IS Sinn Féin getting it right on university fees? Speaking in response to Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe's kite flying on fees two weeks ago, Sinn Féin Senator Pearse Doherty said: "Sinn Féin is opposed to the reintroduction of third-level fees. Education is a right, not a privilege, and it is the responsibility of the state to ensure its provision." Free article

BOTH Declan Kearney and Mícheál Mac Donncha raised interesting ideas on the theme 'A Signpost Towards Modern Ireland' but both missed the real point: the future will not be a steady evolution of the past; the future will be a radical break with the politics and economics that we are used to. Free article

Denmark cancels referendum, European Parliament joins stampede away from democracy, The Åland Islands pose more problems for Lisbon and Translating troubles Free article

Fadó, fadó nuair a bhí mé ar coimeád i bPríosún Bhéal Feirste, ag fanacht ar mo thriail ag teacht os comhar na gcúirteanna thug duine de mo chomrádaithe leabhar dom a léamh: Executioner, Pierrepoint. Is dócha gur cheap sé go n-ardódh sé mo mheanma sna laethanta leadránacha Diplockúla - bhí cineál de ghreann dorcha ag daoine sa Crum an tráth sin. Oíche Luain na seachtaine seo craoladh an scannán a rinneadh den dírbheathaisnéis ar ITV agus arís eile cuireadh mé ag smaoineadh faoi cé chomh fuar agus a bhí Pierrepoint mar dhuine. Free article

ON THE afternoon of Tuesday 30 August 1988, three IRA Volunteers were travelling along the main Omagh to Carrickmore road in County Tyrone. They were on active service and at Drumnakilly, close to their homes, they were ambushed and shot dead by a unit of the British Army's SAS regiment. The Volunteers were brothers Gerard and Martin Harte and Brian Mullin. Free article

FIFTY years ago, on the Cavan/Fermanagh border, near Swanlinbar, James Crossan was shot and killed by members of the RUC. At the time of his death, Crossan was Sinn Féin's Cavan organiser. He also worked as an IRA intelligence officer. Unarmed at the time of his death, Crossan was the last Volunteer to be killed in the IRA's 1956-62 campaign. Free article

I THINK it was Muhammad Ali's trainer, Angelo Dundee, who said that the best fighter is a hungry fighter. Indeed, American boxing in its classic era from the 1920s to the mid-1970s was replete with many exemplars of the hungry fighter. First, tough Irish and Italian city kids and then, when allowed to compete on equal terms, blacks. Free article

When the media mask slips it is usually under pressure of events, as when people don't do what they are told by that interestingly titled band of 'opinion formers' whose job it is, apparently, to form people's opinion for them. Free article

An Phoblacht's famous weekly satirical column. Free article