Page 5 - Sam Mcbride News Today

In his last major engagement as Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar has praised the “very good impression” which the First and Deputy First Ministers have made since devolution was restored.

More than a quarter of a century ago, John Hume said something that often seems unfulfilled, despite the peace he helped secure. Accepting the Nobel Peace Prize alongside David Trimble in 1998, the SDLP leader told the Oslo audience: “Too many lives have already been lost in Ireland in the pursuit of political goals. Bloodshed for political change prevents the only change that truly matters: in the human heart.”

Despite his denials, secret documents discovered by the Belfast Telegraph show that the Government believed Noel Little was involved in an international plot to secure weapons for loyalist paramilitaries.

IRA beatings would continue but be “less severe”, a journalist close to top republicans told the British Embassy in Dublin in 1994.

A Garda officer saved Peter Robinson from being handcuffed and taken to Mountjoy Prison after a court appearance related to his ‘invasion of Clontibret’, declassified documents reveal.

Contrary to Peter Robinson’s claim that the UK Government was hiring a mercenary to murder him after his ‘invasion’ of Clontibret, declassified files show the lengths to which British officials went to protect the DUP deputy leader.

Northern Ireland politics were thrown into chaos when Jeffrey Donaldson resigned as DUP leader.

The reform of policing was more damaging to the UUP than the lack of IRA decommissioning, the UUP told the Government.

Sinn Féin “undoubtedly” stole votes in the 2001 General Election — the first time the party overtook the SDLP — the Northern Ireland Office’s most senior civil servant believed.

Weeks after the IRA’s first ceasefire in 1994, Martin McGuinness received a payment from the Ministry of Defence equivalent to £2,000 in today’s money which he appears to never have publicised.