Longkesh Inside Out

Thousands of businesses across Northern Ireland could still be victims of extortion by criminal gangs, according to the taskforce set up to tackle paramilitaries.

In its annual report, the Organised Crime Task Force (OCTF) said paramilitary groups are extorting small businesses. Read more »

Former Government Sports Minister and current Labour MP Kate Hoey recently visited East Belfast Football Club, as the Alliance party and Sinn Fein continue to wage a sectarian campaign against the club, the young players and their families. Read more »

That ebullient and creative academic Pete Shirlow recently wrote a piece in the Belfast Telegraph discouraging the indulgence of Northern Irish whinging about ourselves as “ a place apart”, and unloved in GB.   You can argue this either way. As he says: “ The idea that most people in Britain do not give a monkey’s is as true as it is false… I am sure most people in Britain never think about Northern Ireland, but they probably never think much about Glasgow or Cardiff either. Read more »

More invaluable historical information from the MacLean Report on the 1997 killing of LVF leader Billy Wright by the INLA inside the Maze prison, this time about the operation of the RUC Special Branch and allied intelligence bodies. Some of the detail refers specifically to issues raised by the Wright slaying but that does not detract in the slightest from the value of this study: Read more »

For as long as I can remember I have advised fellow reporters to fully read the reports of government inquiries, especially those dealing with security issues thrown up by the Troubles.

I do that because invariably there are little, and sometimes, sizeable and valuable diamonds of information hidden in interminable pages of dull text. But you have to read it all to find them. I usually take my own advice but here I must admit to one occasion when I ignored my own counsel. Read more »

The Troubles was one of the darkest periods in Northern Ireland’s history. It has had a profound and lasting impact on the lives of so many in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom as a whole.

I have been deeply moved by the personal stories of pain and suffering endured by the families of the victims and survivors. I firmly believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to be heard and have a say in how we best move forward. Read more »

“IT’S not always cowardice that makes men run,” says disgraced police inspector Hannah (Hugo Weaving) of his former British army comrade, the now renegade Martin Feeney (James Frecheville), in Black 47. “Sometimes they just get tired. And angry.”

It could be a line from Richard Crenna’s Colonel Trautman in First Blood, explaining to a rookie why “the best soldier I ever knew” – in that case one John Rambo – went rogue. Read more »

A row has broken out over the wording of a plaque to commemorate a gun-running operation by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

Councillors agreed to install the plaque at Donaghadee Harbour, where rifles were landed in April 1914.

It was part of a unionist campaign against the expected introduction of Home Rule in Ireland. Read more »

The trailer for A Mother Takes Her Son To Be Shot, a new documentary set in Londonderry, opens with a mundane domestic image – a mother dropping chips into a deep-fat fryer.

A mother cooking for her family, a typical image of comfort and protection.

But in post-conflict Northern Ireland, a mother’s role can be skewed. Read more »