When this century began Britain had an Empire. As Empires go it could swagger about the planet as well or better than most other Empires. Now it swaggers no longer. The Empire is finished. Free article

My schooldays were marked down by an approaching date that there was no escaping from. Free article

It was a winter afternoon. Overhead, the sky was dark with rain but the horizon was light, a bitter brightness casting long shadows from a cold sun already too close to the ground. Tom Hartley met us, myself and my youngest daughter Niamh, at the cemetery gates. Tom, a busy Belfast City councillor, warns we have only an hour for a graveyard tour that usually lasts for four. What a relief. I might relish the melodrama of a deserted cemetery, lit only by the light and shade of its headstones, but my two-year-old will not. Free article

As we move into a new century and a new millennium, the safety catch is very definitely off on how many superlatives can be used to describe the brave new world that awaits us on 1 January 2000. Free article

Partition dominated the experience of northern nationalists in the 20th century. Danny Morrison looks back on how 30 years of struggle brought about change and eventually empowered nationalists and republicans Free article

Looking back over the last year, do you remember during those tortuous months of negotiations up at Stormont when Word of the Week - every week - amongst many of the politicians and most of the political commentators was ``choreography'', a word which was used with embarrassing and tooth-grating regularity? This was closely followed by the ubiquitous use of ``sequencing'', which in the political context meant exactly the same thing but which added a little bit of much-needed variety to the clichés. Well, as the year draws to a close, the Word of the Week at the moment in these rarified circles is, it seems, ``whinging''. The great, the good and the incredibly stupid amongst the right-wing media and those of unionist persuasion have been nodding sagely at one another and agreeing with themselves that the problem with those damn Catholics is that they whinge too much. Free article

Rita O'Hare was editor of this paper from 1985 until 1991, but she first started working for what was known as ``the official organ of the republican movement'' in 1978. Here, she reflects on her time at the paper, some of the famous personalities associated with it, and the impact of technology on the production process. Free article

Pernando Barrena and Jone Goreizelaia, elected representatives of Herri Batasuna to the Navarran Parliament and the Basque Autonomous Parliament, respectively, visited Dublin last weekend to ``bring to the international community our point of view on recent developments of the political process in the Basque Country. Free article

Ina dhiaidh fór-itheacháin Lá Nollag féin nach maith an seans aclaíocht de shaghas eigin a fháil fiú má's chun éinín beag a mharú? Smaoineann an Draoi Rua faoi nósanna agus pisreog a bhaineann leis an am seo den bhliain. Free article

The IRA's campaign against the British forces gathered momentum gradually after the First Dáil initially met on 21 January 1919, the same day that the Soloheadbeg ambush left two RIC dead. By the end of the year, the IRA had demonstrated that it was capable of launching large-scale operations and that it had the support of the population in its actions. Free article