It must have been a strange meeting. Tony Blair, practising the British Labour government's latest political mantra, ``modernisation'', hardliners from the Orange Order, all well past their sell-by date, beating the ``traditional'' drum, Harold Gracey fighting shy of the camera. Free article

Half way down the main shopping street in Galway, just at the entrance to the town's last surviving open air market - what a sad fate for a town which began its life as a centre of trade - and nestling in beside Saint Nicholas Cathedral's railings you'll find a castle. A small castle. In fact, a Thimble Castle. As castles go, it certainly isn't the oldest castle in the world, coming in at just a little over a hundred years of age. Free article

It may have fizzled out now (except in the letters page of the Irish Times) but for the past month we have been subject to a barrage of media-driven jingoism berating us for not enthusiastically wallowing in World War 1 commemorations. Free article

The arrest of the leader of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in Italy has brought back to the front page of the papers the struggle of the Kurdish people. Free article

Leag Finian McGrath a mhéar an tseachtain seo caite (``Mála Poist) ar an mí-ionracas a ghabhann leis na comórthaí ar an Chéad Chogadh Domhanda. Free article

CIE management to blame for dispute and Fight the power Free article

Republicans took plenty of stick in recent weeks for raising the thorny issue of sport and politics when they called for the cancellation of the Donegal Celtic v RUC soccer match. Free article

While the Sinn Féin organisation caught the spirit of the generation - the Irish-Ireland era - it did not go far enough. The Irish Republican Brotherhood (Fenians) which had remained active, though in the background, decided the time was right in 1913 to push the agenda further. Free article

The death has taken place in Camlough, Co Armagh, of lifelong republican, Johnnie Lynch. Free article

As anybody living in a nationalist area of the six occupied counties knows only too well it is common practice of the British army to harass people in the streets by asking them numerous personal details such as their date of birth. Free article