When Mo Mowlam became Northern Ireland Secretary, she may well have had her hero Winston Churchill in mind – and his declaration that history would be kind to him because he intended to write it.

A memorial to five people gunned down in a south Belfast bookmakers shop 11 years ago was vandalised today as the city prepared for another tense July 12.

Two “extremely dangerous” men on the run after a courthouse breakout were back behind bars today.

A self-confessed murderer on the loose after a daring courthouse break-out with another man was captured tonight.

Belfast’s Sinn Fein Lord Mayor Alex Maskey took to the picket line today to protest at flooding in the south of the city.

Tension rose in a sectarian flashpoint area of Belfast amid reports of gunfire in the north of the city.

A west Belfast police station came under intense petrol bomb attack during the night as street violence continued to spread across the city, police said today.

Northern Ireland’s most senior police officer was today set to be quizzed about paramilitary involvement in the sectarian violence engulfing parts of Belfast.

The North’s Parades Commission has decided to re-route the first contentious parade of this year’s loyalist marching season away from the nationalist Lower Ormeau area of south Belfast.

Residents of Lr Ormeau Rd have said they are disappointed but not surprised by the decision of Belfast's High Court not to block next Monday's Apprentice Boys parade.

The High Court in Belfast has dismissed an application by nationalist residents on the Lower Ormeau Road to overturn a Parades Commission ruling allowing the Apprentice Boys to march through the area on Monday.

There are fears among the nationalist community in the North that the disputed Drumcree March in Portadown will get the go-ahead.

A loyalist Easter band parade has been given the green light to go through the flashpoint nationalist lower Ormeau Road in Belfast.