Up to 1,000 people in Dublin city centre today demonstrated against Israel’s Gaza blockade.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese said the announcement by the UDA was a positive milestone on the journey to peace.

A man fined 1p for refusing to put personal information on an election form today said the landmark court case made a mockery of the authorities.

A Sinn Féin Assembly member today had to apologise for praising members of the party’s youth wing for painting red Royal Mail postboxes green.

There were signs today of possible progress in the talks to secure the North's power-sharing government after Sinn Féin revealed its party leadership had met to discuss the issue.

A man gunned down early today in a cold-blooded murder has been named.

A man was gunned down early today in what police branded a cold-blooded murder.

Critics of a new film about the republican hunger strikes in the North should watch it before they attack it, one of the strikers said today.

The body of one of two men missing in Lough Erne was discovered today in Co Fermanagh.

FORMER Old Bailey bomber and prison escapee Gerry Kelly could be in line for a senior cabinet post in the Northern Ireland power sharing government, it emerged last night.

Northern Ireland Office Ministers were today accused of adopting the same attitude to poverty in the North as their Victorian counterparts during the Famine.

A second Sinn Féin Assembly member has quit the party in protest at its imminent moves to endorse the PSNI in the North.

Police chiefs were tonight accused of running a botched investigation into the £26.5m (€392.2m) Northern Bank robbery after charges were dropped against two suspects.

The families of six men gunned down in a bar in the North as they watched a World Cup match are to take their case for justice to the European Parliament.

The last British army observation post on the North's border will be removed within days, it was confirmed today.

A body representing solicitors in the North was tonight bewildered by claims from Ian Paisley that many lawyers in the North are involved in money laundering for the IRA.

A Sinn Féin Assembly member is to have his conviction for the murder of a policeman reviewed by the Court of Appeal, it emerged today.

The British government was tonight challenged to launch a public inquiry into the Stormontgate affair after a top Republican official, who admitted he was a British agent, said the matter had been “a scam and a fiction” invented by UK intelligence.

A SINN FÉIN Assembly member was being questioned by detectives last night about one of the worst IRA atrocities during the Troubles.

A Sinn Féin Assembly member was among four people being questioned today about an IRA atrocity which claimed the lives of nine people 33 years ago.

Loyalist paramilitary groups are being urged to follow the Loyalist Volunteer Force and order their military units to stand down.

DUP leader Ian Paisley has reacted furiously to the British government's decision to reinstate all Sinn Féin Assembly and Westminster grants following the latest IMC report.

Police in the North are investigating an overnight attack on the home of a Sinn Féin Assembly member in Belfast.

A man shot dead today may have been murdered in a growing drugs dispute.

The Cabinet is due to discuss the Independent Monitoring Commission's report on the Belfast bank robbery at its weekly meeting later today.

Members of the Portuguese community in Northern Ireland are being bullied into paying protection money to a loyalist paramilitary organisation, it was claimed today.

Campaigners for the release of three Irishmen detained in Colombia were today due to meet senior Government and legal officials to see if they could be flown back to Dublin.

The Government was today urged to continue putting pressure on the Colombian authorities to free the three Irish men in prison there.

The Government must keep the pressure on Colombia’s President to respond within 10 days to its request that the case of three Irishmen be speeded up, campaigners insisted today.

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Brian Cowen last night launched an attack on dissident republicans who are waging a campaign of intimidation against nationalist members of the North’s Policing Board.

British government moves to fine Sinn Féin over continued paramilitary activity by the IRA are to be challenged in the courts, the party said today.

NORTHERN IRELAND police chief Hugh Orde spoke yesterday of his concern about the rapid escalation in racial attacks in the North.

The IRA’s continued paramilitary violence will cost Sinn Féin £120,000 (€180,200), it was confirmed tonight.

Three Irishmen accused of training Colombian guerillas will appeal against any conviction, their legal representatives confirmed today.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British Prime Minister Tony Blair arrived in Northern Ireland today in a bid to re-energise talks on devolution.

The British government is planning to publish only a heavily-censored version of a report on four controversial killings in Northern Ireland, it was claimed tonight.

A limit should be placed on the size of political donations to Northern Ireland parties, the Electoral Commission is due to hear today.

British and Irish ministers need to step up the pace of talks designed to restore devolution in Northern Ireland, a senior Sinn Féin figure said today.

The balance of power could be shifting in the Reverend Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists, a senior Sinn Féin figure observed today.

Agriculture ministers on both sides of the border were today urged to keep Ireland free of genetically modified crops and foods.

Nationalists and republicans on both sides of the Irish border were staging protests over the postponement of elections which should have taken place in Northern Ireland today.

Sinn Fein is to stage protests across Northern Ireland and the Republic against the postponement of the Stormont Assembly Elections, the party announced today.

The nephew of a Sinn Fein Assembly member was murdered after his attackers suspected he complained about the noise coming from a party above his flat, it was claimed today.

The loyalists paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association was tonight under pressure to prove it was genuine over its declaration of a 12-month ceasefire to boost the political process.