Noonan’s New Deal, alas, changes very little. The deal gives us a seven-year extension to repay European and IMF loans for a debt burden that never rightly belonged to us Premium service article

The People’s Referendum kicks off in Crossmaglen and the Creggan Upper district electoral area of north Louth in coming weeks. Partition is creating real problems for many people. It is holding back economic development. The potential benefits of Irish unity are clear to see. Debating Irish unity through the process of the People’s Referendum will highlight the social and economic benefits of unity. Free article

THE British Government’s Work and Pensions Minister, Iain Duncan Smith, speaking on BBC’s Radio 4 in defence of the Tory/Liberal Democrat welfare cuts claimed he could live on £53 a week. Premium service article

THE leaders of the three main Christian churches in Palestine took part in an Oireachtas cross-party Friends of Palestine event in Leinster House in April to speak out against the illegal Israeli occupation of their country and talk about what can be done by people in Ireland to help. Free article

IRISH Friends of Palestine have launched the ‘Light Gaza’ campaign to help prevent needless deaths in Gaza from fires caused by accidents by people using candles and oil lamps for light when the Israeli siege imposes blackouts, regularly switching off all the electricity. Free article

STEPHEN KEARON, an advisor to Fianna Fáil Environment Minister Dick Roche and PRO for Fianna Fáil in County Wicklow, has been forced to withdraw his nomination for his party’s Ard Chomhairle and resign all the party positions he held after he said on Twitter that the H-Blocks Hunger Strikers “deservedly died painfully”. He went on to say that Bobby Sands was “burning in the eternal fires of Hell”. Free article

SOMETIME LATER THIS YEAR, a faceless bureaucrat will sign the documents to end five decades of community resistance. It’s a long war hardly known. Premium service article

SYMPHYSIOTOMY – the operation that entailed the sawing in half during childbirth of the pubic bone of a woman to open the birth canal and in theory make the baby’s passage into the world easier – was both unnecessary and barbaric. Free article

FAIRNESS, objectivity and impartiality in the Irish news media – what are the steps to such a utopia? Premium service article

BEN GILROY and his new Direct Democracy Ireland party burst onto the scene in the Meath East by-election, attracting anti-Government voters who took DDI’s rhetoric at face value. But what does DDI and its leading figures stand for? Free article

REPUBLICANS across Kerry and particularly around Listowel were left shocked by the sudden death pf Sinn Féin Town Councillor and former Mayor of Listowel Anthony Curtin. He passed away at his home in Clounmacon in the early hours of Wednesday morning, 3 April. He was aged 77. Free article

THE sad news of the passing of lifelong republican Mattie Ganley was received throughout Galway County with disbelief that our Giolla Mear had passed away at his home in Cnoc Dunloe in his native Ballinasloe. Free article