Irish Politics, Current Affairs and Magazine Archive - Politico.ie

You begin to realise that you belong somewhere when it strikes you, only on the odd occasion, that you come from somewhere else. By Colum McCann.

Drunk and sober, high and low, off and on, up and down, New York has been my city for 12 years now. I still don't know it properly and I probably never will. It's a vast mystery to me, like it is to most New Yorkers, how this ugly lovely town became my lovely ugly town. It's a gorgeous rubbish heap of a place: rude and brash, loud and anarchic, unfor

In 1952, one of his paintings was denounced in Dublin as ‘satanic' and ‘repulsive'. Now it hangs in the National Gallery, making Louis le Brocquy the first ever living artist to have work acquired by the gallery

A feud between two inner city families threatens to escalate further following the killing of Gerard Byrne at the IFSC complex in the north inner city of Dublin on 14 December. By Frank Connolly.

Media Commentary: On Friday 24 November, 2000 a barrister, appearing for The Sunday World and its crime correspondent, Paul Williams, read an apology to the High Court and acknowledged that allegations made by Williams about Martin Hyland were “absolutely false” – this is the alleged criminal who was murdered last Tuesday, 12 December. By Vincent Browne.

It was Christmas Eve in Long Kesh. We were to be blessed with a midnight mass. It would be celebrated in the half hut which was the only bit of our cage which was not used as living accommodation. There were four large nissen huts in each cage. Three were occupied by a motley mix of male internees who ranged from teenagers to old-age pensioners.

There were about 120 of us in each cage. We spent our sleeping hours piled on top of each other in decrepit bunk beds. The rest of the time, we did our

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has got a time extension before he is called to give evidence to the Mahon tribunal in relation to alleged illicit payments he received in 1989 and 1992/3

The senior official responsible for implementing the state's oil and gas policy has been moved from his position in the Petroleum Affairs Division (PAD) of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

The Fianna Fáil party in Europe has aligned itself with a controversial European party which has been accused of racism and homophobia

If Ireland wasn't in fear of Muslims at the beginning of Prime Time Investigates' ‘Suspicious Minds' documentary, it certainly was at the end. Dubious commentators, alarmist allegations and the flimsiest of evidence – not the stuff we are used to from the programme's erstwhile reliable research team

All four Dublin local authorities have rejected Minster for Transport Martin Cullen's proposals on the Dublin Transportation Authority (DTA). Martin Cullen has proposed that the DTA be set up to implement Transport 21, oversee surface transport across six counties in the greater Dublin area and take over the Rail Procurement Agency (RPA) and some functions of Dublin Bus and Iarnród Éireann. It was to be modelled on the Transport for London office in the UK

The day after Anthony Campbell and Martin Hyland were murdered in Finglas, Mary Wilson was a composed, clear voice (Drivetime, 5-6.30pm, weekdays, RTÉ Radio 1). She didn't do the usual lazy RTÉ thing of getting Paul Reynolds on air to shout loudly from the scene of the crime, spurting Garda leaks. Instead, she gave Independent TD Tony Gregory a long stretch to explain the situation. He questioned whether the Garda have the resources to catch the killers. He told of how detection ra

Asylum-seekers: The cost of compassion

Vincent Browne article: A misplaced compliment to Murtagh

Gangland Murders: ‘Respectable' drug users share blame

Lansdowne redevelopment: Well-heeled residents stop progress 

Irish Health services: Children's hospital  bugs Bertie

Great economy, bad health; In praise of St Vincent's staff; Correction

International relations: A blind eye turned to China

STATEMENT: Pharmaceutical companies and medicine for the poor

The media responded in a thoroughly considered and responsible manner to the recent spate of gangland shootings. Crime risks were soberly put in context; the causes of crime were analysed in detail; public prejudices and shaky assumptions were put under the microscope; proposed solutions were rigorously examined and assessed using comparative evidence from other administrations; the long history of jurisprudence was set out before the public with clear and concise explanations of the problems of

The relocation of the the Playboy of the Western World to contemporary, suburban China recaptures the play's entertainment for Colin Murphy

This walk hugs the DART line by the route of a railway which conveyed Dalkey granite, to build Dunleary harbour in the early 19th century. Remnants of the line are known as, “The Metals”, a term the locals call the whole route.

Droimneach mór, Larus marinus: Often reaching a length of over 75cm, the Great Black-backed Gull, is the largest gull species in Ireland and, for that matter, the world. It is a common year-round resident here, though it is strictly confined to coastal areas. Unlike many of our other common gull species, it never occurs more than a few miles inland.

Don't let those Christians fool you – kissing under the mistletoe into the house is an old pagan ritual, says Éanna Ní Lamhna

I must confess, I always thought that mistletoe did not grow in Ireland except in the Botanic Gardens in Dublin, where it had presumably been planted on purpose. So I was interested to read an appeal in this month's Irish Wildlife magazine, asking people in Ireland who have mistletoe growing on trees in their area, to send in the records to Charles Nelson – formerl

The jury is in: Back when it was last glorious summer, I crowed loudly – in this column and elsewhere – in praise of jury trials. The occasion was the July acquittal of the five people accused of “criminal damage without lawful excuse”, on a hangar and US navy aircraft, at Shannon Airport in 2003.

Conceived by Ian Spero and produced by his company BigTime, Rockchic is a lovingly crafted and expertly staged tribute to the life and times of the electric guitar, featuring a decade-by-decade history of the instrument spanning its 75 years in commercial production. Over 130 guitars are featured, including instruments owned and signed by artists like Keith Richards, John Lee Hooker, Eric Clapton, Paul Mc Cartney and Neil Young. The Irish contingent includes a large collection owned by the late,

Clint Eastwood's attempts to demystify the heroism of war in Flags of our Fathers, are unusually clunky for such a talented director, but Woody Allen's Manhattan, now showing on the big screen, is still picture-perfect. By Declan Burke.

Malachy Browne and Tom Rowe review some of the Innovations 2007 Awards honourees : Blutooth Watch, MusicMarker, iCarplay

In Ethiopia, two-thirds of private newspapers were closed in the last year and 14 journalists are currently on trial, potentially facing the death penalty for ‘outrages against the constitution'. Max McGuinness reports.

Scientists are dreaming of a white Christmas on Mars once this latest robotic explorer is launched next August on a nine-month voyage to the Martian Arctic. The Phoenix lander will touch down near the north polar cap of Mars during the Arctic summer in May of 2008, but engineers hope it will survive long enough to take spectacular photographs as it is buried under two metres of snow during the onset of the Arctic winter.

Fourth-generation taxidermist Leon Bouten supplies, stuffs and restores all of the Natural History Museum's animals in his studio in Holland or, in the case of Spotticus the giraffe, on site in the museum itself. Emma Browne looks at this fascinating procedure.