Why is modern Ireland home to some of the most conservative politics in Europe, asks JASON WALSH

STEPHEN MCGLENNON wonders how ‘liberal’ became a term of abuse and argues there’s still life in the old dog yet

The Catholic Church’s fund for compensation is empty, says COLETTE BROWNE

Google is not the newsmonster – nor is it omniscient, says JASON WALSH

Why is the Green Party following in the truculent footsteps of the pre-agreement DUP?

Never mind grade inflation, expecting education to solve the country’s economic problems is a joke, says JASON WALSH

Social vampire and art critic Waldemar Januszak can now fondly remember the conflict in Ireland – but only because it’s over, says JAMES HEARTFIELD

Nationialism was the politics of empowerment in the nineteenth century – but it’s now 2010, says ANDREW GALLAGHER

OWEN POLLEY says we’re gearing-up to blame the SDLP and UUP for failure but they are the very people who can fix the assembly by challenging its authoritarian, centralising nature

As Ian Paisley prepares to step down from his role as MP forth traces his transformation from sectarian demagogue to living saint

They may offend liberal opinion but tabloid newspapers are the first line of defence for a free press, says JASON WALSH

Precious pieties never solved anything, says JASON WALSH

It’s the same as the old one, says STEPHEN MCGLENNON

A report from the Magazines Ireland annual debate

Responses to the recent London conference on Irish unity suggest a united Ireland is a mere managerial process. Nothing could be further from the truth

ANNA MORVERN says the alleged Mossad assassination should not be allowed to force biometric identity documents on us

Complaining about ‘civil war politics’ isn’t enough – it’s time to reinvigorate our moribund political system, says JASON WALSH

Three responses to the Belfast Salon debate held as part of Exchange Mechanism at the Belfast Exposed gallery

forth reader MICHAEL GILLESPIE gives his view on the proposed bill of rights for the North

Defence minister Willie O’Dea is an alleged perjurer and fights dirty – but the forces circling him aren’t democratic, this is the backstabbing of court politics

As the Greek economy continues to tank many are wondering if joining the Euro was the right idea. JASON WALSH says it doesn’t matter which currency you have, what matters is how much of it you have in your pocket

A report from last night’s Belfast Salon debate: A house divided

Forget the fading messianic effect, Obama’s energising of politics still matters and we could still do with some of that enthusiasm here at home

George Lee’s resignation from politics is more than just a ‘hissy fit’, it’s poisonous to politics

An interview published today lays the blame for the IRA split of 1969 at the feet of one man: Seamus Costello. If true, what does this mean for our understanding of recent Irish history, asks JASON WALSH

In the second of a series of articles before the Belfast Salon debate, JASON WALSH argues the only way forward for the North is to think about Ireland nationally

In the first of a series of articles before the Belfast Salon debate OWEN POLLEY argues for a modern Britishness against ‘Ulster’ identity

No, not the Ulster Unionists, it was the public

IRA veteran, former Sinn Féin president, Official IRA leader and leading Irish communist dead

The endless and farcical devolution talks at Stormont should remind us of the need to replace the exhausted institutions, both north and south, writes forth editor JASON WALSH in Spiked

Anything Sinn Féin and the DUP can agree on isn’t worth the paper it’s written on

The anti-clerical ‘Count Me Out’ inflates the importance of Ireland’s rotting Catholic Church, says JASON WALSH

Why is Ireland’s Socialist Party arguing – quietly – for union with Britain, asks SÉAMUS Ó SIONNAGH

The new lowered speed limit of 30 kilometres per hour is not about traffic management or road safety, it’s an assault on mobility – and the statistics prove it, says JASON WALSH

Three forth contributors give their thoughts on the future of Ireland’s Green Party after the next election

Young, educated Protestants are leaving the North – but the problem is economic, not cultural, says JASON WALSH

The crime story that ‘gripped Ireland’ tells us a lot about ourselves, but not quite what the press is claiming

The DUP and Sinn Féin failed Friday to agree on bringing policing and justice under local control. If a stalemate continues, it could result in the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly, reports forth editor JASON WALSH in the CS Monitor

The Republic of Ireland has a lower population than major cities – the only reason anyone cares about Ireland is because of the conflict

Today’s proliferation of rights is having the effect of making us less free

JASON WALSH wouldn’t vote for a unionist party if his life depended on it but says the Orangemen have one thing right – the Parades Commission is undemocratic

The state’s Irish policies have failed. Any genuine revival of the language will come from elsewhere, says JASON WALSH

Socially and economically liberal political group to launch before election hopes to avoid making the PDs’ errors all over again

OWEN POLLEY argues against the North’s proposed undemocratic Bill of Rights

forth editor JASON WALSH reporting on the ‘Irish-speaking elite’ in the CS Monitor

The shine has come off the Conservatives’ alliance with unionists as sectarian politics reasserts itself in Northern Ireland, says forth editor JASON WALSH, writing in the Guardian

Political discourse? It’s an oxymoron, says STEPHEN RAINEY

Martin Cullen is being torn to pieces (not literally) in the press for using a metaphor. Both his critics and Cullen should grow up, says JASON WALSH

Just because we don’t like them doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to understand dissident republicans – and what they tell us about Sinn Féin

Moral dilemma: what will replace the church as our compass? forth editor JASON WALSH and LENNY ANTONELLI in conversation with scientists and philosophers in the Irish Times

The goal of proportional representation isn’t to enhance democracy, it’s to frustrate it, says JASON WALSH

PAULINE HADAWAY asks if the cost of the Northern Assembly is distracting from creating a real and vibrant democracy?

The abuse allegations are damaging to Sinn Féin but it’s the never-ending peace process that’s really hurting the party, says JASON WALSH

England’s politicians and pundits are thrilled to see the skeletons in Northern Ireland’s closets, says JAMES HEARTFIELD

Comparisons are unfair and unhelpful but we do need to get our act together, says JASON WALSH

The Irish Film Board is badly run, supports lousy movies and costs the taxpayer money. Of course we need it, says NIALL KITSON

Underfunded, unloved and with just enough power to make our lives a misery, it’s time for the councils to go, says JASON WALSH

KEITH ANDERSON reviews the infamous Lock Keeper’s Inn just outside Belfast

The Robinson and Adams scandals don’t matter – because nothing in the North of Ireland matters

forth editor JASON WALSH says the emphasis on victimhood is tedious and beside the point, writing in Global Comment

The Northern Assembly is too important for grandstanding – unless it’s officially sanctioned grandstanding, says JASON WALSH

DANIEL JEWESBURY tells the improbable and engaging story of Iris Robinson, the woman with three jobs and the beast with two backs

He has achieved much, but it’s time for Gerry Adams to go, says TOMMY MCKEARNEY

Some members want the British Labour party to organise in the North of Ireland. But who would vote for it?

Iris Robison’s feet of clay are not important and even the politics will turn out to be hollow

The Adams family crisis and Mrs Robinson scandal are masking the real political meltdown: financial double-dealing and a collapse of political legitimacy, says JASON WALSH

The first minister’s marriage is the least of the Northern Assembly’s problems – how about the fact that the entire Mickey Mouse outfit is incapable of functioning, says JASON WALSH

Calmer heads won’t prevail as snowfall precipitates a virtual state of emergency in Dublin

Political consultant ROBERT CASSIDY considers Brian Lenihan’s contradictory insider-outsider status in politics and notes his response to the TV3 debacle fits a pattern of both Lenihan’s behaviour and pubic perception of him as a man

Marian Keyes’s announcement that she is struggling with depression is unfortunate but let’s not generalise from it, says JASON WALSH

We know airport security is a problem when European governments are planting plastic explosives on travellers, says JASON WALSH

Read forth editor JASON WALSH writing about Ireland’s sex panic in Global Comment magazine

Public life is still dominated by the idea that the Irish are unique – uniquely stupid – but there is nothing unique about Ireland. Isn’t it about time we admitted that, asks JASON WALSH

The problem with TV3’s coverage was that it held the story out of the news for too long, says JASON WALSH

forth editor JASON WALSH reports on how the abuse scandal centred on his brother could derail Gerry Adams’s career, for the CS Monitor

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore’s popularity is not news but an opposition party-led focus group says the unpopular Taoiseach, Brian Cowen, is still considered a better leader than Enda Kenny

A poll commissioned by an opposition party shows public anger at the government – but no enthusiasm for the alternatives, reports JASON WALSH

Gerry Adams’s revelation that his father was an ‘abuser’ fits both republicanism’s drift into victimology and a society obsessed with psychological fragility, says JASON WALSH

Read forth editor JASON WALSH writing about Ireland’s inability to deal with sex, in Spiked magazine

Unless we all grow up Ireland’s grim obsession with sexual abuse is only going to get worse

Trials for sexual offences are difficult for the complainant – unfortunately they have to be

Ireland’s political collapse and fear of affluence occurred long before the recession, says JASON WALSH, in the first of a series of forth essays.

Ireland’s miserable GDP growth of 0.3 per cent masks continuing long term decline

Having spent three decades predicting the collapse of capitalism real soon now the left has been blindsided by the global recession. Here’s why:

Both boosters and critics of capitalism should so a little more (free) market research. JASON WALSH crunches the numbers.

Why did a TD using a word that is heard every day dominate the news?

An inquiry into the recession is not just a waste of time and money, it will depoliticise politics, says JASON WALSH

Today’s recession is not the result of ‘risky investment’, in fact it follows a thirty-year decline in real productive activity. The business class needs to stop whining and get back to work, says JASON WALSH

If there aren’t enough convictions for rape it’s because we need fine-grained definitions of sexual assault, says DR GERARD CASEY

Masturbating into a cup doesn’t make anyone a parent but Ireland’s latest absurd Supreme Court decision has made sperm donation a slimy slope, says JASON WALSH

Fianna Fáil aren’t the only hypocrites in Irish politics – Labour has an entire cemetery in its closet, says Jason Walsh

Dublin-born artist Richard Dwyer reminisces about the 1980s Ireland of his youth and asks why people are shocked about the failure of Church and state. Despite their reputation as fighters and rebels, the Irish have always been a submissive lot

A legal challenge to abortion law isn’t the right way to extend rights to Irish women, says Jason Walsh

‘We wuz right’, says forth editor Jason Walsh – the 2010 budget is a document empty of content

PAULINE HADAWAY reports from Belfast, where the state’s cultural policy is bad for art, bad for politics and reveals a crisis in the political class

Read forth editor Jason Walsh reporting for the CS Monitor in Boston on the findings of the Murphy Commission into abuse by Catholic priests in the Dublin archdiocese

Jason Walsh says public outrage at the Catholic Church is understandable but the Holy See isn’t the state at fault – Ireland is

The party’s move into the North underscores its transformation from the leading political party in Ireland to a support group for Irish aboriginals

Fianna Fáil’s move North isn’t just opportunism, but it is decades too late, says Jason Walsh

Life is not just a litany of human suffering. forth punctures a few misanthropic modern myths