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
Peace Process
Quiet Optimism Over NI Talks – Mitchell Report Anxiously Awaited
The pendulum continued to swing between optimism and pessimism in Northern Ireland at the time of going to press, with the main political parties still in talks and Senator George Mitchell poised to release his long-awaited report on the state of the peace process. Mitchell, hailed by commentators of all the persuasions for his role in securing the Good Friday Agreement, flew … [Read more...] about Quiet Optimism Over NI Talks – Mitchell Report Anxiously Awaited
Irish Power, U.S. Politics U.S. Rep. Richie Neal Talks to Niall O’Dowd
Richie Neal’s extraordinary journey from a working-class neighborhood in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Washington, D.C., and one of the most powerful jobs in American politics as the chairman of the Ways & Means Committee. On November 7, 1960, Mary Garvey Neal, who had roots in Ventry, County Kerry, took her son to the Springfield, Massachusetts, town hall. It was very … [Read more...] about Irish Power, U.S. Politics U.S. Rep. Richie Neal Talks to Niall O’Dowd
Arrests in Death of Journalist
Police investigating the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Derry have arrested four people under terrorism legislation. ℘℘℘ The four males – aged 15, 18, 38, and 51 – were arrested in the city on Wednesday morning, May 8, in connection with the killing. The suspects have been taken to the Serious Crime Suite at Musgrave PSNI Station in Belfast, where they are being questioned … [Read more...] about Arrests in Death of Journalist
Wild Irish Women: A Most Sorrowful Mystery
Oh! star of Erin, queen of tears, Black clouds have beset thy birth, And your people die like morning stars, That your light may grace the earth. – "Stars of Freedom," 1981 By IRA volunteer Bobby Sands, M.P. H-Block, Long Kesh Prison Camp Watching Bobby Sands die in 1981, much of the world realized, finally, that the young IRA soldier and hunger striker was a freedom fighter, … [Read more...] about Wild Irish Women: A Most Sorrowful Mystery