spying activity appears to have increased ahead of next weekend’s republican commemorations.

A report for Stormont’s ‘Department for Communities’ has admitted that a scheme for funding community halls was biased in favour of the Protestant community.

The British Direct Ruler James Brokenshire has been urged to give up the chairmanship of the talks at Stormont after the latest round of discussions failed to make any real progress.

The Basque armed group ETA says it will disarm on Saturday, leaving down their weapons “so that Basques can continue taking steps to achieve peace and freedom for our country”.

Despite the Brexit process, the north of Ireland could remain in the European Union pending a unity referendum, according to papers published this week by a European Parliament committee.

The organisation known as the new IRA has said it struck a PSNI armoured vehicle with an ‘explosively formed projectile’ (EFP) in County Tyrone last week.

A prisoner in the republican wing of Maghaberry prison has been removed following a dispute with other prisoners in a row which has pitched two small republican political parties against each other.

Sinn Fein has said it will be insisting on the implementation of previous peace deals in talks which are set to go on at Stormont after a deadline for agreement was extended by the British government.

The 26 County Garda police commissioner Noirin O Sullivan remains in her post despite a barrage of shocking and incredible revelations about the depth of fraud and corruption in the police force she heads.

The chairman of the Dublin parliament’s Public Accounts Committee has alleged that pressure was put on him by the Minister for Finance to limit its investigation into the notorious cut-price sale of state-owned properties in the Six Counties known as ‘Project Eagle’

The European Union has confirmed that the Tory government in London has triggered article 50, beginning a two-year process that will see Britain, and possibly the north of Ireland, fall out of the European Union.

The British government has called for further talks to restore the Stormont Executive after efforts so far fell well short of reaching today’s ‘deadline’ for forming a power-sharing administration in the Six Counties.

Sinn Fein has withdrawn from all-party talks at Stormont on restoring the Six County Assembly after reporting no substantive progress in any of the issues under discussion. The talks involving the Democratic Unionist Party and the Dublin and London governments had a deadline of tomorrow afternoon.

Grief turned to pride for Sinn Fein this week as tens of thousands paid their respects to a leader who came to symbolise peace in Ireland and the process through which the Provisional IRA gave birth to a political powerhouse.

British Prime Minister Theresa May will receive a very clear message that the north of Ireland wants to stay in the European Union before she triggers Brexit on Wednesday, Sinn Fein has said.

A senior MP for the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has said there is “virtually no chance” of a deal being struck for the restoration of the Stormont Assembly in Belfast ahead of the looming deadline next Monday. Sammy Wilson described Sinn Fein’s position as “unworkable” and claimed the party are “overplaying their hand”.

Drivers and other employees of Ireland’s state-run bus company have said they feel they have “nothing to lose” as a nationwide bus strike has focused attention on the crisis over wages in the public transport sector.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been urged to do more to help those coming to Ireland to escape global conflicts following his comments on immigration in the US last week, which received unprecedented international media attention.

The full text of remarks made by former US President at the Requiem Mass for former Sinn Fein deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

The graveside oration for Martin McGuinness delivered by Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams at his funeral today.

Senior political figures and officials from the Irish, British and US establishments have joined thousands of mourners from across Ireland to attend the funeral in Derry of Martin McGuinness.

Thousands of people have attended the removal of Martin McGuinness in advance of his funeral in his native Derry.

Sinn Fein is in mourning today and tributes have been paid across the Irish and British political establishment as news spread this morning that Martin McGuinness had succumbed to his serious illness.

The death has been announced of Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator in the peace process. He passed away early this morning at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry.

There has been an angry response in both Ireland and Scotland after British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would block referendums on Irish unity and Scottish independence following the Brexit vote to leave the European Union.

The failure of the authorities at Stormont and in London to challenge loyalist paramilitary violence has been highlighted after a UDA faction murdered a man in broad daylight this week.

There has been a broadly negative reaction to an invitation issued by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to US president Donald Trump to visit Ireland. Protests opposing his visit are already being planned by left-wing parties.

Some information about British state killings during the conflict can never be made public because it would “put lives at risk”, British Direct Ruler James Brokenshire has declared.

Continuing allegations of unionist bigotry and corruption hang over power-sharing talks, which face a potential deadline next week when the British government could call another snap Assembly election or reimpose full direct rule from London.

Families given emergency accommodation in hotel rooms are spending St Patrick’s weekend on the streets after they were pushed out to make room for tourists.

Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon says she plans to trigger another independence referendum. She said the new poll should be held between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

In an announcement timed to coincide with the run-up to St Patrick’s Day, a referendum is to be held on whether to allow Irish citizens living abroad or in the North of Ireland to vote in Presidential elections.

There have been vocal and widespread calls for Irish reunification in the face of the British government’s determination to leave the European Union and a historic election result last week which has delivered unprecedented political strength for nationalism and Sinn Fein.

The British Direct Ruler James Brokenshire has threatened to rerun last week’s historic election after Sinn Fein walked out of a meeting with him over his government’s refusal to allow inquests into state killings to proceed.

A South African-style ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ is being considered to deal with the terrible legacy of Ireland’s homes for single mothers following the confirmation this week of the find of a mass grave at a shelter run by an order of nuns in the west of Ireland.

In a very significant decision, a High Court judge has ruled that the family of a woman shot dead by the British Army in west Belfast 45 years ago has been let down for decades by the criminal investigation system.

There have been warnings that the 26 County government is once again operating a supergrass system against political activists after an alleged paid informer played a part in the conviction of two men in Dublin this week.

The family of jailed republican Tony Taylor are to stage a protest this Saturday afternoon, 11 March, at Strand Road PSNI base in Derry to mark the first anniversary of his internment without trial. This petition explains the case and all republicans are urged to show their support.

Talks to revive the Stormont Executive have hit a stalemate after less than a day as DUP leader Arlene Foster resisted demands by Sinn Fein for her to step aside First Minister.

Thursday’s election has significantly altered the make-up of politics in the north of Ireland as a more focussed and energised Sinn Fein enticed republican voters back to the polls and historically ended the unionist majority at Stormont.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has said this week’s Assembly election would have a historic significance that would “resonate for years”. However, political parties and leaders now “have a job of work” to negotiate an agreement that delivers on the outstanding elements of all of the previous agreements.

There were heavy PSNI raids lasting for over four hours against the homes of republican families in Creggan, Derry on Monday, February 28, 2017, just three days before the Stormont Assembly election.

Irish Travellers have been recognised as an indigenous ethnic minority in a historic declaration in the Dublin parliament.

Human remains of a significant number of babies and infants up to three years of age have been found on the site of a former ‘mother and baby’ home in Tuam, County Galway, confirming horor reports of an effective holocaust against those children at the home run by the Bon Secours order of nuns.

Anti-water-charge campaigners have celebrated after Fine Gael’s Minister for Housing and leadership contender Simon Coveney finally stated that “water charges are gone”, although there are still concerns the party may try to reintroduce them in the future.

Sinn Fein has attained its highest ever share of the vote in the North of Ireland and came within touching distance of outpolling all of the other parties as votes were tallied today.

The snap 2017 Assembly election has been a good one for Sinn Fein, with the party so far holding on to its seats in all constituencies and showing particular strength in the traditional republican heartlands.

The polls have closed in the Six County Assembly election with voter participation reported to have substantially recovered from the record low voter turnout in last year’s Assembly election.

The north’s largest unionist party is increasingly fearful ahead of next month’s Stormont Assembly election amid predictions that it could fall below the thirty seats it needs to hold on to its veto over political change in the north of Ireland.

The embattled 26 County Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, has said that the eventual Brexit deal must allow access into the EU for the Six Counties of Ireland still under British rule in the event of Irish reunification.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has been condemned after she hit out at the families of those killed by British soldiers and their legal representatives during a debate at the Westminster parliament.

A PSNI policeman narrowly escaped a limpet mine attack in Derry City in the latest incident being attributed to the breakaway armed group known as the ‘new IRA’

Under intense pressure from within his own party to resign, the 26 County Taoiseach Enda Kenny has insisted he should be allowed to travel to Washington DC to meet Donald Trump on St Patrick’s Day, before making an announcement.

A suspect in the sectarian loyalist shooting of a young Catholic father vowed to clear all “taigs” from the area, a lawyer told an inquest this week.

The 26 County Taoiseach Enda Kenny is struggling to retain the leadership of his Fine Gael party after his ponderous and contradictory responses to allegations of a smear campaign against a Garda police whistleblower.

One of 14 Irish nationalists tortured during internment was bitten by a British soldier’s dog and forced to drink from the animal’s dish, the High Court heard this week.

The family of Paul Bradley, who was murdered by a sectarian mob just over 30 years ago, has made a heartfelt appeal for information.

In a statement that has created upheaval within his own party, the leader of the Ulster Unionists has said that he will vote for the nationalist SDLP after his own party -- but ahead of other unionist candidates -- in the coming Stormont election.

The Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association has warned of a systematic effort by the jail administration at Maghaberry to harass and intimidate the families of republican prisoners during visits.

Sinn Fein’s new northern leader has said there should be no hierarchy of victims as she spoke at a vigil in memory of four IRA Volunteers who were gunned down in an SAS ambush in a churchyard in Clonoe, County Tyrone.

In a potentially historic development, the London parliament has voted to allow the British government renege on the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement as part of its negotiations to leave the European Union.

An admission by a government agency that it circulated false allegations of sexual abuse against a Garda police whistleblower has dramatically supported claims that the 26 County state engaged in a smear campaign against Sergeant Maurice McCabe with the support of successive police commissioners.

DUP leader Arlene Foster has been accused of using bigoted comments to win over unionist hardliners and distract from a corruption scandal which has threatened to topple her from her position as First Minister for the Six Counties.

Irish republican activists have claimed a victory after a planned protest march by former British soldiers that had been scheduled to take place through Derry next month has been cancelled.

The Irish Republican Socialist Party has said that it has received complaints from parents expressing concern at the decision of a local primary school in west Belfast to permit the PSNI to “ingratiate themselves” with children during school hours.

Activists in Cork have defaced street signs referencing British monarchs and have called instead for signs to honour Ireland’s heroes.

The British government appears to be planning a return of customs controls across the Six County border and may even be hoping to push all of Ireland out of the EU following hardline statements on its Brexit plans this week.

Crowds of local people joined a diverse range of activists and bands at the Bloody Sunday March for Justice on Sunday. Relatives of those killed and representatives from the wounded led the march, carrying 14 white crosses to symbolise those who lost their lives on Bloody Sunday.

Both the Dublin and London governments were fully aware that torture techniques such as waterboarding were being used against nationalists in the north of Ireland but remained silent, according to documents uncovered by the Pat Finucane centre.

There are fresh doubts over the return of the Belfast powersharing Executive after the SDLP, the second largest nationalist party behind Sinn Fein, ruled out entering a new administration with DUP leader Arlene Foster amid mounting allegations over her role in a corruption scandal.

PSNI police chief George Hamilton has responded defiantly after the Supreme Court in London finally confirmed that the PSNI were wrong in their decision not to stop intimidatory loyalist flag protest marches four years ago.

The unexplained halting of an investigation into the murder of an Irish forestry worker is a scandal which goes to the highest levels of police and government, Dublin’s High Court has heard.

The ‘New IRA’ has claimed responsibility for the ambush of a PSNI patrol in North Belfast on Sunday in which a member of the force was struck twice. The attack, which took place on the Crumlin Road close to a north Belfast interface left the victim with injuries to his arm.

Gerry Adams has warned that Brexit will wreck the fundamental human rights safeguards set out under the Good Friday Agreement. The Sinn Fein leader pointed out that rights enshrined in the 1998 peace deal would be negated by Britain simply pulling out of the EU.

A Conservative MP and former British army officer, Bob Stewart, has said he worked as “kind of a torturer” when he was serving in the north of Ireland.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams has said the party’s new Six County leader, Michelle O’Neill, “needs to grow into the job”, but could work alongside DUP leader Arlene Foster in the Stormont Executive if corruption scandals are resolved.

In a major policy shift, Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald has said that her party could take part in the next coalition government as a junior partner of either Fine Gael or Fianna Fail.

The families of some of the 48 young people who died in the 1981 Stardust fire disaster in Dublin have expressed concerns over a proposed review of new evidence in their campaign for a fresh inquiry.

Mid-Ulster Assembly member Michelle O’Neill is to lead Sinn Fein into the Six County Assembly elections in March, it has been announced.

An emotional Martin McGuinness has said he wants to become an ambassador for peace after the former Sinn Fein deputy First Minister quit electoral politics this week due to ill-health.

A commentary in the week of the historic announcement by Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness, by colleague and party leader Gerry Adams.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has said his party will make the announcement of Martin McGuinness’s successor next week. Speaking to RTE news on Friday, he insisted the former deputy First Minister is just “standing down” from office and he hopes that he will be back.

The DUP ‘Communities’ Minister Paul Givan has been accused of acting to a sectarian agenda after he distributed almost two million pounds in grants to loyalist organisations, Orange lodges and Protestant church groups.

The British Army appeared in numbers in west Belfast last weekend as troops in full uniform were deployed alongside PSNI police in the Poleglass area of West Belfast.

A landmark speech on Britain’s departure from the European Union has failed to allay fears of “hard border” controls and economic chaos across the island of Ireland.

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has effectively retired from politics after announcing he will not be standing for re-election in the 2 March poll to the Belfast Assembly.

The British government has announced that elections to the Stormont Assembly wil take place on Thursday, March 2nd after the Sinn Fein/DUP power-sharing Executive formally collapsed this afternoon.

The north of Ireland is inexorably heading for an election following the resignation of Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and the failure of last-minute talks efforts by the two governments.

Martin McGuinness has called for his privacy to be respected by the media after a newspaper published details of a serious illness for which he is said to be receiving treatment.

A DUP decision to re-instate an Irish language bursary scheme has been described by Sinn Fein as “too little, too late”.

Protests are being organised following a series of heavy-handed police raids on the home of republican activists over the Christmas and New Year period.

A woman forced from her home in a sectarian attack in Belfast has said she was told of a loyalist death threat by representatives of a so-called loyalist ‘community group’ which is funded by the Stormont administration.

A group of homeless people vacated a state-owned office building in Dublin on Thursday, ending a month-long squat that brought international attention to the housing crisis in Ireland.

Sinn Fein has expressed a much tougher line against the intransigence and bigotry of the DUP following yesterday's resignation by Martin McGuinness from the party's post of Deputy First Minister. An election to the Stormont Assembly in Belfast appears certain to be called next Monday and is due to take place within weeks.

Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has resigned in protest at unionist arrogance and intransigence, collapsing the Stormont Executive and throwing a question mark over power-sharing and the political process in the north of Ireland.

Sinn Fein has issued repeated warnings that the Six County institutions are now at a “defining point” after the unionist First Minister Arlene Foster again refused to step down over allegations that she and her Democratic Unionist Party orchestrated the enrichment of insiders, supporters and party donors through a bogus ‘green energy’ scheme.

A former leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats has called for a “united Ireland in Europe” as a means of dealing with the fallout over Britain’s Brexit decision to quit the EU.

State papers have shown the degree to which former 26 County Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald accepted the Tory line in exchanges with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago.

British soldiers of the Ulster Defence Regiment tried to intimidate a 26-County army checkpoint in County Donegal following unionist protests against the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Housing activists in the 26 Counties have handed an open letter to Finance Minister Michael Noonan, calling on him to order the use of vacant, state-controlled properties to house the homeless.

The number of patients stuck on trolleys awaiting beds in hospitals in the 26 County state has broken new records, forcing Minister for Health Simon Harris to apologise for his failure to deal with the crisis.

The centenary year of the 1916 Rising ends with new optimism over a campaign of direct action against inequality headed by a motley group of musicians, actors and writers. However, the sight of thousands of people braving the cold to receive food handouts in Dublin and Limerick has highlighted the scale of the challenge.

The futures of both DUP First Minister Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness are in the balance after a farcical power-play at Stormont this week.

News that a DUP Minister at Stormont has axed a bursary scheme for children from deprived communities to study Irish has drawn a bitterly hostile reaction from Irish language and equality campaigners.

The High Court in Belfast has allowed the British government to hold a secret hearing in a legal action over the alleged cover-up of the 1998 Real IRA Omagh bombing.

The family of Derry republican prisoner Tony Taylor have said that it will be a ‘very rough Christmas’ without him.

A republican political prisoner, Luke O’Neill is spending Christmas on a dirty protest in Maghaberry Prison in protest at a refusal to move him to the republican wing.

A motion of no confidence in First Minister Arlene Foster was vetoed by the Democratic Unionist Party today, but not before other parties in the Stormont Assembly staged a theatrical walk-out from a chamber in which they are powerless to effect political change without DUP support.

Over a thousand people have attended protests in Belfast and Derry calling for DUP leader Arlene Foster to resign as Six County First Minister after a public display of DUP infighting over corruption allegations.

A group of Irish celebrities have spearheaded an action to tackle the homelessness crisis by taking over a government-owned property to provide accommodation.

The prosecution of two former British paratroopers for the killing of Official IRA Volunteer Joe McCann brings hope to his family who have campaigned for justice since the Historial Enquiries Team ruled the shooting unlawful.

There was a serious incident at Maghaberry prison last weekend when three republican prisoners were dragged from the visiting area by the riot squad, and one was beaten to the ground and assaulted.

A member of the Legacy Investigations Branch (LIB) of the PSNI police in the north of Ireland has been accused of being a covert member of British military intelligence.

Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinnness accused the British government of not being serious about dealing with the legacy of the past after the most senior judge in the North admitted Britain was ignoring its legal obligation to ensure blocked inquests go ahead.

There are concerns over the political direction in the north of Ireland after a video emerged which appears to show a heavily armed breakaway IRA unit on patrol in north Belfast -- in the same week that the police confirmed that unionist paramilitary activities are being illegally funded from Stormont.

A theatrical confrontation at a press conference in Dublin appears to be the latest installment in an orchestrated effort to embarrass Gerry Adams.

Republican prisoners at Maghaberry jail have condemned discrimination against Irish culture and traditions by the jail administration.

An Irish judge has drawn attention to herself after she hit out at an Irish parliamentarian’s interest in the human rights of political prisoners, and claimed to be ‘puzzled’ at her concern over the issue of internment by remand.

A documentary on the Atlantic fishing industry has drawn a strong reaction after it was aired on Irish state television this week.

There have been protests after a surrender letter written by Easter Rising commander Padraig Pearse three days before his execution was placed for auction and is now set to leave Ireland after failing to sell.

There were angry scenes in the Dublin parliament this afternoon after a Fine Gael TD named two senior Sinn Fein TDs he said were identified in an email sent by Gerry Adams to the Garda police commissioner about an unsanctioned IRA killing in 1983.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams is facing another battery of accusations and condemnations after it emerged that earlier this year he emailed the names of four senior republicans allegedly involved in an unsanctioned 1983 IRA killing to the Garda police Commissioner.

A statement by the President of the Gaelic Athletic Association that the organisation may consider dropping the use of the Irish flag and anthem at sporting events has been condemned by GAA fans and players as well as republicans.

The Stormont Executive has been condemned for inaction amid a mounting crisis at Maghaberry jail which has seen yet another death at the jail and yet another violent attack by warders against a republican prisoner.

Sinn Fein has published a discussion document, ‘Towards a United Ireland’, to lay out the rationale for reunification in terms of the economy, public services and reconciliation.

A commission on water charges set up by the coalition government has said the charges should be retained but with an increased allowance for domestic water use. Under its proposals, the commission says the “vast majority” of people should no longer have to pay water charges.

A bitter dispute in Dublin’s corridors of power over tributes to Cuban leader Fidel Castro lead the 26 County state to snub a funeral at which Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams was a prominent mourner.

There was outrage in west Belfast this week after a ten year old girl was pictured being harassed by the PSNI.

The family of a teenager shot dead by the British Army more than 40 years ago have spoken of their relief after the British Ministry of Defence accepted his innocence.

The family of a US citizen killed by the RUC (now PSNI) police in 1997 have accused those involved of being part of a “conspiracy of silence”.

Britain’s governor in Ireland, James Brokenshire, has come under renewed pressure to accept responsibility for dealing with the legacy of the conflict in the North.

In an apparent breakthrough for civil rights campaigners, the Dublin government has indicated it will support the recognition of Travellers’ distinct ethnic identity.

There is concern for the undocumented Irish living in the US after Donald Trump vowed to deport or imprison millions of immigrants.

The High Court in Dublin has ordered the extradition of a man accused of being involved in a Provisional IRA mortar attack on a British army barracks in Germany 20 years ago.

The South East Antrim UDA has obtained weapons from English-based crime networks in a move which could spark an ‘arms race’ among the various factions of the unionist paramilitary organisation, it has been revealed.

A popular Catholic priest may be forced out of his parochial house in Fermanagh after it was targeted in a sectarian attack.

The British armed forces have been actively promoted by the PSNI police during a school visit in the predominately nationalist town of Omagh, County Tyrone.

The kid-gloves handling of a unionist paramilitary funeral has exposed the “rank hypocrisy” of British policing in Ireland, according to Republican Sinn Fein.

The fallout over Brexit has prompted the British governor in Ireland, James Brokenshire, to aggresively assert a claim over Lough Foyle in the north of Ireland. He told the Westminster parliament that “the whole” of the lough, extending westward to the Donegal shoreline in the 26 Counties, is owned by Britain.

Despite consternation and disbelief in Ireland at the result of the US Presidential election, political leaders including 26 County Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams were among those to congratulate Donald Trump this week on his election as US President.

A west Belfast man has died in troubling circumstances after being arrested and questioned for over ten hours by the PSNI last week.

A British Army file relating to the McGurk’s Bar massacre will be a state secret until 2056, it has emerged.

The family of Pearse Jordan have vowed to continue their fight for justice after a coroner concluded he could not say whether his killing by the RUC police was justified.

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has renewed a controversy over his party’s ‘outreach’ efforts after he was spotted at a royal reception in London in which the English queen Elizabeth Windsor unveiled a new painting of herself.

Irish soccer player James McClean has been vindicated after FIFA, the international soccer body, insisted that the use of the poppy symbol on football jerseys is a political statement.

There was a potentially significant development in the Brexit crisis this week when Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, refused to rule out his party taking up its four seats in Westminster ahead of a potentially critical vote on the issue in the London parliament.

Amid fresh protests over abuses at Maghaberry Prison, a key mediator in an agreement struck in 2010 to ease tensions at the jail has admitted the deal collapsed as a result of unionist political pressure.

There have been protests on behalf of Derry republican internee Tony Taylor following an assault on his wife by a Maghaberry prison warder.

Some republicans facing PSNI harassment through stop-and-search abuses may also be coming under pressure to provide information to British military intelligence, it has emerged.

The hard-won declassification of a secret military file proves that the British state knew the truth of the deadly attack on McGurk’s Bar in 1971, when 15 civilians were killed, but created a false narrative in an attempt to deflect blame onto the IRA.

Several hundred people gathered outside the Dublin parliament on Wednesday night for a candlelit vigil calling for the 26 County state to house refugee children from the conflict in the Middle East who have so far been refused permission to enter Britain.

The lonely death of an IRA informer has drawn attention to the contempt which British agencies hold for those who have betrayed their own communities to take the queen’s shilling.

A Belfast judge has ruled that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement can not prevent a change in the North’s constitutional position if a process is initiated to pull the Six Counties out of the European Union.

Police assaulted and threatened to shoot people in separate incidents amid heightened tensions in west Belfast.

The sister of Guildford Four member Gerry Conlon has called for secret papers on his case to be made public after a small number were released to the BBC.

Prominent loyalist Dee Stitt has appeared to admit that a publicly funded loyalist flute band is engaged in paramilitary activity.

There have been calls to strengthen efforts against the criminalisation and isolation of republican prisoners following a debate at the Stormont Assembly on the issue.

There have been international protests after a judge in Dublin convicted a 15-year-old boy of illegally “imprisoning” the Irish Tanaiste [Deputy Prime Minister] by peacefully demonstrating against water charges in front of her police-escorted car.

It is unclear if a shooting on Thursday which left west Belfast man Joe Reilly dead is connected to tensions within a small breakaway IRA group which saw another man survive a ‘punishment’ shooting earlier in the week.

Legal experts have warned that Britain’s exit from the EU could be used as an excuse to bar Irish citizens from the Six Counties and Britain from living there, and that the rights of Irish citizens to live and work under British jurisdiction will need to be enshrined in law.

The former commanding officer of the two former British soldiers directly involved in the shooting of a 15-year-old boy in Derry has expressed his sorrow to the family of the deceased teenager, but said he would not accept the killing had been unjustified.

The new republican party, Saoradh, has warned its supporters to be vigilant when confronted by British military intelligence, who they said are operating “outside the parameters of any legal framework”.

Republican Sinn Fein has said its members and their families are “under attack from the colonial police of British rule” after another series of harassment incidents.

The first shot in Britain’s departure from the EU has been fired across Irish bows after its governor in the north of Ireland, James Brokenshire, said Ireland should form part of Britain’s new immigration controls.

The 26 County budget announced this week for the 2017 fiscal year was marked by derisively meagre and delayed increases for those in deprivation, while generous measures were implemented to benefit bankers, developers, and landlords.

A court has thrown out politically-motivated charges against a prominent County Tyrone republican after British prosecutors abandoned the case.

Prominent north Belfast republican Dee Fennell has said he is prepared to meet the Catholic priest he confronted over his support for a provocative Orange Order parade through Ardoyne and neighbouring areas.

An arson attack on a flat in north Belfast was a sectarian bid by loyalists to burn out Catholics living in the area.

The Dublin government has been urged to demand the complete closure of the Sellafield nuclear site on the west coast of Britain after a BBC programme raised concerns about safety at the facility.

The main changes in 26 County taxation and spending for the 2017 fiscal year, as announced in their budget speeches by Minister for Finance Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe this afternoon.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has drawn comparisons to Margaret Thatcher after she outright rejected Irish and Scottish concerns over Brexit and moved to quash the right of Irish and other EU citizens to live and work in Britain and the north of Ireland.

An Orange Order parade which was forced through the Ardoyne area of north Belfast last weekend has reopened the north’s biggest parading dispute.

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) has attempted to suppress a book by a former soldier about his involvement in ‘dirty tricks’ operations in the north of Ireland.

New UDA murals are being erected as millions of pounds of public funds are funnelled by the Stormont administration to a group closely linked to the loyalist paramilitary organisation, it has emerged.

The Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan is under pressure to quit after the former head of the Garda press office admitted that he had taken part in a top level smear campaign against a whistleblower to try to undermine his allegations of corruption.

A large crowd turned out in tribute to the H-Block Martyrs of 1981 when the 1916 Societies held their annual National Hungerstrike Commemoration on Sunday last, October 2nd, in Galbally, County Tyrone.

An Orange Order parade was forced through the greater Ardoyne area in north Belfast on Saturday morning, October 1, amid a military-style policing operation and a bitter war of words among nationalists.

The secret use of royal privileges by the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister is to be investigated by an Assembly committee after it emerged it has been used on three occasions since 2008.

The launch of a new republican party ‘Saoradh’ last weekend could bring disaffected nationalist voters back to the polls in the north of Ireland.

A former newspaper editor has said the loyalist murderers of fellow journalist Martin O’Hagan have never been brought to justice because they were paid police informers.

A row over the name of a fisheries protection boat has highlighted efforts to undermine the Irish language within unionist-controlled departments at Stormont.

The housing crisis in Dublin continues to escalate, with the latest figures by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) revealing that 998 families are now in emergency accommodation in the capital, an increase of 64pc on last year.

A former British army soldier has admitted he planted listening devices in the homes of senior politicians in the north of Ireland, years after the 1994 ceasefires and some still thought to be in use today.

Families of victims of state killings have announced that they will be suing the British government, DUP leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness as the London and Belfast regimes again stonewalled their demands for legacy inquests.

Orangemen are to seek permission for a march through north Belfast next weekend, which if it goes ahead, could bring about the removal of their three-year protest camp at a sectarian interface.

A new claim broadcast by BBC Spotlight journalist Jennifer O’Leary against Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has been rejected by police and could provoke a libel action by Mr Adams.

A Derry mother has described how her family was forced to lie on the floor of her car as she fled through the city’s Waterside area after a loyalist mob targeted Catholic teenagers.

Political tension is building in the 26 Counties ahead of the annual budget announcements after a giant demonstration in Dublin again demanded the abolition of water charges.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has announced that he will step down from his leadership role as part of the party’s ten year plan. Mr Adams indicated a time frame within ten years for his departure as party president, and confirmed that it was a matter of not ‘if, but when’.

The 26 County Taoiseach Enda Kenny has agreed that an inquiry should go ahead into evidence of corrupt practices in the sale of distressed property assets in the North of Ireland, but is refusing a broader inquiry into the actions of NAMA, the bank set up to handle such sales.

An “extreme and shocking” case of neglect has been reported at Maghaberry jail after prison staff watched but failed to intervene while a mentally ill prisoner blinded and mutilated himself.

The entry of a political party from the South and a profound redrafting of Westminster constituencies is set to shake up the political establishment in the North.

A West Belfast woman interned during the conflict is pressing for full disclosure of documents which she believes will show she was subjected to inhumane conditions.

Sinn Fein has condemned a decision by Spain’s Constitutional Court to back a ruling that Basque separatist politician Arnaldo Otegi cannot run as a candidate in an upcoming regional election due to a conviction against him for links to the armed group ETA.

A man from a well-known republican family died at the hands of the PSNI on Thursday amid a new wave of police harassment and abuses in Belfast.

An auditor’s report has found that several hundred million euro have been lost to the 26 County exchequer in a notorious billion-pound property transaction as a recording emerged of a central figure in the deal apparently receiving a bag full of cash in a Belfast car park.

The peace process is based upon membership of the European Union, the High Court in Belfast has heard, in one of two legal challenges to be taken against the British decision to withdraw from the EU.

A judicial review is being heard in connection with the discovery that the British Crown forces concealed the truth about the suspected military killing of a woman in west Belfast for more than 40 years.

A new war of words has broken out between Sinn Fein and rival republicans following a claim that ‘dissidents’ were responsible for an arson attack on a community centre in Derry.

There have been calls for new measures to protect the rights of Irish speakers after an employee of a well-known Cork city pub was told that he was not allowed to speak Irish on the premises.

The Dublin government is the subject of anger and ridicule after it defended illegal tax dodges by multinational corporations and rejected a European ruling that it receive up to 13 billion euro in unpaid taxes from US corporation, Apple.

A Sinn Fein councillor and 17 party activists have quit the party in response to its treatment of Daithi McKay, a party Assembly member who was forced to resign his seat last month over his contacts with loyalist Jamie Bryson.

The Tory government in London is to push ahead with a decision to scrap its Human Rights Act as part of its ‘Brexit’ agenda to drag the north of Ireland and Scotland out of the European Union.

The Republican Network for Unity has condemned the presence of British army troops in the area of their annual commemoration for Henry Joy McCracken last Sunday, August 28.

The scandal over the Dublin government’s failure to collect tax from US multinationals has refocused attention on its favourable treatment of international ‘vulture funds’ who purchased large property asset portfolios following the 2008 economic crisis.

An Irish-made documentary exploring the life and death of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands smashed the national box office record in its opening weekend, and continues to sell out weeks after it opened.

The chairman of a County Antrim Gaelic sports club has resigned after it voted to remove entrance gates dedicated to the memory of two Irish War of Independence martyrs in order to secure a grant from a unionist-controlled council.

A dispute over a sectarian loyalist parade through the mainly nationalist town of Rasharkin last week is being linked to the “leak” of private messages targeting Sinn Fein Assembly member Daithi McKay.

The Police Ombudsman has been urged to review an investigation into the suspicious death of a republican while in PSNI custody after an investigator linked to the case resigned.

Recently released government papers dating from 1985 have again reopened a debate about negotiations which took place during the 1981 hunger strike which some have argued could have prevented the deaths of six of the ten republican prisoners who died.

A man whose wife was killed when a car bomb exploded outside the Step Inn bar in south Armagh 40 years ago has said he wants to see a new inquest

The Bloody Sunday families have called on the PSNI to state whether or not they intend recommending that the soldiers responsible for the 1972 killings are prosecuted.

Senior Sinn Fein political figure Daithi McKay, who worked to expose wrongdoing in the murky world of Ireland’s NAMA property deals, could end up being the only direct casualty of the scandal following his forced resignation this week.

The main Apprentice Boys of Derry parade of the year infuriated residents after loyalist band members were seen to lead inflammatory chanting and sectarian singing at the heart of the overwhelmingly nationalist city.

Support is growing for a public dialogue to address a rift in republican communities following an appeal for talks by Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

Thousands attended this years anti-internment bonfires, traditionally held on the feast day of the Assumption, and which have become public displays of nationalist dissatisfaction with the Stormont administration and British rule.

Irish corruption is again the subject of international media attention following the arrest of the President of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) Pat Hickey as part of a Brazilian police investigation into an insider ticket touting scandal.

Sinn Fein have marked the 35th anniversary of the hunger strikes with a march involving thousands of activists in west Belfast.

Published August 18, 2016

Feud fears as Stormont cosies up to killers

The Six County administration in Belfast has been accused of sustaining loyalist criminality following the murder of a former UDA leader by a rival loyalist gang.

Published August 13, 2016

Call for state recognition for heroic Bloody Sunday priest

Tributes have been paid following the death of the former Bishop of Derry, Edward Daly, who attended to the victims on Bloody Sunday at the risk of his own life. However, his memory has also been subjected to a sickening sectarian attack by a former member of the British Crown forces who claimed to have been present at the massacre.

Published August 13, 2016

Governors assault prisoners in Maghaberry mayhem

There were clashes at Maghaberry jail this week as prison governors took part in two separate assaults on republican prisoners over a 48 hour period.

Published August 13, 2016

Palestinian anger at Sinn Fein’s links to Israeli regime

Palestinians have expressed dismay that representatives of Sinn Féin have been hosting delegations from Likud, the party of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Published August 13, 2016

State historians pressured to provide centenary ‘propaganda’

Historians involved in advising the decade of centenaries for the Dublin government have revealed how they were asked to provide pro-British propaganda for use in the north of Ireland, but refused “point blank”.

Published August 13, 2016

Freedom of assembly denied, but anti-internment message is heard

Thousands of republicans staged a peaceful protest after an anti-internment parade was barred from entering Belfast city centre last Sunday.

Published August 13, 2016

Loyalist parade intimidation ends

Three years of nightly loyalist disturbances in north Belfast appear to be at an end after a group of Orangemen said they have suspended their attempts to march into the republican Ardoyne area.

Published August 6, 2016

Republicans at odds over festival link to PSNI

Published July 30, 2016

UDA show of strength after parades body approval

A parade in support of UDA paramilitaries took place again this year in south Belfast and once again in defiance of Parade Commission restrictions.

Homeless campaigners have demanded immediate action after Census 2016 found almost 200,000 houses and apartments lying empty across the 26 Counties.

Published July 16, 2016

Villiers replaced as British Direct Ruler

James Brokenshire, a 48-year-old Tory MP and junior Home Office Minister based in Kent, has been named as the new British Direct Ruler in Ireland after Theresa Villiers was dropped from the post.

Published July 14, 2016

Houses gutted by bonfires as Orangemen march

There were confrontations this morning as sectarian parades were forced through Catholic communities following a night in which bonfires were lit to herald the day of loyalist aggression.

Published July 12, 2016

Theresa May to become British PM on Wednesday

British Prime Minister David Cameron has revealed he will officially step down on Wednesday, months ahead of schedule. His announcement came after it emerged his replacement will be Home Secretary Theresa May, whose last rival for the leadership of the Conservative Party dropped out this morning.

Published July 11, 2016

Unionists ‘veto’ Irish Brexit forum

Sinn Fein has called on the Taoiseach to press ahead with a plan to convene a national, all-Ireland forum on dealing with the fallout of the British vote to leave the EU.

Published July 9, 2016

Kenny facing party demands for timeline to quit

Pressure is growing on the Fine Gael leader and 26 County Taoiseach Enda Kenny to declare a timetable for his departure as questions mount over his leadership abilities in the wake of the Brexit crisis in Britain.

Published July 9, 2016

Bonfire terror ‘utterly insane’

A number of potentially toxic Eleventh Night bonfires in Belfast have caused fear and alarm, including one outside a city centre hotel and others near houses in east Belfast.

Published July 9, 2016

Nationalists to protest Twelfth parades

The Protestant marching season reaches its climax on Tuesday with a number of provocative sectarian marches once again planned for nationalist areas.

Published July 9, 2016

Upheaval in British Labour Party linked to Iraq report

An attempted internal party coup within the British Labour Party is being blamed on the publication of an official government report by John Chilcot into the Iraq war. Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister and Labour leader, was savaged in the verdict and faces angry demands for justice from British victims of the war.

Published July 9, 2016

Sign of the times as Irish language is attacked

A new initiative to support the Irish language in the North has been attacked in a unionist campaign of vandalism and hate.

Published July 9, 2016

Unionists fear unity, demand border troops

Unionists have expressed concern at a renewed support for Irish nationalism and republicanism following the result of the recent British referendum to leave the European Union.

Published July 2, 2016

New British PM could take hard line on Ireland

The battle to replace David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party and British Prime Minister is set to be dominated by two contendors with extreme right-wing views.

Published July 2, 2016

New evidence points to cold-blooded killing

The Police Ombudsman is to examine the death of a republican 25 years ago after relatives of IRA Volunteer Colum Marks brought a High Court challenge over the ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy of planned state executions.

Published July 2, 2016

Increase in harassment of republicans

Republican Sinn Fein has said two members of its Ard Chomhairle leadership were among a group stopped and ambushed in Lurgan, County Armagh in a heavy-handed operation by British forces this week.

Published July 2, 2016

Orange parade plan for Ardoyne abandoned

A major Orange Order parade passed off peacefully in Belfast on Friday after a proposed march through nationalist areas of north Belfast did not go ahead.

Published July 2, 2016

Shock over latest charity scandal

The founder of Irish suicide prevention charity Console, his wife and son ran up credit card bills of almost half a million euro on items such as designer clothes, foreign trips and weekly groceries over a three-year period, according to a long-delayed audit of the charity.

An epic GAA football match that became known as the ‘All Ireland Behind Barbed Wire’ was commemorated last weekend when a match was played at the site of the former internment camp at Frongoch in Wales.

Published June 25, 2016

Irish squad sets up a French date with destiny

An already legendary victory over Italy on Wednesday has propelled Ireland into the last 16 in the Euro 2016 international soccer tournament, setting up a fateful encounter with hosts France on Sunday and gripping a nation that had feared its chance of progress had slipped away.

Published June 25, 2016

The All-Ireland played behind barbed wire

A recent documentary tells the extraordinary story of the inter-county Gaelic football final which took place inside Frongoch internment camp in 1916.

Published June 25, 2016

Cameron quits but will ‘steady the ship’ after Brexit vote

Conservative Party leader David Cameron has resigned as British Prime Minister, and said he will step down in October. He made his resignation speech this morning outside Downing Street after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Mr Cameron said he accepted the decision of the electorate, which voted for a ‘Brexit’ yesterday by 52% to 48%.

Published June 24, 2016

Political upheaval as Britain votes to quit EU

Published June 18, 2016

Brexit: Ireland’s opportunity?

Loyalties are divided among Irish republicans over the ‘Brexit’ referendum as a new battle over Britain’s place in Europe brings the potential for a period of significant political change in Ireland and Britain.

Published June 11, 2016

Pressure for Britain to face war crimes tribunal over collusion

There are fresh calls in the north of Ireland for a much stronger approach to the issue of state collusion following confirmation that it played a significant role in the 1994 Loughinisland massacre.

Published June 11, 2016

Delays feared as new Stakeknife investigation is unveiled

There has been a very cautious welcome for the news that a new police investigation is to be set up into the activities of British army agent Stakeknife, thought to have been the highest ranking British double agent within the IRA during the conflict.

Published June 11, 2016

Dismay over flag intimidation and provocative march plans

Sinn Fein has blamed the PSNI for “reneging on promises” after loyalist flags were erected in a mixed area of south Belfast.

Published June 11, 2016

MI5, MI6 get bye as Kincora abuse inquiry opens

Evidence of British state collusion in a paedophile ring at a notorious Belfast care home will not be examined fully by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA), currently underway in Banbridge, County Down, it has been confirmed.

Published June 11, 2016

Kingsmill mystery deepens

An inquest into a gun attack against Protestant workmen in 1976 has had to be halted following the bizarre claim that a match has been found for a palm print, forty years after it was taken from the scene of the attack.

Published June 11, 2016

Families vindicated as report points to massacre cover-up

Families of six men murdered in the Loughinisland massacre have welcomed an Ombudsman’s investigation that has finally exposed significant state collusion with the killers.

Published June 9, 2016

The new heavy gangs

Masked gangs are now evicting people from their homes in the 26 Counties at the behest of international vulture funds, who have ordered a wave of repossessions to extract profit from their newly acquired loan books.

Published June 4, 2016

PSNI harass, caution kids in Lurgan arrest operation

Republican Sinn Fein man has hit out at the “arbitrary arrest and internment” of twelve of its members following the opening of a republican Garden of Remembrance in Lurgan, County Armagh last weekend.

Published June 4, 2016

Builders end MI5 transmission in Ardoyne

Republicans in north Belfast have described how the PSNI police descended on a house within minutes of a spying device being discovered by builders doing work on the property in the Ardoyne area.

Published June 4, 2016

Murderous actions of ‘Soldier A’ in west Belfast

The wife of a County Armagh man shot dead by a member of the Parachute regiment more than 40 years ago has welcomed the findings of a fresh inquest saying “the world has seen that he was innocent”.

Published June 4, 2016

Anger at loyalist attack on republican graves

Loyalists have targeted the republican plot in Milltown Cemetery in a graffiti attack.

Published June 4, 2016

Unionists block community centre over GAA names

The DUP has blocked funding for a community centre indefinitely because of the appearance of the names of the two Irish War of Independence heroes on nearby gates to the site.

Published June 4, 2016

Gardaí in crisis

As ordinary Gardai police struggle to contain the escalating gangland war, Garda chiefs have been warned by a policing watchdog that public trust in the force is fading over repeated scandals and failures.

Published May 28, 2016

Unionists take full control of Six County justice department

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has been accused of handing unionism a “triple lock” on justice after nationalists were sidelined in the administration and scrutiny of the department’s functions.

Published May 28, 2016

A struggle to understand as Ambassador grapples with protestor

A bizarre intervention by the Canadian Ambassador to Ireland has drawn international attention to a revisionist state event in Dublin which honoured the British soldiers who died in 1916 fighting to maintain British rule in Ireland.

Published May 28, 2016

Fianna Gael pact overcomes water charge hurdle

Sinn Fein has accused Fianna Fail of acting in coalition with Fine Gael by abstaining in a motion to scrap water charges.

Published May 28, 2016

Somme trip and royal visit as outreach efforts continue

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has said he will visit the Somme battlefields of World War One as an act of reconciliation, to recognise human suffering and to reach out to his unionist neighbours in the north.

Published May 28, 2016

Anniversary of Eddie Fullerton

Representatives from across the political spectrum attended a wreath- laying ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Inishowen Sinn Fein Councillor Eddie Fullerton in Buncrana in 1991 on Wednesday evening.

Published May 28, 2016

SDLP quits Stormont Executive

The SDLP has quit the devolved administration in the Six Counties in the latest development to hit the formation of a new Executive in the North.

Published May 21, 2016

New leader for Labour as Kenny digs in amid justice scandal

Wexford TD Brendan Howlin has been named as the new leader of the Labour Party in the 26 Counties as the politic system in Dublin continues to stumble following the formation of a minority government earlier this month.

Published May 21, 2016

Truth and justice ‘not the property of the few’

On the 42nd anniversary of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings, which killed 33 people, a Dublin government minister said he would continue to repeat demands that the British security papers on the attacks be opened.

Published May 21, 2016

Craigavon Two campaign in Downing Street

Family members of Brendan McConville and John-Paul Wootton took the ‘Justice for the Craigavon Two’ campaign to the official residence of the British Prime Minister this week.

Published May 21, 2016

Loyalists may attempt to block anti-internment march

Loyalists have said they will not seek permission to oppose the annual anti-internment march, which will take place on Sunday, August 7. The move could spark a confrontation as up to 5,000 people and at least four bands are expected to take part in the march.

Published May 21, 2016

Reconstruction takes place on anniversary of boy’s death

One Derry family has renewed hopes for justice following a re-enactment of the murder of Irish schoolboy Manus Deery by the British Army. It follows a directive from the Six County Attorney General, John Larkin, that a fresh inquest into the killing of Manus Deery should take place.

Published May 21, 2016

Stormont resumes with UUP as ‘Official Opposition’

The leader of the unionist DUP, Arlene Foster, and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness have been formally returned as the Six County First Minister and Deputy First Minister respectively ahead of formulating a ‘Programme for Government’ for the Stormont Executive.

Published May 14, 2016

Protestors arrested as water charges regime falls apart

Following a decision by the new coalition government that water charges are to be suspended for at least nine months, it has now been announced that penalties for non-payment of water charges are also to be suspended.

Published May 14, 2016

New investigation into death of internee shot in the back

Six County Attorney General John Larkin has ordered a fresh inquest into the death of a County Tyrone man shot dead while trying to escape from Long Kesh internment camp more than 40 years ago.

Published May 14, 2016

Republican targeted by PSNI using his own academic work

Attempts by the PSNI police to gain access to a former IRA Volunteer’s interviews for an American university project are just a “fishing expedition”, a court has heard.

Published May 14, 2016

Departure of Burton sets up Labour leadership contest

The long-awaited announcement by Joan Burton of her resignation as leader of the Labour Party has triggered a power battle within the party.

Published May 14, 2016

Executed Rising rebels honoured

Commemoration events have been taking place to mark 100 years since the executions of the leaders of the Easter Rising. The state events took place in the Stonebreakers’ Yard in Kilmainham Gaol, on the spot where most of the men died.

Published May 14, 2016

Protest vote ‘cannot be ignored’

The final results of the Stormont election show a small drop in support for Sinn Fein and the rival nationalist SDLP, and no change at all for the unionists, with the Green Party and socialist People before Profit making small gains.

Published May 7, 2016

New government faces old problems

Scepticism remains high over the future stability of the new Dublin government as the new Cabinet held its first meeting at Áras an Uachtaráin, the President’s official residence.

Published May 7, 2016

Informer protected in cover-up of republican’s death, court hears

A lawyer acting for the family of a former republican prisoner who died in a PSNI police barracks branded a potential witness a Crown informer in the coroner’s court yesterday.

Published May 7, 2016

Victims’ anger as inquest plan is spiked by Stormont

Amnesty International has accused the Stormont Executive of denying justice by blocking funds for a series of inquests into conflict-related killings.

Published May 7, 2016

PSNI move against republican funeral

Levels of Crown force harassment have jumped in the Derry City and Strabane area following the arrest of fifteen people at the funeral of former republican prisoner Mickey Barr in Strabane on Thursday.

Published May 7, 2016

Sinn Fein struggles to explain after N-word nightmare

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has been forced to issue a number of apologies for the use of a racial slur word in a late night Tweet on Sunday.

Published May 7, 2016

Socialist breakthrough only crack in Stormont edifice

The left-wing People Before Profit Alliance (PBP) have made an electoral breakthrough in the Six Counties as the established Stormont parties saw their support drop following Thursday’s Assembly election.

Published May 6, 2016

Enda Kenny re-elected as Taoiseach after ‘tawdry deals’

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has received the seal of office of Taoiseach from the President after being re-elected this afternoon with the help of nine independents and the tacit support of Fianna Fail, who abstained as part of an historic agreement with their traditional foes.

Published May 6, 2016

First steps to ‘Fianna Gael’ coalition deal

Two months after the general election, the two largest parties in the 26 Counties have reached a potentially historic agreement to form a minority government.

Published April 30, 2016

Rising commemorations mark centenary date

A large 1916 Rising commemoration parade took place through Belfast city centre without major incident on Sunday despite efforts by loyalists to disrupt the event.

Published April 30, 2016

Stormont politicians seek endorsement

Nationalist politicians in the north of Ireland have expressed concern over voter apathy ahead of next week’s election to the Belfast Assembly.

Published April 30, 2016

Internees demand answers

British authorities being sued by a prominent republican are trying to hide behind private court hearings in a bid to prevent evidence being revealed.

Published April 30, 2016

Death of hunger-strike author David Beresford

An award-winning journalist credited with writing the definitive account of the 1981 Hunger Strike has died in South Africa.

Published April 16, 2016

The uncivil war

After weeks of shadow-boxing and pretence, a blistering row between the Fianna Fail and Fine Gael leaderships suggests that it is unlikely that any pact will be agreed soon to form a new government in Dublin.

Published April 9, 2016

Legal trickery in effort to jail republicans

After almost five years in solitary confinement, republican political prisoner Gavin Coyle has been freed on bail, despite a last-minute drama when two weeks were mysteriously added onto his sentence over an alleged non-payment of a fine.

Published April 9, 2016

Protest at unveiling of Rising memorial listing British troops

There were clashes between protesters and police at the unveiling of a 1916 Easter Rising memorial at Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin which includes British soldiers alongside the Irish rebels and civilians who died.

Published April 9, 2016

Gaelic League takes Sinn Fein minister to court

Caral Ni Chuilin, Sinn Fein’s Minister for Culture in the Six Counties, is to be sued over her administration’s failure to introduce laws to promote the Irish language.

Published April 9, 2016

Villiers silent on British cabinet support for torture

The British Direct Ruler in the north of Ireland, Theresa Villiers, has been accused of withholding information in the case of a group of Irish torture victims known as the ‘Hooded Men’.

Published April 9, 2016

Political move to prevent US deportation

A high-profile critic of the peace process in the north of Ireland has continued to maintain his innocence after completing a 20-year jail sentence for ‘directing terrorism’.

Published April 2, 2016

Irish President calls for an end to revisionism

In a speech to mark the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising, President Michael D Higgins has called for an end to the pro-British bias in the interpretation of events at the turn of the last century.

Published March 28, 2016

Symbolic shift in west Belfast

There has been an outcry over the destruction of a republican mural of IRA Volunteer Kieran Nugent who started the blanket protest in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. It was replaced with a mural depicting unionist leader Edward Carson.

Published March 26, 2016

Identity crises in Dublin, Belfast

An Irish language group has attacked a Dublin City Council banner featuring moderate nationalist John Redmond on the Bank of Ireland building at College Green.

Published March 26, 2016

Revisionism, not reconciliation at Glasnevin

Relatives of those who fought and died in the Easter Rising are set to take legal action to stop a wall being unveiled at Glasnevin cemetery which commemorates the British army dead alongside those who were killed while attempting to liberate Ireland from that army.

Published March 26, 2016

Clashing agendas for nationalists, 100 years on

Sinn Fein’s First Minister Martin McGuinness has said the next stage of the north’s peace process must be the “reconciliation phase” and again condemned the new IRA, who he said wanted to “destroy the peace process”.

Published March 26, 2016

The main Easter commemorations

The number and variety of Easter commemorative events taking place this weekend is at a record as the 26 County state attempts to make up for the years when it ignored the 1916 anniversary.

Published March 26, 2016

McDonald condemns new US ‘security’ agenda

Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou McDonald has said she was subjected to “heavy-handed and very invasive” security searches while travelling home from the United States after St Patrick’s Day.

Published March 26, 2016

Triumph as 1916 battle site is saved

In a landmark victory for republican heritage campaigners, a High Court judge has granted that a number of buildings on and around Dublin’s Moore Street are a battlefield site worthy of the designation of national monument.

Published March 19, 2016

Adams seeks to end differential treatment by US officials

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has called on the US to review its security arrangements for visits by party representatives after he was dramatically refused entry to a St Patrick’s reception at the White House.

Published March 19, 2016

Prison tensions heightened after official’s death

There have been further condemnations by politicians after a senior prison official died from a heart attack two weeks after he received a leg injury in an attack on his vehicle.

Published March 19, 2016

Increased harassment in nationalist areas

Several homes in Belfast were violently raided last weekend amid an increased PSNI presence, with heavily armed units deployed in the west and north of the city.

Published March 19, 2016

Bankers ramp up evictions as fraud accused beat jail

Over a hundred families are being evicted from a Dublin estate after Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs ordered the estate cleared following a purchase of the loan underlying the development.

Published March 19, 2016

Hits and misses for official 1916 commemorations

There has been strong criticism of a banner in honour of four parliamentary nationalists, three of whom died long before the 1916 Rising and one who bitterly opposed it, amid continuing preparations for the centennial.

Published March 19, 2016

Obama silent as Adams blasts White House insult

Published March 16, 2016

Adams refused entry to White House event

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams was prevented from attending a St Patrick’s Day event at the White House last night by security personnel, although his deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald and colleague Martin McGuinness were allowed to take part.

Published March 16, 2016

Government on hold

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has formally taken on the role of Acting Taoiseach until a new government is formed in Dublin or, as appears increasingly likely, a second general election takes place.

Published March 12, 2016

Prominent Derry republican interned

Derry man Tony Taylor has been jailed in Maghaberry following a decision by the British Direct Ruler Theresa Villiers to put him to prison.

Published March 12, 2016

Hegarty family defy prosecutors

A British soldier who shot and killed a 15-year-old boy in Derry in 1972 will not be prosecuted, Crown prosecutors have said.

Published March 12, 2016

Maghaberry placed on lockdown

British soldiers were deployed on the republican wing at Maghaberry jail as political prisoners maintained a standoff in the canteen, according to media reports.

Published March 12, 2016

Border poll should follow British move to quit EU - McGuinness

A vote should be held in the Six Counties on the reunification of Ireland if Britain decides to leave the EU, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has said.

A Catholic teenager has been badly injured in a sectarian mob attack in north Belfast after he was knocked down while fleeing the attack.

Published March 5, 2016

Basques celebrate as leader is freed

There were celebrations in the Basque Country and among solidarity activists around the world on March 1 as Basque political prisoner Arnaldo Otegi was released from a Spanish jail after more than six years.

Published March 5, 2016

Seamus Daly released as last Omagh case collapses

After two years behind bars, prosecutors today dropped all charges against Seamus Daly, the only man still charged in connection with the 1998 Omagh bomb.

Published March 1, 2016

No betrayal of our voters - Adams

With the final result in the 26 County general election not expected until Monday at the earliest, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has dismissed any idea that his party would support one of the traditionally dominant right-wing parties in Irish politics, Fine Gael or Fianna Fail.

Published February 29, 2016

Civil war parties in race for first place as count continues

Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are in a dead heat in the race for Dail seats as counting has reached the half-way point in the 26 County election, with 19 out of 40 constituencies completed.

Published February 28, 2016

Kenny out of options, but refuses to quit

Published February 26, 2016

Smears and set-ups by government and media

The coalition government has been accused of resorting to a campaign of scare tactics and media manipulation as it faces being ousted when votes are counted next weekend.

Published February 20, 2016

Giant pre-election rally in Dublin

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis has lent his support to tens of thousands attending a Right2Water / Right2Change protest in Dublin today [Saturday, February 20] ahead of Friday’s general election.

Published February 20, 2016

Colin Duffy released from Maghaberry prison

Lurgan republican Colin Duffy, a prominent victim of state injustice in the North, was released on bail on Thursday after a period of internment lasting two years and three months. Two other senior republicans, Alex McCrory and Harry Fitzsimons, were also freed last Thursday and Saturday respectively.

Published February 20, 2016

Sanders backed Irish cause as Vermont mayor

Bernie Sanders wrote to Margaret Thatcher in 1981 in a bid to put a stop to the “abuse, humiliation and degrading treatment” of Irish republican political prisoners who were on hunger strike, documents show.

Published February 20, 2016

Noonan accused of abandoning abuse victims

Finance Minister Michael Noonan “did a runner” from families of sex abuse victims who tried to speak to him about abuse allegations when he was minister for health.

Published February 20, 2016

Orange link to cancellation of housing plans

Former Housing Minister Nelson McCausland opposed houses being built in a nationalist part of his constituency in spite of the area being plagued by a lengthy housing waiting list.

Published February 20, 2016

Drugs gangs run amok

Serious questions have been raised about the handling of policing by Fine Gael’s Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald following two shocking gang-related killings in Dublin..

Published February 13, 2016

Villiers makes brazen defence of Crown Forces’ murder campaign

British Direct Ruler Theresa Villiers has been condemned by the families of victims of the conflict after she accused them of a “pernicious narrative” in alleging Crown force collusion and state killings.

Published February 13, 2016

British secrecy efforts multiply

A British government minister has approved the withholding of files from the inquest of a schoolgirl abducted in County Donegal in 1994 over ‘national security’ concerns.

Published February 13, 2016

Gardai attack anti-fascist protestors

Gardai chaotically clubbed anti-fascist protestors as well as members of the media when a racist event in Dublin city centre last weekend was opposed by left-wing and republican groups.

Published February 13, 2016

Voters to get their say on juryless courts

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has backed Sinn Fein’s position on abolishing the non-jury Special Criminal Court, and condemned the manipulation of the issue for short-term electoral gain.

Published February 13, 2016

Racism and bigotry from unionists

Loyalist campaigner Willie Frazer has claimed that “Fenian-looking” people are “snaking about” the Markethill area of County Armagh and watching his house.

Published February 13, 2016

Inquiry demanded as alleged informer flees

A former commander of the Provisional IRA in Ardoyne has said he has been forced to flee his home after receiving death threats over allegations he was a state agent, which he denies.

Published February 6, 2016

‘Stakeknife’ repercussions become public

A row has broken out among republicans in Belfast over the impact of infiltration by informers in the aftermath of the apparent exposure of another highly-placed double agent within the Provisional IRA.

Published February 6, 2016

Fine Gael flounders as election campaign gets underway

The 26 County general election campaign has begun with a major embarrassment for the coalition parties after their annual spending plans were found to have overestimated available state funds by several billion euro.

Published February 6, 2016

Strength and resilience at Bloody Sunday commemoration

Several thousand people took part in a rain-soaked march in Derry last weekend to mark the 44th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday killings.

Published February 6, 2016

Politicians in a flap as ‘Brexit’ likelihood increases

Concern is mounting in Ireland at the prospects of a British withdrawal from the European Union and the implications this would have for border crossings and the economy.

Published February 6, 2016

British Army link to Larne killings revealed

It has taken the British authorities 35 years to tell the family of a Catholic man that his killer was a former British soldier.

Published February 6, 2016

Election called for February 26th, parliament dissolved

The 26 County President, Michael D Higgins, has dissolved parliament at the request of Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who has called a general election.

Published February 3, 2016

British war crime on the Shankill

There has been a shocked reaction to evidence that the 1993 Shankill Road bomb, in which nine civilians and one IRA Volunteer died in a premature explosion, was planned by a double-agent working in concert with the British Crown forces.

Published January 30, 2016

Hamilton reveals hierarchy of conflict investigations

PSNI Chief George Hamilton has warned that most conflict-related cases will be shelved as pressure is heaped on the force to cooperate with inquest investigations.

Published January 30, 2016

No plan to question main suspect in O’Connor murder

The main suspect in the murder of republican Gareth O’Connor has still not been questioned almost thirteen years after his death it has emerged. The man in question has also received an ‘OTR letter’ from the PSNI which could allow him to permanently evade prosecution for the murder.

Published January 30, 2016

Clashes as petrol bombs are thrown at PSNI

There was a riot in Lurgan, County Armagh on Sunday night when more than 100 petrol bombs were thrown by nationalist youths after police cordons were set up in the Lake Street area.

Published January 30, 2016

Noonan accused in nine billion euro giveaway

The 26 County Minister for Finance Michael Noonan blew over nine billion euro of government funds when he failed to stand up to EU bank chiefs over the state’s bank debts, the banking inquiry has revealed.

Published January 30, 2016

Thousands of protestors turn out to oppose water charges

Tens of thousands of protestors turned out to oppose water charges at Right2Water demonstrations across the country last Saturday. In Dublin City Centre, at the largest rally, community and political groups were joined by representatives from six trade unions.

Published January 30, 2016

High level informer behind Shankill Road bomb

Decrypted classified documents obtained by the Provisional IRA have shown that a state agent was behind one of the most notorious tragedies of the conflict, the Shankill Road bomb attack in 1993.

Published January 25, 2016

It’s 1984, not 2016, in the Irish Police State

The staggering amount of surveillance being undertaken by the authorities in the 26 Counties has been revealed with more than one thousand new spy requests on citizens initiated every month.

Published January 23, 2016

No ‘Twelfth’ invite for Martin McGuinness

The anti-Catholic Orange Order has said it has no intention of inviting Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness to its July Twelfth marches and rallies after the Deputy First Minister in the Six Counties said he would be willing to attend.

Published January 23, 2016

Judge takes stronger line on PSNI inquest delay tactics

A major court examination of delays in coroners’ investigations of 95 legacy killings in the North, many of which date back more than 40 years, in currently underway.

Published January 23, 2016

Evicted families told to split up to find shelter

As the homelessness crisis worsens, a number of Traveller families evicted from their homes in County Louth have been told to put their children into care in order to secure accommodation.

Published January 23, 2016

Hopes raised for family of Aidan McAnespie

A decision not to prosecute a British soldier for killing a civilian near the Irish border during the conflict is to be reviewed, according to Crown Prosecutor Barra McGrory.

Published January 23, 2016

Election fever builds in Derry

Foyle is set to be the ‘constituency of death’ for nationalists in the 2016 Six-County Assembly election after Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness announced he would run in the Foyle constituency, taking on the SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and a prominent independent candidate, Dr Anne McCloskey.

Published January 23, 2016

Kenny angered by DUP’s centenary snub

There could be disturbances across the North if soccer squads from both parts of Ireland are given a joint reception at Belfast city hall, a leading loyalist has warned.

Published January 9, 2016

Irish military deployment in Six Counties ‘blocked by law’

In 1985, the Dublin government’s Minister of Defence and military chiefs believed it was illegal for the 26 County Army to operate north of the border even for humanitarian reasons, historical papers have revealed.

Published January 9, 2016

‘End the Kangaroo courts’

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has said the use of non-jury trial in the case of a prominent republican accused of tax evasion is “just plain wrong”.

Published December 30, 2015

New force to target IRA figures

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness has vowed that a new cross-border state agency will be “relentless” in its pursuit of IRA groups and loyalist paramilitaries.

Published December 30, 2015

Republican prisoners to sue over Portlaoise conditions

Republican prisoners in Portlaoise Prison in the Irish midlands are preparing to sue over the degrading and inhumane conditions at the maximum security jail.

Published December 30, 2015

Thatcher’s plan to bomb Dundalk

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher asked what the reaction would be if the British bombed the border town of Dundalk in county Louth when she met then Irish Taoiseach in 1985.

Published December 30, 2015

Christmas soup-kitchens see record demand from homeless

A record number of homeless in Dublin over the Christmas period saw over 3,000 meals being delivered on Christmas Day -- two and a half times the demand just four years ago.

Published December 30, 2015

Undercover ceremony to commemorate IRA Volunteers

In the early hours of Saturday 19th of December, members of the 1916 Societies entered the Curragh military camp under the cover of darkness to commemorate seven Irish Republican Army Volunteers who were executed 92 years ago on that day.

Published December 30, 2015

Branch’s dirty war continues

There are fears of continuing ‘dirty tricks’ by the PSNI police after it emerged that four members of its intelligence division concealed information about an attack in which a Catholic member of the force was injured almost six years ago.

Published December 19, 2015

‘Charles in charge’ as massacre Paras get favourable ruling

Relatives of some of those killed and wounded on Bloody Sunday have said they are not surprised by a High Court ruling in London that those involved in the massacre will not be taken to Ireland for questioning.

Published December 19, 2015

Born-again loyalist sued by victims

A County Armagh loyalist linked to dozens of sectarian murders is set to be sued by the families of some victims.

Published December 5, 2015

A clear case of internment

The Anti-Internment League has described court hearings in which seven-year-old charges were resurrected against republicans Davy Jordan and Gavin Coyle as “political show trials”.

Published December 5, 2015

Judgement could encourage provocative marches

There are fears of increased parade tensions next summer after a rare conviction against a loyalist ‘kick the pope’ marching band was overturned on appeal.

Published December 5, 2015

Political censorship as MI5 sabotages work credentials

Employee background checks on nationalists are now including information provided by the British intelligence services, falsely linking some people to illegal organisations in an apparent attempt to wreck their employment chances.

Published December 5, 2015

Action demanded on housing as rent plan backfires

Over a thousand people have attended a demonstration to demand action on the homelessness crisis on the first anniversary of Jonathan Corrie, a Carlow man who died at this time last year on steps near the Dublin parliament.

Published December 5, 2015

Northerners back a unified Irish soccer squad

A majority of people inside the Six Counties favour the creation of a single all-Ireland soccer team, according to a report by the Ulster University.

Published December 5, 2015

Wave of armed actions

A gun attack on a PSNI patrol in west Belfast has been claimed for the ‘new IRA’ amid a series of alerts and incidents attributed to the breakaway IRA groups.

Published November 28, 2015

A century of secrecy for Derry victims

The scale of British state secrecy efforts in the north of Ireland has been highlighted after it emerged that a British Army film file on its murderous ‘Operation Motorman’ in Derry has been declared ‘locked’ for a period of 100 years.

Published November 28, 2015

Racists to parade in Belfast

Loyalists are to hold a protest march next weekend against the presence in the North of refugeees and other foreign immigrants.

Published November 28, 2015

Cash grab by farmers’ body executives

Pressure is mounting for a forensic police investigation into the Irish Farmers’ Association after a series of revelations that executives in the body appropriated several million euro in the form of inflated salaries, pensions and one-off cash payments.

Published November 28, 2015

New alternative for 1916 commemorations

Another dimension to the ‘battle’ of 1916 Rising commemorations has been unveiled with the announcement that ‘principled’ republicans will hold their own event north of the border.

Published November 28, 2015

Anniversary of Croke Park massacre marked

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) has marked the 95th anniversary of the British army killings of 14 people at a sports match in Dublin, which became known as Bloody Sunday.

Published November 28, 2015

Fury at ‘Thatcherite’ talks deal

There are fears that this week’s talks agreement represents such a victory for unionist and British negotiators that it could wreck the North’s political process, rather than sustain it.

Published November 21, 2015

Historic change for DUP and SDLP

The unionist DUP and the nationalist SDLP are undergoing internal upheaval as the leadership of both parties is in the process of changing hands.

Published November 21, 2015

Mixed-race family attacked as UDA group targets refugees

A UDA-linked group in north Antrim has called for refugees fleeing war zones to he “hunted” out of loyalist areas.

Published November 21, 2015

Marley family seek justice

Informers within the Provisional IRA are suspected of providing information that led to the loyalist murder of a senior republican in north Belfast man almost 30 years ago.

Published November 21, 2015

United Ireland would deliver economic bonanza - report

An international academic report has for the first time spelled out the potential economic benefits of unification both North and South, with a 35.6 billion euro boost to the island’s economy for the first eight years.

Published November 21, 2015

Minister’s sick stunt amid health plan fiasco

Patients have lashed out at a publicity stunt by the coalition governement after being treated like “guinea pigs” to mask the failures in the 26 County health system.

Published November 21, 2015

Peter Robinson to quit politics

Published November 19, 2015

Partial deal announced as Stormont talks are wound up

A partial agreement has been unveiled after Sinn Fein, the DUP and the London and Dublin governments brought the latest round of Stormont crisis talks to a conclusion today.

Published November 17, 2015

Humiliation once again

Sinn Fein has accused unionists of embarrassing Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness by making him stand for a rendition of ‘God Save the Queen’ at a Poppy Day event at Stormont.

Published November 13, 2015

Hope for Bloody Sunday families as ex-soldier questioned

Relatives of the Bloody Sunday victims say they feel “a flicker of hope” following the questioning of a former British soldier involved in the 1972 massacre, despite renewed efforts to block their justice campaign.

Published November 13, 2015

New leader predicted as SDLP struggles with identity crisis

The leadership battle in the SDLP reaches a climax tomorrow when youthful challenger Colum Eastwood is expected to unseat party stalwart Alasdair McDonnell.

Published November 13, 2015

State harassment continues for veteran republicans

Published October 31, 2015

Second bullet found in massacre victim

The family of a victim of the Ballymurphy massacre has been vindicated in their decades-long struggle for justice after his exhumed body appears to contain a bullet.

Published October 31, 2015

Disturbing racial incidents in Belfast

A Sudanese father and his five-year-old daughter have been forced to flee their home in east Belfast after suffering racist intimidation.

A desperate pre-election giveaway budget may have backfired for the Fine Gael/Labour government in Dublin as research shows that that their bid to buy off the relatively wealthy has come at the expense of the rest of society, particularly those worst off.

Published October 16, 2015

Civil case against state agents blamed for 100 deaths

A sectarian killer who wrote his nickname on the road at the scene of a ghoulish killing is to be the subject of a civil action by the family of the victim after they were failed by the criminal justice system.

Published October 16, 2015

A tale of two tragedies

The state’s hierarchy for victims couldn’t have been clearer this week when one family was accorded a state funeral while others have been subjected to a discrimination and hate campaign.

Published October 16, 2015

Anniversary of Grew and McCaughey

Fresh details have emerged on the deaths of two IRA men shot dead 25 years ago as republicans took part in a series of events in east Tyrone to mark the anniversary.

Published October 16, 2015

Frazer sees red over tourist green

Loyalist lobbyist Willie Frazer is set to organise protests at Belfast Airport over the sale of tourist merchandise he has described as “pro-Irish paraphernalia”.

Published October 16, 2015

Budget 2016 - main points

The main points of the annual statement of taxation and other policy changes for the 26 County Exchequer, announced this afternoon by Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin.

Published October 13, 2015

UDA ignored as bombers strike again

There has been a deafening silence from unionist leaders in response to a statement attributed to the unionist paramilitary UDA in which it declares it will never “go away”.

Published October 10, 2015

Unanswered questions at McColgan inquest

Sinn Fein has said the PSNI and British government have questions to answer over the murder of Catholic man Danny McColgan.

Published October 10, 2015

New political merger announced amid election fever

Speculation has mounted that Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny could announce a general election in the 26 Counties for November after he repeatedly refused to rule out the possibility this weekn when questioned by journalists.

Published October 10, 2015

Nine bailed, but injustice and abuses continue

Published September 26, 2015

Gloves off as names are named in NAMA scandal

There were a number of important developments in the corruption scandal over the sale of the ‘Project Eagle’ portfolio this week.

There are concerns that the PSNI is attempting to conceal levels of loyalist violence after they refused to describe an arson attack on a second Gaelic sports club in Tyrone as sectarian.

Published September 19, 2015

DUP say talks on hold after British statement

The DUP leader Peter Robinson has said the failure of the British government to make a statement addressing its demands has ‘delayed’ the start of crisis talks aimed at rescuing the North’s political institutions.

Published September 15, 2015

Welcome for election of Corbyn as British Labour leader

The election of veteran progressive Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party has been welcomed in Ireland.

Published September 12, 2015

Return to the brink

The cycle of crisis in the north of Ireland lurched towards the farcical this week as the Democratic Unionist Party blustered and threatened but, in the end, fudged an ultimatum to pull down the political institutions over allegations that the Provisional IRA still exists.

Published September 12, 2015

Sinn Fein concern over policing as republicans are released

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has said he wants to meet the PSNI police chief over the arrest of his party’s northern chairman in the murder inquiry which sparked the current political crisis.

Published September 12, 2015

Secret Garda unit behind ‘shoot-to-kill’ incident

A woman who witnessed an alleged shoot-to-kill incident in 1998 in County Wicklow was later visited by senior gardai and told to “stay quiet”, a commission of investigation into the fatal shooting has been told.

Published September 12, 2015

PSNI mock Derry family, escalate harassment

A member of the deaf community in Derry says she was traumatised after a heavy-handed PSNI police raid on her home in the Shantallow area of the city on Tuesday.

Published September 12, 2015

Powerful bombs used in UDA feud

Two explosions which shook the village of Ahoghill, County Antrim in the early hours of Thursday morning have been blamed on a drugs dispute among rival unionist paramilitary gangs.

Published September 12, 2015

Water charge campaigners defy Garda oppression

A 26 County police team led by the Garda Commissioner’s husband has been secretly spying on water charge protesters amid further allegations of political policing of left-wing TDs.

Published September 12, 2015

Robinson steps aside, puts ‘gatekeeper’ in zombie Executive

In a dramatic day in Belfast, DUP leader Peter Robinson has backed away from a threat to immediately collapse the Six County Executive, instead opting to step aside temporarily and withdraw all his Ministers, leaving one.

Published September 10, 2015

Stormont collapse likely after DUP ultimatum is rejected

A Stormont committee has refused to adjourn the Six County Assembly despite a DUP threat that it would otherwise pull down the North’s political institutions.

Published September 10, 2015

Arrests of top republicans adds to talks chaos

The PSNI police this morning arrested three very senior Provisional republican figures in connection with the murder last month of Belfast man Kevin McGuigan -- one of whom, Bobby Storey, is the chairperson of Sinn Fein in the Six Counties.

Published September 9, 2015

Talks hit by Tory threats, DUP go-slow

Crisis talks due to begin tomorrow in Belfast face an uphill battle amid serious attacks on the Six-County political process by both the British government and unionists over the past 48 hours.

Published September 7, 2015

Stormont back from the brink

The DUP leader Peter Robinson has offered to take part in a fresh round of multi-party talks as a deep crisis over allegations that the Provisional IRA still exists appears set to extend over a period of weeks or months.

Published September 5, 2015

Arrested republicans ‘pawns in a political game’

A prominent former IRA Volunteer has spoken out for the first time to defend himself after unionists called for him to be returned to prison by the British authorities.

Published September 5, 2015

Policing report exposes dysfunctional coalition

The interim report of the Fennelly Inquiry on policing matters in the 26 Counties has revealed a catalogue of delinquency and deception at the highest levels of the State’s justice system.

Published September 5, 2015

Refugees welcomed by Irish republicans

Thousands of Irish families have pledged to provide shelter to refugees following a dramatic recognition of the plight of those fleeing conflict

Published September 5, 2015

Committee hears of culture of white-collar criminality

A witness at an investigation into political corruption by a committee of the Stormont Assembly has claimed to have hundreds of hours of tapes revealing “an ingrained culture of inappropriate and possibly illegal conduct” across the political, banking, legal and accountancy sectors.

Published September 5, 2015

Welcome for state funeral for 1916 rebel Thomas Kent

A State funeral is to be held for 1916 Rising hero Thomas Kent -- one of only two rebels executed by the British outside of Dublin -- after DNA testing confirmed that remains found in Cork Prison belong to him.

Published September 5, 2015

Report finds Taoiseach’s message forced top Garda to quit

The 26 County Taoiseach Enda Kenny is facing calls for his resignation after an inquiry found today that the former Garda police chief commissioner Martin Callinan felt obliged to retire as a result of a message conveyed from the Taoiseach.

Published September 1, 2015

Unionists head for the exit

The devolved administration in the north of Ireland is moving towards collapse as both of the main unionist parties have said they are ready to withdraw from the power-sharing coalition with nationalists.

Published August 29, 2015

Fianna Fail jumps on a unionist bandwagon

There has been a hysterical response in the 26 Counties to allegations in the North that the Provisional IRA continues to exist.

Published August 29, 2015

Figures confirm scale of PSNI harassment

The PSNI has used stop and search powers against the people of two small north Belfast communities more than 4,500 times in six years, according to official police statistics.

Published August 29, 2015

Water charge protestors ‘not going away’

Tens of thousands have gathered at an anti-water charge rally today in Dublin. The march began at 2pm under the banner “We’re not going away, you know!”

Published August 29, 2015

Red Cross to help broker bid to end prison tensions

The Red Cross has said it is willing to help resolve the deepening crisis at Maghaberry prison after more than 20 republican prisoners began refusing meals for more than a week.

Published August 29, 2015

Robinson’s mercy appeal for UDA death-squad suspect

DUP leader Peter Robinson has been accused of hypocrisy after seeking leniency for a loyalist believed by victims to have been involved in the mass murder of innocent Catholics in the 1970s.

Published August 29, 2015

UUP to quit Executive as election looms

The Ulster Unionist Party is set to withdraw its only Minister from the Stormont Executive on Saturday after party leader Mike Nesbitt described the current power-sharing agreement as “threadbare”.

Published August 26, 2015

‘IRA has left the stage’ - Adams

In response to a growing media furore, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams has insisted that the Provisional IRA were not involved in the killing of Kevin McGuigan in east Belfast earlier this month.

Published August 22, 2015

Letter reveals farcical Ballymurphy investigation

The failure of the British Ministry of Defence to trace any of the British soldiers present at the time of the 1971 Ballymurphy Massacre has infuriated the families of the victims.

Published August 22, 2015

1985: Thatcher’s ego and the need to stop Sinn Fein

Over 500 files have been made available to historians in Belfast this week as part of the declassification of government files dating from the mid-1980s.

Published August 22, 2015

Homeless offered sleeping bags, urged to leave the city

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been accused of “blowing smoke” after he insisted that “common sense” must be applied in response to the growing homelessness crisis.

Published August 22, 2015

Rasharkin parade increases tensions

Sinn Fein’s Daithi McKay has said there were a number of breaches of determinations by the Parades Commission at a loyalist parade in Rasharkin last [Friday] night.

Published August 22, 2015

New play suggests protected paedophile may have been informer

The 26-County state and the Gardai police will be accused from a Dublin stage next week of covering up claims about the serial rape of young boys because the alleged abuser - dubbed “the Irish Jimmy Savile” - was an informer blackmailed into spying on the IRA.

Published August 22, 2015

Bomb attack hits MI5 base

The political crisis in the North deepened this week when a bomb attack struck the British Army’s Palace Barracks, the headquarters of MI5 in Ireland.

Published August 9, 2015

Anti-internment message ‘must be heard’

Loyalists say they will attempt to block a nationalist civil rights march through Belfast on Sunday. The UDA’s political wing, the UPRG, has threatened to “stop republican scum from marching on the streets of Belfast”.

Published August 8, 2015

West Belfast divided as PSNI chief addresses event

Republicans held a protest in west Belfast on Thursday evening as the PSNI police chief George Hamilton took part in a discussion panel event alongside Sinn Fein’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

Published August 8, 2015

Appeal to soldiers for truth on showband massacre

The survivors of the Miami Showband atrocity have urged British soldiers who opposed collusion with loyalist paramilitaries to help an investigation into the massacre.

Published August 8, 2015

‘Humiliation’ of republican prisoners

One of the oldest republican prisoners at Maghaberry has said he is being refused the right to have proper treatment for bowel cancer because he is a resident of the 26 County state.

Published August 8, 2015

Boycott call amid O’Brien lawsuits and legal threats

Irish billionaire Denis O’Brien has initiated a new series of legal proceedings against Irish legislators and threatened to sue two websites which published a satirical article mocking him.

Derry independent republican councillor Gary Donnelly has described a violent search of his home by the PSNI as an attempt to “placate” the DUP.

Published July 25, 2015

Derry name change back on the agenda

A new effort is underway to have the name of Derry city officially recognised by the British government and internationally.

Published July 25, 2015

Banking scandals multiply while inquiries are neutered

The 26 County government’s financial institution for managing the assets of its collapsed banking system has refused to cross the border to answer questions over corrupt practices in the sale of assets at heavily discounted prices in the north of Ireland.

Published July 25, 2015

New parties launch ahead of election

With recent polls showing that independents and small alliances could comprise more than a quarter of the Dublin parliament after the forthcoming general election, two new political groupings have presented themselves.

Published July 25, 2015

Loyalist gunmen issue threat after riots

Loyalist disturbances have continued in north Belfast since an anti-Catholic Orange Order parade was rerouted from the nationalist Ardoyne area on Monday.

Published July 18, 2015

Stop the cash for bonfire ‘bigotfest’

Pressure is growing to end the public funding of loyalist ‘community organisations’ after some of the worst sectarian displays at Eleventh Night bonfires in some years.

Published July 18, 2015

Properties ‘liberated’ in direct action on housing

Housing activists in Dublin have been secretly taking over disused and abandoned government-owned properties in an effort to tackle the problem of homelessness in the capital.

Published July 18, 2015

MI5 role in shoot-to-kill cases revealed

A former MI5 surveillance ‘spook’ has described how he followed IRA Volunteer Diarmuid O’Neill for months before he was shot dead in a boarding house in London.

Published July 18, 2015

Dáil hears Ballymurphy justice appeal

Relatives of those killed in the Ballymurphy massacre were present for an emotional debate in the Dublin parliament in which Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams vividly described being in the area on the night of the killings when internment without trial was introduced by the British government in 1971.

Published July 18, 2015

Tributes for IRSM legend Peggy O’Hara

The funeral of Peggy O’Hara, mother of 1981 INLA hunger striker, Patsy O’Hara, has brought together republican figures of all strands together to pay their respects.

Published July 18, 2015

Marcher accused of attempted murder as parade rerouted

Loyalists rioted on Monday night in north Belfast and drove a vehicle into nationalist residents, seriously injuring a teenage girl, after their march was preventing from passing through the Catholic Ardoyne area.

Published July 14, 2015

Hatefest

The Dublin government has been accused of lining up with the IMF and the EU institutions to inflict further suffering on the Greek people even as it continues to impose further austerity cuts here.

Published June 27, 2015

Sinn Fein facing Cork rebellion

A spectacular row over the disciplining of two councillors has divided the Sinn Fein organisation in Cork, with up to 70 resignations reported across the Cork East constituency.

One of the first controversial sectarian parades of the summer passed off uneventfully on Friday night in north Belfast after loyalist bandsmen appeared to adhere to a Parades Commission determination.

Published June 20, 2015

Republican community worker assaulted by police

A member of the Republican Network for Unity was assaulted and arrested by the PSNI while putting up suicide awareness posters in north Belfast on Sunday afternoon.

Published June 20, 2015

Degrading treatment for heart attack prisoner

A republican political prisoner at Maghaberry has detailed a traumatic experience at the hands of prison warders after he sought medical attention for a suspected heart attack.

Published June 20, 2015

‘Open the vaults’

The head of the PSNI police in the north of Ireland, George Hamilton, has said the force has a “vault” of secret information on the conflict in the North but is concerned its release would create a “one sided focus” on the force’s actions.

Published June 13, 2015

New call for justice after death of sectarian assault victim

Derry man Paul McCauley died last weekend as a result of a vicious loyalist assault nine years ago. His father has now called for a full and proper investigation into his murder.

Published June 13, 2015

Gun attack as loyalist flags rise over interfaces again

The unionist paramilitary UVF is being blamed after a masked gang this week threatened to shoot a man at his home while his 14-year-old son was inside. Three men, one armed with a gun, threw a brick at the house on Blythe Street in Sandy Row in south Belfast before threatening the man.

Legislation on welfare reform looks to be rejected by the Stormont assembly on Tuesday after the SDLP said its 14 assembly members would be joining Sinn Fein in supporting a nationalist ‘petition of concern’ to stop the bill.

Published May 23, 2015

Maghaberry authorities punishing prisoners for complaints

The new British government has already launched an ultra-conservative political agenda that could unravel the peace process in the north of Ireland.

Published May 16, 2015

Clooneys to back torture case

In a development which has electrified news coverage of their plight, top barrister Amal Clooney is set to take on the European court case of the ‘hooded men’. Her husband, famous Hollywood movie actor George Clooney, is also set to travel to Belfast.

Published May 16, 2015

Drugs gangs seeking to spread fear in Belfast

Senior republicans in north Belfast have been told by the PSNI that they are under threat from criminals following the murder of former IRA commander Gerard ‘Jock’ Davison.

Published May 16, 2015

‘Yes’ vote urged in 26-County referendums

With the support of all of the political parties in the Dublin parliament, a referendum campaign on same-sex marriage could bring official state recognition for Ireland’s LGBT community and their relationships for the first time.

The chief of the Health Services Executive (HSE) in the 26 Counties is under pressure to resign after the latest damning report into patient care at Irish hospitals.

Published May 9, 2015

Doing justice to the memory of Gerard ‘Jock’ Davison

More than 60 community groups and organisations from nationalist areas of Belfast have endorsed the following open letter to praise the senior republican Jock Davison and criticise attempts by the media to “criminalise his past”.

Published May 9, 2015

Tories claim victory as seats pile in for Cameron

British prime minister David Cameron now looks certain to return to 10 Downing St after the Conservatives secured the narrowest of victories in the Westminster general election.

Published May 8, 2015

SNP landslide in Scotland; unionist gain in North

The British general election has created massive upheaval for the political system in London, with the Scottish National Party on course for a virtual clean sweep of Westminster seats in Scotland, although the election has produced relatively little change in the north of Ireland.

Published May 8, 2015

Shock at murder of senior PIRA figure

Prominent Belfast republican Gerard ‘Jock’ Davison was shot dead this morning in the Markets area in a killing which has shocked the city less than 48 hours before polls open in the Westminster general election.

Published May 5, 2015

A parliament in denial

With just days to go before a potentially historic Westminster general election, a further rise in support for the Scottish National Party is already creating a crisis in British politics which will likely have implications for Ireland.

Published May 2, 2015

Dee Fennell interned

Ardoyne residents’ spokesperson Dee Fennell was effectively interned by a judge at Craigavon court on Friday, confirming fears of republicans since his arrest two weeks ago.

Published May 2, 2015

Hardline statement by UDA group

Leaders of a breakaway UDA faction in north Antrim have warned that their violence is likely to escalate further.

Published May 2, 2015

Repressive raids blamed on British Army unit

The Republican Network for Unity have said they witnessed a number of armed house raids carried out on the homes of republican political activists in North Belfast and Derry, including a member of RNU’s Ard Comhairle (leadership).

Published May 2, 2015

DUP Minister quits after new homophobic incident

A controversy over the DUP’s views on gay people has increased in the north of Ireland despite the resignation of the party’s health Minister, Jim Wells on Tuesday.

Published May 2, 2015

UUP candidate accused of insulting Catholic victims

Comments by Westminster election candidate Tom Elliott about the arrest and charging of a former British soldier for the attempted murder of a man with special needs in 1974 have been described as “an outrageous slur”.

Published May 2, 2015

Internment fears for residents’ spokesperson

A republican activist who has campaigned against sectarian parades in north Belfast has been arrested and charged in connection with a speech he made at Easter.

Published April 25, 2015

Corruption scandal over Anglo successor’s dodgy deals

A major scandal has erupted in the 26 Counties over the knockdown sale by a state-run bank of the bankrupt firm Siteserv to billionaire Denis O’Brien, a backer of the governing Fine Gael party.

Published April 25, 2015

Election exposes unionist bigotry

Outbreaks of unionist prejudice have dominated the British general election in the north of Ireland, where 18 Westminster parliament seats are being contested.

Published April 25, 2015

Parades issue seen as post-election bargaining chip

As concerns mount over the forthcoming marching season, several thousand unionists and scores of bands brought Newry to a standstill on Friday of last weekend in what was described as “an orgy of sectarian triumphalism”.

Published April 25, 2015

Media war continues in the North

A crude propaganda exercise by the British Crown forces backfired this week when it emerged that damage to a vehicle exhibited at a press conference had been almost entirely faked by British Army operatives.

Published April 25, 2015

Increasing support for ‘Republic Day’ events

Republicans across Ireland marked the calendar anniversary of the Easter Rising on Friday.

Published April 25, 2015

Loyalists escalate race violence

There has been a new spate of racist attacks across Belfast, with the Polish community being particularly targeted by loyalists.

Published April 18, 2015

Inquiry into ‘Stakeknife’ collusion

An investigation is to be launched into the series of killings carried out by the British agent known as Stakeknife and other Crown agents acting secretly inside the Provisional IRA.

Published April 18, 2015

PSNI media campaign opposed

An annual commemoration of the Great Hunger, when one million Irish people died, is to be held in the Six Counties for the first time.

Published April 11, 2015

‘Ireland’s Alamo’ saved

There has been a broad welcome for news that the site of the last stand of the 1916 rebels during the Easter Rising is to be bought by the 26 County State for 4 million euro.

Published April 4, 2015

Loyalist bomb alert as new councils face old problems

There was a hoax bomb attack and graffiti sprayed on council buildings in Dungannon as the north’s new ‘super councils’ finally took up power as part of a shake-up of local government in the north of Ireland.

Published April 4, 2015

Nationalists could be the story of the Westminster election

Next month’s British general election could see the Scottish National Party (SNP) win almost all of the parliamentary seats in Scotland, recreating the historic and transformative 1918 Westminster election in Ireland.

Published April 4, 2015

Family mark tragedy, forty years on

A Portadown family have dedicated a plaque in memory of their mother who was murdered by the UVF in 1975.

Published April 4, 2015

No mercy from the landlord class

The Dublin government has been accused of acting only on behalf of large-scale property owners in Ireland as it emerged that a substantial number of TDs identify themselves as professional landlords.

Published April 4, 2015

Government’s self-loathing over Rising centenary

A reference to the executions of 1916 leaders and a photograph of IRA Volunteers were removed from a leaflet launching the Dublin government’s programme of Easter Rising centenary events last November, it has been confirmed.

Published April 4, 2015

Water protests continue amid corruption questions

Just under 90,000 people marched in Dublin on Saturday in the latest anti-austerity protest against the 26 County government’s new water charges as a scandal over the operation of Irish Water, the new national water board, has expanded.

Republican prisoners in Maghaberry jail have condemned the arrest and interrogation of five of their number.

Published March 21, 2015

Helsinki Commission hears of Glenanne cover-up

There has been “dishonourable silence” from the British government on evidence of deep collusion between the British forces in Ireland and unionist paramilitaries during the conflict, an Irish human rights researcher author has told a US congressional panel.

Published March 21, 2015

‘We refuse to pay’ - Right2Water

Tens of thousands are preparing to march in Dublin today in the latest anti-austerity protest. Three separate marches, highlighting the impact of austerity and the new tax on tap water, are planned for Saturday afternoon.

Published March 21, 2015

Frazer calls off ‘Love Ulster 2’; Bryson convicted

A sectarian parade through Dublin has been cancelled after organisers claimed the Dublin government is preparing to hand over files to an inquest.

Published March 21, 2015

Hope abides for ‘crucified’ Stormont

Almost a hundred thousand people took the streets in the North’s biggest protest against austerity cuts on Friday as Sinn Fein battled accusations that it has let down working class voters and the poor in the negotiation of the Stormont House Agreement.

Published March 14, 2015

New abuse case fuels anti-SF media campaign

The emergence of a second historical case in which a teenager was allegedly abused by an IRA member has reignited a controversy begun six months ago over Sinn Fein’s handling of such matters.

Published March 14, 2015

July 18, 2018