Thirty years on, Jonathan Ganesh still dreams about the Algerian man, Zaoui Berezag, who had gone to South Quay Plaza in London’s Docklands on February 9th, 1996 to clean offices in the Midlands Bank. After finishing his work, Berezag was sitting in his car outside a newsagent’s shop. Also next to the shop was a … Read more
One day, we will have to ask if the Irish Constitution is an aid or a barrier to Irish unity, suggests Supreme Court judge Gerard Hogan. Hogan has spent a lifetime writing about the Constitution, and since 2021 has been one of the Supreme Court judges who frequently decide whether its terms have been obeyed. … Read more
Loyalist paramilitaries were often behaving as “community workers by day and terrorists by night”, former Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief constable George Hamilton has told a Westminster committee. Mr Hamilton, who led the PSNI from 2014 to 2019, said loyalist communities must be empowered to resist the influence of paramilitaries in their neighbourhoods … Read more
For a generation of TV viewers growing up in the early 1980s, the history of Ireland will be forever sketched by the soft, Oxbridge tones of historian Robert Kee in his magisterial series, Ireland: A Television History. The landmark 13-part 1981 series sought to explain Ireland’s past during the height of The Troubles, firstly, to … Read more
The gaps in earnings, economic prosperity and nearly every measure of people’s health and wellbeing between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are widening every year, according to new research. Disposable income in the Republic was 36 per cent higher than in Northern Ireland in 2022 on the back of substantially higher wages, the … Read more
One of the most popular tourist destinations on the island of Ireland, Titanic Belfast, lost almost 2,000 bookings in a single telephone call recently because of new, more stringent United Kingdom visa rules, it has emerged. Starting this month, short-term holiday visitors to the UK from all European Union member states other than the Republic … Read more
The State has failed in a Court of Appeal bid to block a Senator’s High Court case seeking to force the Government to reveal the existence of a secret deal to allow Royal Air Force (RAF) jets to police Irish airspace. In his case, Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell claims an agreement allowing the RAF to … Read more
More than 30 years on from the IRA’s ceasefire and more than 25 years after the Belfast Agreement was signed, the Catholic-Protestant divide in Northern Ireland still looms large. Teaching Catholic and Protestant children in the same classrooms originated in the darkest days of the Troubles when parents from both sides of the divide in … Read more
Two influential US congressmen have urged US president Donald Trump to appoint a new White House special envoy to Northern Ireland, just days before Taoiseach Micheál Martin meets Mr Trump in Washington. Calling for a new appointment to fill the place left by former Democratic congressman Joe Kennedy, congressmen Richie Neal, a Democrat, and Mike … Read more
Looking around the Lodge Hotel in Coleraine, Co Derry, shortly before the “Safeguarding The Union” meeting began, most in attendance appeared surprised that so many others turned up on a grey February night. Extra chairs had to be brought in. However much they disagree, be they evangelical Christians or the more socially-liberal, all want the … Read more