Oct 5, 2018 | Features
Today, 5th October marks the fiftieth anniversary of the RUC attack on the Civil Rights March in Duke Street, Derry. Tomorrow, beginning at 3pm, the march and intended route back then to the Guildhall will be replicated by Sinn Féin. One of those on the march on 5th...
Sep 11, 2018 | Features
At times, reading this brilliantly researched and brilliantly presented story is like revisiting the prison protests in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and Armagh Gaol, so startling are the parallels. What, of course, it does prove is that the British, well-versed and...
Aug 28, 2018 | Features
“The dream of happiness does not exist that does not bite its own tail,” says the eponymous Dr Glas in the secret diary he writes as he sits alone at his window, watching the weather and light go through their phases. It is also in the diary’s pages that we learn of a...
Aug 27, 2018 | Features
In April 2003 I wrote a feature for The Examiner about the (non) publication of the Stevens Inquiry report and the reaction of some in the British establishment who rode to the rescue of state assassins. (It was later published in my book, Rebel Columns.) Parts of the...
Aug 18, 2018 | Features
In 2004 I wrote a chapter for a book by Liberties Press, 3 Days in September: When the Pope Came to Ireland in which I was scathing of John Paul II and the Irish Catholic hierarchy. Forty years later, and as the Republic of Ireland prepares for the visit of Pope...
Jul 6, 2018 | Features
In 1970, within months of the conflict breaking out here, two books, long in gestation, were published: The IRA by Tim Pat Coogan; and The Secret Army by James Bowyer Bell. I remember speaking to several veteran republicans who had been interviewed and who defended...
