THE MAHON TRIBUNAL into corrupt payments to politicians in the planning process in Dublin in the 1990s has delivered its verdict: a number of figures at the highest levels of the Establishment parties and 11 councillors from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour are guilty of corruption, lying or trying to undermine the investigation set up by the Dáil. Free article

TWO IRISH FILM-MAKERS and celebrity speakers at rallies for Tea Party neo-cons and climate change deniers in the USA are turning their fire on campaigners against the dangerous oil and gas exploration technique of ‘fracking’. Free article

TYRONE REPUBLICANS are preparing to scale the highest peaks of Counties Derry and Tyrone in a 12-mile trek over the Sperrin Mountains to mark the 25th anniversary of the Loughgall Martyrs. Eight IRA Volunteers and a civilian were killed in an SAS ambush at the joint British Army/RUC base in Loughgall village on 8 May 1987. Free article

FIFTEEN YEARS and hundreds of millions of euro on, the Mahon Tribunal report is finally published. Its contents are shocking, scandalous, sickening . . . but not at all surprising. Corruption was rife in public life. Public representatives — from councillors right up to An Taoiseach — received unexplained, inappropriate or corrupt payments. The toxic relationship between big business, developers and the political class is laid bare — yet again. Free article

SINN FÉIN MLA Jennifer McCann has repeated the party’s call for Marian Price to be released. The Belfast Assembly member was speaking after a visit to Hydebank Prison last month. Free article

Happy Christmas, Gaddafi and Saddam’ – From Maggie, Expanding royal horizons, Venezuela aims to reduce crime through music, Renaming Big Ben after queen ‘codswallop’, says British MP, Michael Collins – Britain’s Greatest Foe? and Israeli settlers grab Palestinian spring Free article

YOUNG REPUBLICANS from across Ireland met in the Ballybough Youth & Community Centre in Dublin on 2/3 March to map out a new direction for Irish Republican Youth at the 2012 Ógra Shinn Féin National Congress with an impressive range of speakers from the media and politics. Free article

THESE are the correct details of times, locations and speakers supplied to An Phoblacht as we go to print. Please check An Phoblacht and Sinn Féin websites as necessary. Free article

Fuair siad bás ar son Saoirse na hÉireann — They died for Irish Freedom. “Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations.” – Pádraig Mac Piarais Free article

OF THE SEVEN SIGNATORIES of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic at Easter 1916, Éamonn Ceannt is probably the least widely known. Yet he was a pivotal figure in the making of the Rising and a commandant in one of the sectors where some of the fiercest fighting took place. Free article

THE FAMILY of Lurgan republican Sam Marshall, shot dead by the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force on 7 March 1990, have rubbished the report into his killing carried out by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET).In a just-released publication produced by his family, they accuse the HET of having conducted a largely paper exercise aimed at deflecting focus away from the involvement of the British Army and RUC in his killing. Free article

WELSH nationalist party Plaid Cymru’s new leader is a 40-year-old left-wing republican who says she will see independence for Wales in her lifetime. Free article