UPWARDS OF 500 people turned out on Sunday 24 June to remember fallen friends and comrades at the annual Volunteers Day Commemoration in South Armagh. Free article

THERE ISN’T a town or villages across the state that has escaped from the impact of cutbacks to local government funding. Yet three Offaly towns still reeling from a decision which saw their fire stations shut down last year are facing further cutbacks as their libraries opening hours are severely reduced. Premium service article

Is léir le fada an lá go bhfuil bac ar chuid de na heagrais mhaoinithe cuidiú a sholáthar do thionscadail chaipitil fhorbartha Gaeilge de réir na gcritéir lena n-oibríonn siad. Free article

Firstly, there is the threat from the Labour Party Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn, that “too much time” is being spent on teaching Irish in our schools, despite the obvious failure of the current levels and methods of teaching. This, of course, comes after the now-deferred abolition of the requirement to study Irish at Leaving Cert level as proposed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Free article

I WAS BORN into a large working-class Northern Catholic family from the Falls Road in nationalist west Belfast. I grew up in a community burdened by the political weight of state repression and treated as second-class citizens inside gerrymandered electoral boundaries and subjected to the practice of structural discrimination in housing and in the workplace. Premium service article

Giving the same rights as marriage but calling it a ‘partnership’ means that it is a two-tiered system of legal rights. Why even have two pieces of legislation for the same law? Is it to show that there is something different between the two acts? That one means less than the other? Free article

TÁ AN RIALTAS ag cur tionónta i gcoinne tiarna talúna ar bhealach atá éagóireach, éagcothrom agus míthrócaireach. Tá an laghdú atá déanta ag Joan Burton ar na liúntais cíosa a fhaigheann daoine ón Roinn Coimirce Sóisialaí ag díbirt daoine óna gcuid tithe, páistí amach as scoileanna agus clanna amach as na pobail ina gcónaíonn siad. Caithfear cur ina choinne seo go láidir. Free article

North Belfast Sinn Féin Mla Gerry Kelly answers critics Free article

EVERY YEAR, at the end of July, a group of cyclists set off from Belfast to Monaghan. Their journey is in memory of a young man from the local community who was 25 years old when he died. Premium service article

2012 should have been the year to sound the death knell of nuclear power in Europe. In the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown in Japan, decades of cost over-runs, accidents, leaks, still rising multi-billion euro reactor decommissioning costs, electricity surcharges for customers to subsidise nuclear power, they all signalled the end. Free article

GUE/NGL MEPs in the European Parliament accept the fight against counterfeiting is necessary but say the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) “is being used here to extend the domination of rich countries and corporations over trademarks, patents and copyright using specific criminal laws”. Free article

THE BAN on Basque pro-independence party Sortu has been lifted by Spain’s Constitutional Court. The move means that Sortu should be able to contest regional elections scheduled for next year. Free article