As TK Whitaker celebrates his 100th birthday this week, Ryle Dwyer examines his phenomenal contribution to Irish life and politics

An unhealthy culture of secrecy surrounds our civil servants despite the fact they are a valuable source of historical information, writes Ryle Dwyer

The latest pension records from the Irish Military Archives show that Robert Briscoe’s application for a State pension, for IRA service in the War of Independence, was resisted by fellow republicans.

It is now widely accepted that US president John F Kennedy would never have visited Limerick in 1963 were it not for the persistence of Mayor Frances Condell.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of sinking of Irish Oak. Historian Ryle Dwyer looks at the bad luck and controversy associated with that ill-fated ship

ANTI-TREATY candidates received less than 22% of the first preference votes in the general election of June 1922.

Enda Kenny should have reminded the Chinese vice-president that it was Frank Aiken, acting on the advice of Conor Cruise O’Brien, who stubbornly insisted that all of the small nations in the UN should be free to discuss China’s representation in the General Assembly.

Using economics to justify closing our embassy to the Holy See prompted one Dublin mother to say stop, writes Mary E Fitzgibbon

In the first of three articles on the history of the presidency, Ryle Dwyer highlights the early importance of the office. It was not the partition but the head of state issue that led to the Civil War.

IN going into government Green Party Leader John Gormley suggested that he and his colleagues could aptly be compared to voluntarily putting themselves in straitjackets. “Because when you are entering government,” he said, “you are entering an asylum.”

A pact set up 40 years ago to stop the spread of nuclear weapons faces unprecedented challenges, Foreign Minister Micheál Martin warned today.

THIS week we mark the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the most momentous and appalling conflict in human history.

CONOR Cruise O’Brien would probably have been proud to think that his passing this week would mark the end of an era.

IRELAND is to share its experience of the peace process with other countries in conflict.

CREDIT to this country for hosting in May an official diplomatic summit to outlaw anti-civilian cluster bombs. That’s good work.

Adams says the perpetrators of the Quinn murder are criminals and everyone should cooperate with the PSNI.

A specially commissioned bust of the late Minister for External Affairs Frank Aiken will be unveiled at the Department of Foreign Affairs today.

YOUR columnist Diarmaid Ferriter (August 23) wrote that neither Collins nor his contemporaries had any idea how to free their own fellow nationalists in the North from “the shackles of oppression”.

CRIMINALS were to be grounded under a proposal by the Minister for Foreign Affairs to refuse passports to habitual offenders.

MUCH of the publicity for this week’s Hidden Ireland programme on Frank Aiken projected dark secrets of his past that were to be exposed.

AS a Fianna Fáil supporter, I was amazed by the recent attack on Sinn Féin by Arts, Sport and Tourism Minister John O’Donoghue.

YOUNGER viewers will no doubt find the TV series on Charles J Haughey interesting, and it will evoke memories for older people who can still remember the events.

THE re-partition plan presented to Ted Heath in July 1972 attracted more attention than any of the other documents released this week.