Around 400 party activists and supporters packed into an energy-charged hall at the Hillgrove Hotel in Monaghan last Friday evening for the launch of Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin's Leinster House reelection drive. Amid a sea of election posters and green white and orange bunting and balloons, they heard their TD promise that "in this year, 2002, we will have four TDs to join our four MPs". Free article

The St Patrick's Day Carnival Committee is to meet Belfast City Council staff to discuss the possibility of getting funding for Belfast's St Patrick's Day Carnival this year. Free article

Foyle Sinn Féin Assembly member Mitchel McLaughlin said he and his colleagues were "disappointed, angry and frustrated" by British security minister Jane Kennedy's lack of understanding of the situation on the ground, particularly in relation toi the demand for the decommissioning of Rosemount Tower on Derry's walls. Free article

The Sinn Féin prospective TD for Dublin South-West, Councillor Seán Crowe, has urged the Taoiseach to live up to the government's promise on the International Day Against Racism by taking firm action against Cork TD Noel O'Flynn for his verbal attack on refugees last week. Free article

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams MP has expressed his condolences to the family, friends and Congregation of Sister Sarah Clarke, who died on Monday evening, 4 February. The little nun may have been diminutive in statuture but her work on behalf of Irish political prisoners in English jails and in particular their families was prodigious and will never be forgotten by those whose lives she touched. Apart from republican POWs, she was perhaps most famously associated with the Maguire Seven, the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four. Paddy Joe Hill of the Birmingham Six described her as "the Joan of Arc of the prisons". Free article

"Republicanism is not just fine ideals on a page, but is the driving inspiration for Sinn Féin activists in every county in Ireland," said Frances McCole, Sinn Féin's newly selected candidate for Dublin North-Central. Free article

The news that Nestle Ireland is to sell off some of its best known brands and split its Irish workforce in two has generated huge concern that jobs are about to be lost at the company's Tallaght operations, according to Sinn Féin councillor Seán Crowe. Free article

"Knowledge is the key" according to InterTradeIreland's new three-year corporate plan, launched last week. InterTrade, one of the six cross-border bodies set up under the Good Friday Agreement, published a three-year policy plan that puts knowledge at the core of the agency's strategy. Free article

There was good and bad news on the economic front last week. Coalition government leaders Bertie Ahern and Mary Harney took time out from electioneering and openings to address themselves to the more serious economic issues of the day. The bad news is that for now there is nothing new in the strategy or tactics department from the government, while all the economic indicators show an economy clearly in difficulties. Free article

A 35-strong delegation of Noraid supporters visited Ireland last week. Among the highlights of their trip were visits to South Armagh, to Monaghan for the launch of Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin's reelection bid and to Derry for the Bloody Sunday commemoration. Free article