THE storming of the Bastille was nothing by comparison with the invasion of Paris by Irish rugby fans for internationals against France.

THE spectre of international terrorism stalked Europe during the late 1970s with far-left groups such as the German Baader-Meinhof gang (later the Red Army Faction) and Italian Red Brigades the focus of cross border security operations.

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.

ONE of the more surprising features of the newly-released State papers was the eagerness of British Prime Minister Ted Heath to establish a power-sharing executive in the North with an all-Irish dimension.