This week, 25 years ago, the epic and heroic chapter in Irish history that was the 1981 H-Block Hunger Strike came to an end after 217 tortuous days. The momentum of the Hunger Strike had been slowed down by a sequence of events, continuing when Hunger Strikers Bernard Fox and Liam McCloskey reluctantly ended their fast in the last week in September. This occurred at a stage when the protest had been building up again, after Matt Devlin and Laurence McKeown were taken off the fast by relatives at the beginning of the month. Free article

Last week Gerry Adams visited the United States. Here, RICHARD McAULEY, who travelled with the Sinn Féin President, gives a flavour of that visit. Free article

You wonder how the families of Daniel McColgan, Gavin Brett and Gerard Lawlor and God knows how many other victims, must have felt as they listened to the demand by the 'Southeast Antrim Brigade' of the UDA for a payment of £ 8.5 million, in return for not murdering any more Catholics. Free article

"It is as an unrepentant republican that I write this" were the opening words of Máirtín Ó Cadhain's pamphlet Aisling, in which he described the fundamentals of his political outlook. It was one which permeated his creative prose writing also - which, combined with his understanding of the complexity of human beings living their lives in a changing world, made him one of the greatest prose writers Ireland ever produced, if not indeed the very greatest. Free article

While the glamour of the All Irelands is fading in the Autumnal mists, for many GAA people this is the most exciting part of the year as county championships come to a conclusion and we await the start of the provincial and national club championships. While playing or spectating in the mud and rain and wind and sometimes sleet and snow can either be a pleasure or a torment, depending on one's temperament, there is a special feeling of satisfaction in the knowledge that by enduring this we are earning the right to enjoy the balmy Summer days. Free article

Tá súil agam go ndearna duine éigin gearán faoi m'alt is deireannaí ag tacú le Bertie - Poblachtánnach ag rith leis na bodaí móra agus b'fhéidir ag súil le mo chlúdach donn féin. Free article

This has been an exciting week (fortnight, indeed) for the media with speculation whipping the hacks into a state of righteous frenzy as the Bertie scandal petered out in a damp squib debate in the Dáil. Free article

An Phoblacht's famous weekly satirical column. Free article

Anseo agus thall san Eoraip tá cogadh ar siúl, cogadh idir phobal na Gaeilge, atá ag obair ar son Athréimniú na Gaeilge agus iadsiúd atá ag plotaireacht i gcoinne stádas ár dteanga. Free article