Politics (Page 79)

A teenage boy and girl have died following a road traffic collision in Co Galway. The single-vehicle crash occurred shortly before 6am on Monday at Glennagarraun in the Ballyfruit area of Headford. Gardaí confirmed the vehicle had four occupants, two boys and two girls, all of whom were described as “young teenagers”. One of the boys was pronounced dead at the scene, while the three remaining occupants were taken to University Hospital Galway for treatment. One of the girls was subsequently pronounced dead at the hospital. The road has been closed to traffic as forensic collision investigators conduct a technical examination and local diversions have been put in place. Gardaí are urging witnesses, including those with camera footage, to comeContinue Reading

Last week, The Mail on Sunday’ asked readers if they’d been blocked from accessing deceased loved ones’ documents. People claimed GPs, hospitals, care homes and hospices refuse to share data.Continue Reading

A 26-year-old man has appeared before a Belfast court charged with the murder of a woman in Limerick city. Geila Ibram, a 27-year-old woman from Romania, was found dead at a residence on Dock Road in Limerick on Tuesday. Habib Shamel, an Afghan national, appeared before court via videolink charged with her murder. Belfast Magistrates’ Court heard he had been in Ireland since October 2022, and had applied for asylum. When asked whether he understood the charge against him, he confirmed through an interpreter that he did. A detective sergeant told the court that Ms Ibram had been stabbed “numerous times” and that the attack resulted in the defendant injuring his hand. The district judge refused the man bail, callingContinue Reading

Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock Thot. White knight. Red pilled. Cuck. Beta. Soyboy. Unicorn. Chad. To many people, these words won’t mean much. To others, they are a core part of the vocabulary of the “manosphere” – a collection of websites, social media accounts and forums dedicated to men’s issues, from health and fitness to dating and men’s rights. Many (though not all) manosphere communities have become spaces where explicit anti-women and anti-feminist sentiment abound. These include incels, men’s rights activists, red-pillers, pick-up artists and male separatists. I’m interested in how men use language, especially in the media and online, and what this tells us about contemporary masculinity and gender relations. In my recent book, I show how the language of the manosphereContinue Reading

In February 1990, in the midst of the Troubles, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness publicly invited the British government to reopen a back-channel used during previous phases of contact with the IRA in the 1970s and during the 1981 hunger strike. If [the British government] think there is something to be lost by stating publicly how flexible they would be, or how imaginative, we are saying they should tell us privately … there is an avenue which they are aware of whereby they can make what imaginative steps they are thinking about known to the Republican movement. It was a crucial early step on the road to the Good Friday Agreement. The British government, acting in conditions of the greatest secrecy,Continue Reading

The Good Friday Agreement ended a conflict that claimed more than 3,500 lives between 1968 and 1998. It is estimated that one-third of the adult population in Northern Ireland has been directly affected by bereavement, physical injury or trauma. Peace agreements often now include provisions (such as truth commissions) to deal with the legacy of past conflict. Addressing the rights and needs of victims, these mechanisms seek to balance competing demands for truth, justice, accountability and reconciliation. The Good Friday Agreement controversially provided for the release of all paramilitary prisoners who had served two years and agreed to the peace process. But broader legacy issues were deemed a bridge too far. The “moment” of political agreement presents a unique opportunityContinue Reading

Between 1820 and 1920, four million people emigrated from Ireland to the US. Many were fleeing hunger and destitution and so brought with them an “exile” nationalism – a conviction that they were forced to leave by British misgovernment and exploitation of Ireland. Little wonder, then, that the Irish diaspora in the US played a crucial role in supporting, and particularly financing, the struggle for Irish independence. When the Northern Ireland conflict broke out in the late 1960s, Irish America again mobilised in support of the region’s nationalist minority community. The diaspora saw the conflict in simplistic terms, as a renewal of the fight for Irish freedom from British imperial domination. Events like Bloody Sunday in January 1972 – whenContinue Reading