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Northern Ireland loyalist assassin given life sentence for 1989 murder of lawyer – ISN

DERRY — The saga around one of Northern Ireland’s most controversial political assassinations reached a conclusion of sorts on Thursday with the jailing of a former loyalist paramilitary. Ken Barrett, 41, admitted to being one a group of masked gunmen who in February 1989 shot prominent Catholic solicitor Pat Finucane 14 times as he ate a Sunday meal with his family. Finucane was a high-profile lawyer who represented republican clients – but also worked with Protestants. Barrett, then a member the loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), was given a minimum 22 year sentence. However, he could be released within just a few months as part of the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland’s landmark 1998 peace deal. The peace deal included an amnesty for politically-motivated crimes committed during Northern Ireland’s 30-year civil conflict.

Still talking in Northern Ireland, ten years after IRA ceasefire – ISN

DERRY – Tuesday marked the 10-year anniversary of the first IRA ceasefire, the culmination of years of official and behind-the-scenes negotiation and confidence building. After yet more intricate and stop-and-start dealings, the way was paved for the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998, aimed at permanently settling the 30-year civil conflict in Northern Ireland. With the guns largely silent and the daily litany of bombings, assassinations, and sectarian murder now largely a thing of the past, the focus is on the current political impasse that has stalled the implementation of the landmark peace deal.

Northern Ireland’s marching season passes quietly – ISN

DERRY – The third major day of Northern Ireland’s marching season passed off without any major incidents, marking a relatively trouble-free summer during what is usually a confrontational and edgy time for the province.

On Saturday, over 15,000 members of the radical Apprentice Boys association – part of the Protestant or British “loyalist/unionist” camp, as opposed to the predominantly Catholic Irish “nationalist” or “republican” side of the divide – marched through Northern Ireland’s second city, Derry, also known as Londonderry.

The bowler-hatted and orange-sashed bands marched through the city’s predominantly Loyalist Waterside before crossing the Foyle River to pass through the mainly Nationalist Cityside, where over 60 per cent of the city’s population lives. The route passes close by the Bogside area, the city’s nationalist stronghold, before turning back to cross the Foyle River via The Fountain — the main loyalist enclave on the Cityside.

Ireland’s alcoholic curse – OpenDemocracy

Does the answer lie in the past? Under British rule, particularly before the Great Famine in the 1840s, the manufacture of absinthe-potency alcohol known as poitín was a nationwide illegal cottage industry requiring little technical expertise or equipment. This quasi-hallucinogenic brew was widely popularised as both a symbol of defiance of British rule (the Royal Irish Constabulary and its antecedents had special units designed to stamp out the industry/custom, which were met with ingenious schemes to maintain underground production) and a quick, cheap means of getting hammered.