Mary and Ray Vaughan are this year's honourees for the annual Meath Dinner Dance, to be held in Athboy next Saturday. A modest and unassuming couple, they have worked quietly for the republican cause over the decades of the modern conflict and before. Here they tell ELLA O'DWYER that they "did their best" for the struggle and that they are very pleased to be honoured in this way. Free article

Vincent Browne is wrong. Writing in his Irish Times column this week he argued that Sinn Féin, like Labour and the Greens, want to be in government with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael after the next election. If Vincent had taken the time to listen to the full coalition debate at the Ard Fheis or to carefully read the content of the motion finally agreed he would have come to a different conclusion. Unfortunately, his opinion piece misrepresents the content and outcome of the coalition debate. It also completely ignores the very substantial policy agenda agreed by delegates at the RDS on Friday and Saturday Free article

I have been told there were debates at the Ard Fheis. Delegates strode purposefully to the podium, notes in hand, to address their colleagues with earnest looks upon their faces. "No to coalition," some cried. "Yes to the devolution of policing," said a few. "Death to the evil fascist conspiracy that is An Taisce," cried others (bizarrely not an exaggeration). "I have the right to kill hares and if you don't agree with me I'll kill you and everyone you care about," said another (fair enough, exaggerated... slightly). Free article

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was described as "hopping mad" and "spitting blood" in 1990 when the Supreme Court in Dublin delivered a significant judgement that set back efforts to establish an extradition conveyor-belt for republicans from the 26 Counties to the North and to Britain. Free article