Page 35 - Six Counties News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Sean J Murphy is one of a rare breed - a full-time historian. Such beings are scarce indeed in Ireland outside the universities. But he has managed to carve a career and a living from the past for the past four decades. He has applied his expertise to digging into the roots of those who come to him looking to draw up family trees. He is available to the producers of radio and television programmes to speak on issues such as Irish surnames and the legend of Molly Malone. Sean knows his way too around some of the most important collections of manuscripts in the country.

The afterlife of Bobby Sands Glowing leftwing tributes to the hunger-striker contrast markedly to the prevailing attitude 40 years ago. Paul Demarty looks at the modern-day paradoxes Last week, a significant anniversary for British and Irish politics was marked - on March 1 1981, Bobby Sands 1, the most celebrated and reviled of the Provisional IRA hunger-strikers, began to refuse food, in protest at their treatment as common criminals. The memorial machines are grinding into gear for this two-month period, which - however much they may have missed Sands and the 10 others who died in the st...

The partner of Lyra McKee has hit out at a conservative political commentator after he blamed the wrong dissident republican group for the journalist's murder.

AWAY from the liberal fanfare, reception to the inauguration of Joe Biden on the fringes of the political class and deranged sections of the right-wing commentariat has made for concerning viewing. Sensational claims that the new president is a “parrot for Irish nationalism” were alleged by Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson.  This hysterical theme was also present on TalkRadio, with Mike Graham nodding his head in agreement at a caller’s claim that Biden was “openly courting” pro-IRA sentiment. If you were to read these opinions and take away the name “Biden,” you cou...

• Edwin Poots, Arlene Foster and Jim Allister » Peadar Whelan “Unionists last night erupted in fury after the EU unilaterally activated a crucial clause in the Brexit deal, in what Arlene Foster dubbed ‘an act of incredible hostility’ .” So read the opening paragraph in the front page article of the Belfast unionist daily News Letter on Saturday January 30 as news emerged that the EU threatened to invoke Article 16 of the Irish protocol and block the importation of anti- Covid-19 vaccines into the Six Counties from Europe. Days earlier a public row erupted between Britain and the E...