It has been 12 years since the UVF carried out the massacre in The Heights bar in Loughinisland. It occurred as crowds had gathered to watch Ireland play Italy in the World Cup. As another World Cup began last week, painful memories have flooded back for the relatives of those killed. These memories are all the more painful because the families now believe that the RUC and later the PSNI were involved in covering up the mass murder. Free article

About 100 yards away from the Sliabh Beag hotel in Knockatallon, north Monaghan, is a monument to one of the IRA's legendary freedom fighters, shot dead in an SAS ambush a few miles away in Fermanagh's Roslea. Free article

Former Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey died on Tuesday. He was 80. Writing about Charles Haughey as he was appearing before the McCracken Tribunal in 1998 former An Phoblacht editor Michael MacDonnacha described the true essence of the man when he said that, "In a state where personality politics dominates, Charlie Haughey was the ultimate political personality for the best part of 30 years". Free article

For the last 12 months, Spanish state politics has been dominated by two issues- the proposed reform of the Catalan statute of autonomy and the Basque conflict. As Gerry Adams set off from Dublin on a three-day tour of Bilbao, Madrid and Barcelona, Catalan political parties were in full campaigning mode as they prepare for the 18 June referendum on the statute, while Basque parties were working publicly and privately to build a successful conflict resolution process. Free article

The 26 County general election of June 1981 provided the protesting prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh with an opportunity to demonstrate the wide level of public support for the Hunger Strikers and the 5 Demands. Free article

The tenth republican to join the Hunger Strike was 23-year-old IRA Volunteer Thomas McElwee, from Bellaghy, South Derry. He had been imprisoned since December 1976, following a premature explosion in which he lost an eye. Paddy Quinn from Belleeks, South Armagh was the eleventh man to join the 1981 Hunger Strike. He was the third oldest in the family with four sisters and three brothers. Free article

A very well-attended public meeting last Sunday in Dublin's Liberty Hall, to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strikes, was also a coming together of republiacans from across the city of Dublin and further afield, including many faces from the heady days of the Hunger Strike campaign in 1981. Free article

Several hundred people participated in a special commemorative event in Cavan town on Saturday, 10 June, to mark the 25th anniversary of the election of Kieran Doherty as TD for Cavan/Monaghan. Free article

• Bronach Best and Brendan McCrory will re-inact the 1934 walk of Protestant workers from the Shankill at Bodenstown on Sunday - see story page 9 Free article