THE 2008 Le Chéile event, held to honour five Irish republicans, one from each province and one from overseas, for their hard work and dedication to the struggle for freedom, justice and equality saw hundreds of guests - including many leading republicans, Sinn Féin TDs, MPs MEPs and MLAs - pack into Dublin's Stillorgan Park Hotel on Saturday evening, 1 March. Free article

DURING the Saturday session of the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis the Party Development Department held a very successful event focusing on Sinn Féin women councillors. During the course of the event and to mark the anniversary of the deaths the Gibraltar Three, Áine Ní Dhubháin sang The Ballad of Mairéad Farrell and Pádraigín Uí Mhurchadha was honoured. Free article

When Harry met Barry

BARRY McELDUFF told the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis that Prince Harry was in Afghanistan but wasn’t with the British Army in the Six Counties and he swore everyone to secrecy.
The question is: who did tip off the Drudge blog site about the third in line to the British throne being a little too close to throat-cutting Johnny Foreigner for comfort. The fact that Mummy... Free article

IT HAD to happen one day, I know, but though you think you'll be ready, you never are. And when you have built something up in your mind, the reality is never quite the same when fate springs on you. So, last Sunday, while window shopping in one of Dublin's over-priced and over-stocked shopping quarters in a post-Ard Fheis haze, this reporter was blind-sided by the acquaintance who wanted to talk about the tax debate at the previous day's conference. Free article

SINN FÉIN has long held the view that to build a sustainable and prosperous economy it needs to be in an all-Ireland context. I welcome the fact that more and more political and economic opinion throughout Ireland is accepting the validity of that view. Free article

AN unforeseen effect of the Cork players' strike has been to galvanise opposition to the grants scheme which was agreed last November to avert the threat of a strike by Gaelic Players' Association members. Free article