Northern Ireland

An all-party motion calling for a full public inquiry into the 1988 murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane is expected...

There are only a few hundred involved in dissident republicanism despite efforts to recruit disaffected youth in Northern Ireland. Colm Heatley reports

An American chef accused of organising a break-in at top security barracks must wait until March for decision on case

Sinn Féin's hopes to at least double its Dáil representations are a long cry from the mere platform the southern party wing used to be for the IRA campaign in the North. The hunger strikes broke the mould, showing the Provisional leadership that there were political opportunities outside the armed struggle, and slowly the South began to follow the Northern example.

The Criminal Assets Bureau has recently made much-publicised raids of properties in Dublin, Meath, Wicklow and Louth as part an investigation into IRA money-laundering. It is just one of a number of dubious operations – north and south of the Border – that have occurred at important times in the North's political process. Colm Heatley reports

The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) challenged the conclusions of the Independent International Commission on De...

The over-publicised and much-leaked report from the Independent Monitoring Commission will strengthen the DUP's resolve not to share power with Sinn Féin. Colm Heatley reports

For the 2003/'04 year the salary and expenses bill for Northern Ireland Assembly members was £9.2 million, although the Assembly did not sit for a single session in that 12-month period. Now assembly members are outraged at the possibility that their wages might be stopped. Colm Heatley reports

The hunger strikes were a watershed in modern Irish history. They are credited with accelerating the growth of Sinn Féin. They did much more than that. They helped to create the conditions which later gave birth to the peace process. For that reason, if for no other, at the beginning of another new year and yet another effort to advance the peace process, the events of that time should be studied and discussed by anyone interested in learning lessons of our past.

MI5 has run spies and informants in Ireland throughout the Northern Ireland conflict and continues to do so, according to a former British intelligence officer. By Colm Heatley