A DEAL by the prosecution ensures the role of a senior Ulster Volunteer Force commander believed to have ordered and organised the killing of teenagers David McIlwaine and Andrew Robb will not be disclosed in court. Free article

THE WORDS equity and equality are confusing. They are essentially similar in meaning or so I thought until I heard Martina Anderson patiently explain to Sir George Bain, the Canadian academic and former Chancellor of Queens University Belfast, the subtle but important difference between the two words. Free article

FOR several years, Blanchardstown was rarely out of the news due to the many gangland killings. The most well-known group who terrorised the community was labelled by the media as 'The Westies'. Thankfully, recently there seems to be a lull in the bloodletting. Whilst the shootings and murders made national news they only impacted on a small proportion of the Dublin 15 community. The areas affected were not unlike many in Dublin and elsewhere throughout the 32 counties, built by city and county councils who gave no thought nor indeed cared for the people who were to live in those isolated communities. Large housing estates like Corduff and Mulhuddart were built on the outskirts of Dublin at the edge of small villages with few or no social or youth facilities. Free article

NEW Progressive Democrats leader Ciaran Cannon has given himself 14 months to transform the dying party's fortunes, setting a target of increasing the PDs' council seats from 28 to 35 in next year's local elections. Free article

AND SO another Latin American nation thumbs a collective nose at the colossus of the north and decides that self-determination may not be such a bad thing after all. Earlier this week, voters in Paraguay finally ended 61 years of Washington supported stagnation, corruption, official theft and bloody dictatorship. Free article

Seo deireadh mo ré - tá mo threimhse órga thart- ta me ag eirí as ar an lá céanna le Bertie - thosaigh mé ag scríobh don pháipéar ag an ám céanna a thosaigh sé mar cheannaire phairtí polaitiúla. Táimíd ag bogadh ar aghaidh go dtí saoil difriúil - ach in ionad bheith ag imirt bowls nó ag freastal ar Live at Three (agus i mo chodladh ag deich taréis) tá mé dul a bheith i mo réalt teilifíse le TG 4 - tchífidh tú mé i Reynards agus ar chlúdach iris Hello, i mo theach nua le mo triú bhean chéile agus ár madra agus beidh mé ag glacadh páirt ar 'Celebrity Jungle' le Micheal Healy Rae agus an hata a fuair se i gcomhair a jab mar 'pimp' i ndeisceart Chiarraí agus an drochstad ar na bóithre agus an stíl gruaige is deise in Éirinn ag Jackie. Free article

Book Review The O'Brien Pocket History of the Famine By Ruán O'Donnell Published by The O'Brien Press Price €7.99 Free article

IT IS often remarked that the Dublin football team is over-hyped. Indeed that there is no substance at all to the team other than the gas and wind generated by the media. Which must be pretty powerful stuff given that Dublin have made the last four in the championship for the past two years and been in the shake-up every year for the past six. Not good enough to win it but not too far off. Free article

SPEAKING ill of the dead is not a favoured Irish pastime but it's impossible to speak well of those opportunist media pundits who treated the death of former President Patrick Hillery as an excuse to rewrite history as well as to write murdered Northern nationalists out of history. Free article

An Phoblacht's famous weekly satirical column. Free article