The Sinn Féin office is located in a what could hardly be called a luxury building in what seems to be a mostly deserted area of West Belfast. In the room where I sit, there is a one-bar electric fire, a couple of mismatched chairs and little else. Somewhere on the outside a band is practicing, the drums that one usually associates with Loyalists are getting a fair belting from … [Read more...] about Ourselves Alone: An Interview with Gerry Adams
Politics Archives
Ireland’s Groovy Arts Minister
By Colin Lacey
January/February 1996
Colin Lacey talks to Michael D. Higgins (recently dubbed by British Vogue as the world's grooviest arts minister) about the renaissance of the Irish film industry. The Crying Game: My Left Foot; Braveheart; The Playboys; The Commitments; The Snapper; Circle of Friends; Window's Peak; The Run of the Country; Into the West; Frankie Starlight - if you haven't been closely … [Read more...] about Ireland’s Groovy Arts Minister
Tim Walz of the Tomhaggard Doyles
By Megan Smolenyak
Fall 2024
How A Solitary Tombstone in Wisconsin Solved the Mystery of His Irish Origins As a professional genealogist of half-Irish heritage, I’ve long embraced the opportunity to underscore the ties between Ireland and the United States, and one of the most obvious ways to do this is to trace the roots of high profile Americans to their place of origin in Ireland. This is trickier … [Read more...] about Tim Walz of the Tomhaggard Doyles
Campaign for Justice 50 Years On
By Brian Dooley
IA Newsletter, October 5, 2024
IA Newsletter, October 5, 2024
Guildford Pub Bombs Continue to Haunt Victims and the British Criminal Justice System 50 years later. Exactly 50 years ago, on Saturday night October 5, 1974, IRA bombs exploded in two pubs in the Surrey town of Guildford, south of London. But despite a series of trials, appeals, an official inquiry and a coroners inquest, the full story of the attacks is still not … [Read more...] about Campaign for Justice 50 Years On
A People’s President
Mary McAleese was elected president of Ireland in October of 1997. It was an astonishing outcome. Just a few months previously, the 46-year-old law professor at Queens University in Belfast was hardly known in the Irish Republic and the notion that a Northerner could be elected president of Ireland seemed a farfetched one. Then in one of the most stunning ascents to power in … [Read more...] about A People’s President