Twenty years ago this month, on 5 March 1984, the National Union of Mineworkers, together with the communities from which it drew its membership, embarked on an epic confrontation with the Thatcher government. Although superficially a struggle over proposed pit closures, in reality the Miners' Strike was actually about something transcendentally greater than that; it was a titanic clash the over what direction British politics was to take from that moment on. Free article

A very British jihad is a detailed if not fully integrated study of the relationship between what Paul Larkin identifies as English empire loyalists at the heart of the British establishment and Ulster Protestant fundamentalism, writes LAURA FRIEL Free article

Confusion reigns this week as double standards and double speak are thwarting the development of a vital Irish industry. Communications and Natural Resources minister Dermot Ahern claimed last week that he had no plans for the privatisation of the ESB. Ahern said that "infrastructure such as wires and pipes are critical national assets". Free article

MACDONNACHA - After leaving the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle meeting last Saturday I was thinking of the renewed efforts by the Dublin 4 establishment to demonise the party. It is by no means the first time and I was reminded of photographs from the early 1980s of Sinn Féin councillors being turned away from Leinster House after Government ministers refused to meet them. Free article

AN DRAOI RUA felt that this article might get us in the notion for planting a few spuds. Is beag seans a bhfuil lucht na gcathracha móra buartha fána chuid prátaí a fhad is go dtig leo mála beag a fháil san ollmhargadh is congáraí dóibh. Fiú, má tá ganntanas ann, is féidir rís, pasta, noodles, cous-cous nó rud éigin eile a cheannach. Dóibh siúd a bhfuil gairdíní acu, seans go bhfuil prátaí curtha cheana féin nó b'fhéidir go bhfuil an ghairdín ullmhaithe le prátaí a chur anois. Free article

BY PAT BURKE - "The officers stationed at the Curragh are of the unanimous opinion that further information is essential before being called upon at short notice to take any decision regarding 'active operations' in Ulster. If, 'duty as ordered' involves active military operations against Ulster, then the following 65 officers here stationed would respectfully, and under protest, prefer to be dismissed." - Memo to British War Office, 19 March 1914. Free article