IN JUNE of this year, two young Sinn Féin activists, sisters Mary Kate and Mairead Quinn, travelled to the West Bank with the education charity UNIPAL to work with Palestinian children and teach English. Before their departure they talked to An Phoblacht’s PEADAR WHELAN about their hopes and fears for their six-week stay in a country under unrelenting Zionist occupation and military control. Now back in Belfast, Mary Kate spoke again to An Phoblacht, recounting her experiences in the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah. Premium service article

NÍOR CHAS mise ariamh le John Joe McGirl, ach bhí tionchar aige ar mo shaol agus mó ról mar ionadaí poiblí. Sna 1980 aí chuidigh sé leis an rún a thug cead d’ionadaithe tofa Shinn Féin glacadh lena gcuid suíocháin Dála agus Seanaid. Murach é, is dócha nach mbéinn i mo Sheanadóir inniu. Is maith a thuig mé sin nuair a fuair mé cuireadh aitheasc a thabhairt ina onóir ag an gcomóradh ar a shon ina bhaile dúchais, Béal an Átha Móir, le déanaí. Premium service article

THE CENTRAL BANK has produced yet another a report showing that the Irish banks are unable or unwilling to perform their proper role in the Irish economy — to provide credit to keep viable business functioning. Premium service article

MY FATHER, born in 1904, was a member of a Falls Road republican family. The family saw themselves as belonging to a national political majority. But my father’s status in belonging to this majority changed overnight, on 23 December 1920, as a result of the Government of Ireland Act. Free article

When new champion Chad le Clos stepped up to receive his gold medal, his eyes welled up with tears and his lips trembled as South Africa’s post-apartheid national anthem, Nkosi Sikele Afrika, played Free article