Eddie Fullerton was a friend of mine. He was also a Sinn Féin councillor in Donegal, the husband of Diana and the father of their three daughters and three sons. Eddie Fullerton was older than me. He was born on 26 March 1935 to John and Mary Fullerton and he grew up on a small farm in the townland of Sledrin, just north of Buncrana, in Inis Eoghain. At the age of 18 Eddie went to find work in Scotland and from there to Birmingham, England.
The last of the great news organisations that once dominated Fleet Street has left, signifying the end of an era. By Conor Brady
I went to Israel from Kilkenny in the autumn of 1983 and for the first few weeks I lived the life of a non-driving, single Irishwoman, meaning that I kept a close eye on my watch when I was out at night in order to avoid being on the streets alone around or after closing time. After a couple of nights of chats too good to end, I discovered that all there was to be feared was the manic bus drive down the almost empty steep roads of Mount Carmel.
Tension between the partners in this Government, Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats, may, for once, prove creative. It is quite right that there should be a balance between giving the media more freedom under a reformed libel regime and arrangements that would protect the privacy rights of citizens.
John Waters jiving at the crossroads with Seán Doherty
Charlie McCreevy's interview with the Sunday Business Post was intended to put him in touch with the people. But such comments in the past have backfired for other politicians.
Whenever a media organisation is duped by a hoax story, there is barely-concealed Schadenfreude on the part of its rivals. Yet it happens quite often. John Byrne reports on some of the more stellar pranks that have come down the wire
At my lunchtime read of the newspaper, I tend to avoid the awful stories and last week there were plenty of them: the mistreatment of elderly people in care facilities; the Morris Tribunal report; and the matter of the ex-cleric charged and found guilty of the sexual abuse of the two national school pupils in Sligo in the 1970s. I read as far as the bit where we learned it was his practice to hang them up on hooks on the back of the classroom doors and I thought immediately, well, maybe I should go back to work a bit early, I'll leave that for tonight when I'll be better able to handle it.
Following Newsweek's publication of the mishandling of the Koran in Guantanamo, Conor Brady writes about the use and misuse of anonymous sources
If the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, imagine what it could do to the Irish political scene at the next election if it decided to seek revenge on the Government for failing to deliver affordable childcare.