Four candidates are in the running for the leadership of the SDLP.

PAT QUINLAN has suffered many disappointments in his 14 years representing Portumna in various inter-club competitions, so it was all the sweeter for the man from Ballinderry in North Tipperary that he should clinch their first Bulmers Irish Junior Cup triumph at Castlebar yesterday.

The party earmarked to take on the North's new Justice Ministry will not accept the post until the Stormont government agrees on a strategy to tackle segregation in the region, a senior member signalled today.

Two vulnerable women have been saved from human traffickers in the North, it was revealed today.

The Ulster Unionist Party is united, a senior member insisted today.

The DUP and Sinn Féin were making significant gains in the Northern Ireland Assembly Elections.

The only outstanding issue facing Northern Ireland’s politicians is whether Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists will form a power sharing executive, it was claimed today.

A former Stormont Assembly member vowed today to make a Bill of Rights her top priority as the new head of the North's Human Rights Commission.

Sinn Féin is incensed by the sanctions against the party announced today by Northern Secretary Paul Murphy, claiming the Secretary of State was out of order.

Criticisms by a senior Ulster Unionist of former colleagues who defected to the rival DUP were dismissed as “irrelevant” today.

South Belfast GP Alasdair McDonnell was today elected the new deputy leader of the nationalist SDLP in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland’s cross community Alliance Party tonight signalled it would contest European Parliament elections in June.

Ulster Unionists are looking for something more substantial than an act of disarmament from the IRA if devolution is to be restored, a senior member of the party said today.