Seanad hopeful Máiría Cahill has contacted Government members of the Seanad to quell fears over recent controversy surrounding her past and to say she has always sought to “rise above these claims”.

The sister of murder victim Robert McCartney has called on Labour to reflect on the decision to nominate Máiría Cahill to a vacant Seanad position

Evidence of Provisional IRA activity is of sufficient strength to force the exclusion of Sinn Fein from the North’s powersharing government, the Democratic Unionists have insisted.

The crisis in the North is growing, with statements coming from all sides, but who should we believe?

The guns may be silent most days now, but monsters, dinosaurs, and ghosts are everywhere, writes Gerard Howlin

Police have ruled out dissident republican involvement in the murder of a former IRA commander.

THE women victims of Republican violence seem to haunt Gerry Adams the most. Unlike murdered mother-of- 10, Jean McConville, rape survivor Maíria Cahill cannot be tossed into a shallow grave and forgotten about.

Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder who helped bring books into the digital age, is going after another pillar of “old media” – the Washington Post.

The North's chief constable has stressed the impartiality of the police service after the region‘s first minister raised concerns about a perception of bias against loyalists.

Police probing the murder of Robert McCartney in the North have arrested a man.

The decision to charge a leading republican with IRA membership was politically motivated, Sinn Féin claimed today.

A former IRA leader in the Maze prison in the North was remanded in custody yesterday on charges linked to a police investigation into a murder outside a Belfast bar.

A former IRA leader in the Maze prison in the North was remanded into custody today on charges linked to a police investigation into a murder outside a Belfast bar.

A 53-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the murder of Robert McCartney seven years ago.

FIRST it was Gerry, now it’s Jeffrey. Hot on the heels of Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams’s move to Leinster House, a long-standing member of the Ulster Unionist Party has announced plans to run in the Seanad elections.

Sinn Féin is celebrating record gains in the General Election, but party strategists believe the trebling of its strength in the Dáil will be a springboard for even greater growth.

SO how was it for you? Good, bad or indifferent? It can’t have been that bad, I guess: you’re reading this so that means you got through to the end. What am I banging on about? The first decade of the 21st century, of course. It’s hard to believe it’s in its dying days: I can still remember the hangover from what we learned to call “millennium night”. But time speeds up as we get older, I’m finding.

Controversial plans for a forum in the North to give a voice to the victims and survivors of the Troubles are published today.

The most remarkable thing about Chappaquiddick is that Kennedy was 37 years old at the time. This was not some youthful shenanigans gone wrong. Everything about the story — the drinking, philandering, poor judgment and lies — were the man. It was entirely in character

Hugh Orde’s tenure as the North's Chief Constable ends today after seven years in charge of policing the region.

The North's outgoing police chief has today accused the Stormont administration of not doing enough to tackle segregation and division in the region.

The renaming of a Belfast bar where a man was brutally beaten and stabbed to death by IRA members provoked outrage today.

BY any standards, the contribution to political life in Ireland over many decades by the late Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien has been both enormous and controversial.

The head of the North's prosecution service tonight defended his decision to put Chris Ward in the dock over the £26.5m (€33.5m) Northern Bank robbery.

THE man cleared of one of Britain’s largest bank robberies may launch legal action after branding his failed prosecution a farce.

Robert McCartney's sister has today said that she is not surprised by the verdict in the trial of the man accused of his mother.

A man was cleared today of murdering Robert McCartney, who was beaten and stabbed to death outside a Belfast bar in an attack blamed on IRA members.

The verdict in the Robert McCartney murder trial in Belfast is to be delivered today.

A-level and GCSE testing in the North could be scrapped in favour of a more broad-based alternative, the Education Department said tonight.

Robert McCartney turned to his friend during the vicious assault which ended in his fatal stabbing and gasped: “Nobody deserves this”, a court heard today.

The trial of the man accused of murdering Robert McCartney outside a Belfast bar more than three years ago has been hit by a fresh delay, it was revealed today.

The trial of the man accused of murdering Robert McCartney was postponed indefinitely today due to legal reasons.

IS there anyone left in Sinn Féin who is not a spy? No wonder they seem to know so much about everything, even who killed Paul Quinn and Robert McCartney.

THE murder of 21-year-old Paul Quinn in a barn in Co Monaghan is worse than Robert McCartney’s killing because of its premeditated vicious nature, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said last night.

ISN’T IT amazing how apologists for brutality and violence react when their myths are exploded and the contents laid bare for all to see.

The murder of a man nine days ago has cast more doubt over Sinn Féin's suitability to be in government, it was claimed today.

AT every crucial stage of the peace process, the Provisional IRA decided to test the resolve of the British and Irish governments by dispatching to eternity some unfortunate individual who was, from their lofty standpoint, surplus to requirements. That that person’s summary execution should also prove an embarrassment to the Sinn Féin leadership was sometimes seen as the macabre icing on the cake.

Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy is to be honoured at the Humbert Summer School for his work on piloting garda reforms, it emerged today.

A Dublin woman who believes her brother was killed by the IRA is fighting the General Election with the help of other victims of the terror group.

The sisters of an IRA murder victim said their hopes of a breakthrough in their tireless justice campaign dimmed today after meeting DUP leader Ian Paisley.

Northern Ireland MEP Jim Allister tonight embarked on a political career outside the Democratic Unionists after he quit the Rev Ian Paisley’s party over its power sharing pact with Sinn Féin.

US Senator Edward Kennedy is to be briefed on the current situation in the Northern peace process later today.

A PIER is a disappointed bridge, James Joyce once wrote. We’ve seen a lot of disappointed bridges in the past 10 years since the Good Friday Agreement was hailed as having signed, sealed and delivered a future for the North.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin were the main winners in the Assembly elections in Northern Ireland this week.