Sinn Féin's annual Irish language gathering took place in Belfast last weekend. Slógadh Shinn Féin was infused with a sense of purpose following the recent decision of the Ard Chomhairle to adopt a radical plan to enable the party to function in the Irish language within a decade. Participants took renewed inspiration from the commitment of the 1981 Hunger Strikers to the Irish language and the highlight of the weekend was a visit to Long Kesh and the hospital wing where the ten men died. With most of the participating Gaeilgeoirí under 30 years old, the Slógadh marked an optimistic stepping up of the language revival within Irish republicanism and beyond. Free article

We in Sinn Féin need to sell the benefits of all-Ireland economic and infrastructural integration as vigorously in the 26 Counties as in the North. This is an area where we have not put sufficient focus to counteract the Free Statism of the main 26-County parties. Free article

In a week that showed signs of unionist nervousness, Laura Friel asks if the DUP confound its critics and reach some kind of accommodation with its nationalist neighbours by November. Free article

Twenty years ago it was quite clear what socialism meant. Now it is arguably less clear. Over a decade after the fall of communism, does the left still have the ambition to create an alternative society? Or is our goal no more than to soften the more glaring injustices of the existing order? And what does it mean to talk of socialism in an Ireland of cappuccinos and chiabattas, SUVs and second homes in Spain? Free article

Placed on the statute books in 1922 in the immediate aftermath of Partition by Sir Richard Dawson Bates, interment - the imprisonment of people without charge or trial - was used by successive Unionist regimes in an effort to smash nationalist resistance. Free article

The Great Deception - Can the European Union Survive? By Christopher Booker and Richard North. Continuum Publishers. Price €15/£10stg Awaiting The Lark Published by Ógra Shinn Féin Price €8/£5 stg Order online at www.osf.pro.ie. Free article

Three of the four football qualifiers went as predicted by the bookmakers. Kerry's deploying of Kieran Donaghy as a retro 'Bomber' paid handsome dividends. In Enniskillen Fermanagh inexplicably abandoned their usual game plan in favour of getting down with Donegal and lost a match that was about as aesthetically pleasing as, well, Laois beating Offaly. There had been rumours, put out by would-be Tullamore svengalis it appears, that the Offaly lads had been on the soup after the Dubs match. Maybe try the vodka and red bull the next time boys. Free article

'A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing' Free article

Dawn strike at Paisley

When DUP leader Ian Paisley denounced her membership of the Policing Board, Dawn Purvis of the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party hit back at the grand-daddy of unionism.

Dawn told the media that the DUP leader accepted an armed UVF guard during 'The Troubles' "without complaining".

She said that UVF gunmen routinely guarded the... Free article