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

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

Precious pieties never solved anything, says JASON WALSH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love them or loathe them, neither Sinn Féin nor the DUP are extremists, says Jason Walsh

In this, the first part of a discussion in which Owen Polley and Jason Walsh outline their views on what real politics would look like, Polley argues for the creation of a unionism freed of the fetters of identity

Forget Sinn Féin or the DUP, the only party that matters in the Northern Ireland Assembly is the Peace Process Party, says forth editor Jason Walsh writing for spiked

The INLA’s decision to disband marks the end of an era but does it come too late for left republicans, asks Jason Walsh

What would the entry of one million unionists and 700,000 Northern nationalists do to Irish politics? Fix it.
forth editor Jason Walsh writing in the current edition of Humanism Ireland

Claims that Provisional IRA members are helping ‘dissident’ republicans are gross exaggerations designed to make up for a lack of shared purpose, says Jason Walsh

Read forth editor Jason Walsh writing about the collapse of republicanism in spiked

En masse defection from the Anglican to Catholic Church would be good for Ireland – even if you don’t have any interest in Papal bull, says Jason Walsh

Read forth editor Jason Walsh reporting on recent republican attacks in the CS Monitor

The North’s ‘re-imaging’ project took a surreal turn when working class loyalists prescribed something the middle class found hard to swallow, reports Daniel Jewesbury

Read forth editor Jason Walsh in the Guardian, writing about the significance of the INLA ceasefire.

Is former Workers’ Party president Seán Garland a Hollywood anti-hero? Apparently so – at least according to one US journalist.

If Robert Ramsay has his way unionists will continue continue to slide into cultural politics after republicans, threatening to undermine their entire project and show up their leaders as ‘wee dafties’.

Review by Jason Walsh

Jason Walsh asks if secular, non-violent republicanism has any future in the new ‘agreed Ireland’

A bomb scare in the North of Ireland in these more settled times is generally not something that gets an undue amount of media attention. However, a rise in dissident republican activity in recent weeks many are worried that fringe groups have a significant military capability – and one expert agrees.

Some commentators and journalists, myself included, have criticised the terms of the settlement in Northern Ireland and argued that it can never deliver a final settlement. Does that belief put an onus on critics to field an alternative?

By Jason Walsh

A few opportunistic killings in Antrim do not mean the war is starting again

By Jason Walsh

The party had to condemn the killings without offering any support to the presence of British troops in Northern Ireland