Memories by Jack Lynch, Nora Connolly O'Brien, Martin Smyth, Dervla Murphy, Michael Hartnett, Bernadette McAliskey

THE TINSEL and glitter of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes has tarnished a bit in recent years. By Pamela Readhead

THE GOVERNMENT INDUSTRIAL AGENCY, FOIR TEO, HAS PUMPED 20 MILLION POUNDS INTO AILING COMPANIES OVER THE PAST FIVE YEARS. TOM ANDERSON ASSESSES ITS PERFORMANCE

Our telephone service is a national sick joke. The postal service isn't much better. It's hard to open a newspaper without reading about another strike. Victorian attitudes to staff relations mean that things are going to get worse. By Liam O'Toole

THE BRITiSH used to describe the Irish in much the same terms as the Irish themselves now describe the itinerant. The descriptions, then as now, had elements of 'fact in them. We were dirty, we were ignorant, we were fractious, and superstitious. All of these characteristics, however, were a direct result of our oppression. Denied access to education, ignorance was inevitable. Taxed for improveements to our houses, we lived in hovels. Denied the rights accorded to others, we fought for these rights and our only consolation in times of desperation was our religion.

A report by Kevin Myers on one of the poorest and most violent ghettos in Belfast.

WHERE COUNTY DOWN ends its dismal encounter with East Belfast, through the cramped and decaying streets of Ballymacarret at the rim of the River Lagan and County Antrim, lies the Short Strand, four hundred yards by four hundred yards of belliigerent Republicanism and poverty, surrounded on three sides by loyalist districts and on the fourth by the River Lagan. Its back to the East, the Strand faces Belfast city centre; which a large number of its residents have done their best to flatten.

IRELAND WILL surely never see a racing car emblazoned with the word Durex - as caused a row in Britain recently. But the name Guinness is firmly linked with events as disparate as the Irish Oaks and Wexford Festival. Carrolls is almost synonymous with the GAA Allstars and the Open Golf chammpionship, and Gallaghers with the Motor Circuit of Ireland. By PAMELA READHEAD

FOR THE first time a poll has shown that a majority of the Irish people are in favour of the legalisation of divorce in certain circumstances. And the size." of the majority is amazingly high(two' thirds) especially as compared with previous polls which at no stage showed a clear majority in favour yet alone such a decisive one.

THEY DON'T NEED ME,' says Noel Browne, TD. He says it with no mock modesty, a hint of satisfaction and a perceivable measure of hope. He is explaining that the recently formed Socialist Labour Party 'is not, repeat not, Noel Browne's New Party'. By Gene Kerrigan

Today the Irish Sea is probably the most heavily contaminated with radioactive debris of any sea in the world. British plans to build a new nuclear reprocessing plant at Windscale could make this situation dramatically worse. Jeremy Bugler reports on the 100 day public inquiry which the Irish government did not attend. By Jeremy Bugler