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28 May 2010

They won’t go away, we know

CONNAL PARR looks at the spectre of dissident republicanism

‘Freedom is only a flag’

‘Sinn Fein the Workers’ party’, Ireland’s ‘official’ republicans twisted in the wind, says JAMES HEARTFIELD reviewing the Lost Revolution

27 April 2010

The Irish victimhood gravy train trundles through Tripoli

Calls for Libya to stump-up to the relatives of people killed by the IRA are senseless, CONNAL PARR

08 April 2010

‘It’s news because it’s good for you’

Complaints about news being distorted by commercial interests are frequent but the tendentious vainglory of news editors is less well understood. By involving themselves in news, journalists do a disservice to the public, says STEPHEN RAINEY

29 March 2010

UK election: Sinn Féin’s ghosts of politics past

The spectres of Brendan Hughes and Jean McConville are stalking Gerry Adams, but there is more to this story than meets the eye and the IRA isn’t the only party that comes out of it covered in dirt, says JASON WALSH

18 March 2010

Essay: the forward march of republicanism, halted

Republican writer LIAM O’RUAIRC says the jig is up for Sinn Féin but argues that republicanism is, like modernity itself, unfinished business

What is a terrorist?

Transcript of forth editor JASON WALSH‘s contribution to the Global Uncertainties debate ‘What makes a terrorist?’ held at Queens School in Bushey, Hertforshire on March 17, 2010 as part of a UK Research Councils/Debating Matters event.

08 March 2010

Dirty celebrations

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

The polis and the nation

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

02 March 2010

Paisley’s greatest hits

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

25 February 2010

No platform for liberals

Precious pieties never solved anything, says JASON WALSH

23 February 2010

Leader column: Republicanism, not magical thinking

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

19 February 2010

Exchanging ideology for identity

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

Rights on paper

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

06 February 2010

1969 and all that

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

Republican thinking

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

05 February 2010

One group was left out of the new agreement at Hillsborough

No, not the Ulster Unionists, it was the public

04 February 2010

Tomás Mac Giolla dies, aged 86

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

03 February 2010

forth elsewhere: New republic

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

Leader column: the eternal procession

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

A unionist wolf cub in a red hiding hood

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

29 January 2010

forth elsewhere: Northern peace talks deadlocked over policing

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

Southerners: shut up! Without the North no-one would know who you were

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

28 January 2010

Marching orders

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

26 January 2010

forth elsewhere: Conservative unionist blunder

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

21 January 2010

Leader column: Dissident republicans? The chance would be a fine thing

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

18 January 2010

Calling time on Stormont

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

17 January 2010

Processed peace

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

11 January 2010

The North’s permanent provisional government

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

Goodbye Gerry: it’s time for an era to end

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

06 January 2010

Never mind the Robinsons, the North is ungovernable

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

12 December 2009

A sticky situation for Labour

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

26 November 2009

‘We’re not sectarian’: Irish extreme unction

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

25 November 2009

Two views on real politics: part one – the civic space

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

17 November 2009

The North is a one-party state

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

12 November 2009

The INLA ends an era – but is it too late?

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

09 November 2009

forth elsewhere: Fixing Irish politics

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

06 November 2009

Dissident republicans – the phantom menace

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

05 November 2009

forth elsewhere: republic of lose

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

30 October 2009

Get thee to masse!

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

24 October 2009

All the IRAs

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

22 October 2009

Tablets of Ulster’s new covenant

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

14 October 2009

No return to the planet of the Irps

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

12 October 2009

Super Seán’s patriotic games

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

09 October 2009

Review: Ringside Seats by Robert Ramsay

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

05 October 2009

Ourselves together?

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

12 September 2009

Micro-groups with expertise

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.

03 August 2009

Alternatives to Ulster

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

09 March 2009

Back and forth

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

By Jason Walsh

Sinn Féin is walking a tightrope

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