An Phoblacht spoke this week with Sinn Féin Chief Negotiator Martin McGuinness about prospects for political progress in the New Year and the political atmosphere for negotiations around the restoration of the All-Ireland institutions. Free article

Addressing a packed press conference in Dublin on 16 December, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams announced that Sinn Féin's Head of Administration at Stormont Denis Donaldson had admitted to working as a paid British agent for 20 years. Donaldson made his confession after being visited by the PSNI earlier in the week claiming his cover had been blown and that he was to be exposed as an informer. Free article

The leadership of Óglaigh na hÉireann sends New Year greetings to our friends and supporters at home and abroad. We send best wishes especially to republican prisoners and their families and we commend those presently working for their early release. Free article

While the admissions by Denis Donaldson were shocking for many republicans, they are also hugely significant at this juncture in the Peace Process, especially against the backdrop of IRA initiatives since July 2005. The reality of agents placed within republicanism to work against Irish independence is nothing new. Free article

In many ways there's no revelation to challenge our understanding of the nature of the Orange state in official state papers released last week by the British Government. It's sectarian business as usual. Free article

The Fine Gael/Labour Cabinet were playing an increasingly high-stakes game in relation to the crisis in the Six Counties in 1975. State papers reveal that in the year after the Ulster Workers' Council strike and the collapse of the Sunningdale Power Sharing Government between the SDLP and UUP, Dublin's policy was one of allowing the IRA ceasefire to be undermined, while the North slid further into violence, with a massive increase in loyalist sectarian murders. Free article

The 1981 Hunger Strike politicised huge numbers of Irish people and made many people of all nationalities around the world aware of the Irish struggle for freedom. The momentous events of that year deepened the politicisation of the Republican Movement itself and were a watershed in the development of the struggle. Free article

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams responded this week to criticism by US Special Envoy to the Six Counties Mitchell Reiss of Sinn Féin's position on policing. Adams said that the attack was "unhelpful and partisan". Free article