THE British announced publicly on August 6, 1973 that brothers Kenneth and Keith Littlejohn, who were accused of involvement in a Dublin bank robbery in October 1972, had been British agents.

The formation of the Fianna Fáil backbench committee in an effort to force Bertie Ahern and his frontbench colleagues to heed the concerns of backbenchers is hauntingly reminiscent of the unease in the party during the summer of 1979.

JUST before Christmas, while rummaging through a secondhand bookshop, I found a copy of Hiding Behind A Face - Fine GaelUnder FitzGerald.