Dr Garret FitzGerald was caricatured as something between a whiz kid and an absent-minded professor.

In the sprawling Northern Ireland constituency of Strangford tales of expenses and affairs have livened up a traditionally predictable contest.

THE decision by the UDA to declare its war is over and to disband its cover group, the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), was long overdue. Its announcement was followed by the assertion of a former UDA killer, Kenny McClinton, that “people in loyalist circles are driven by ideals and the defence of their country” and that the only reason the UDA ever existed was “to defend the loyalist community”.

WHILE I have not seen Ken Loach’s The Wind that Shakes the Barley, I can bet that, like similar films previously, it is aimed at a certain audience mostly of the nationalist Irish/American type.