IRA
Why are we allowing ourselves to be held to ransom by has-been Irish militants?
When politics goes round in circles, the columnist inevitably revisits issues that would have been sorted if only everyone read…
Did Ed Balls mean to make a documentary on the joys of Trump’s America?
The thing I most regret having failed ever to ask brave, haunted, wise Sean O’Callaghan when I last saw him…
It's time for the DUP to rise above sectarianism
The newly influential DUP must disown sectarianism
A good show but some way short of a classic: Jez Butterworth's The Ferryman reviewed
Jez Butterworth’s new play The Ferryman is set in Armagh in 1981. Quinn, a former terrorist, has swapped the armed…
Thucydides had Martin McGuinness’s number
When Gerry Adams rose to announce at his funeral that Martin McGuinness was no terrorist but a ‘freedom fighter’, the…
Meeting Martin McGuinness: when I saw the mask slip
We keep being incited to find it heartwarming that Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley were known as the Chuckle Brothers.…
What Martin McGuinness’s eulogisers would like to forget
Martin McGuinness showed no remorse for the pain he caused
How our politicians – and media – are helping terrorists win
Publicity and panic make us all accessories to jihadi murders
Robert Nairac: brave to a fault
Captain Robert Nairac was a Grenadier Guards officer serving in Northern Ireland when on 14 May 1977 he was abducted…
Charles Moore’s Notes: If we want to save the elephant, we must legalise the ivory trade
How good a deal for Britain is it that the president of China got a state visit and a nuclear…
Colm Toibin on priests, loss and the half-said thing
Jenny McCartney talks to unstoppable literary force Colm Tóibín about loss, priests and half-said things
The troubled ex-informers neglected by MI5
Is MI5 neglecting its duty towards ex-informers?
As the Hindenburg burned, you could hear radio news being born
It’s really hard to imagine now a world before 24-hour news, continually and constantly accessible in a never-ending stream of…
I can understand those seduced by Isis; once, it could have been me
One of the great moments of my student life was opening the door and seeing visitors step back, shocked. I’d…
Bond would be bored in today’s MI6, says Malcolm Rifkind
Spying may be one of the two oldest professions, but unlike the other one it has changed quite a lot…
Without childhood traumas, how did Alan Bennett ever become a writer?
‘So — take heart,’ said Alan Bennett, sending us out from his play, Cocktail Sticks, on a cheery note. The…
Was this Christian pioneer of radio evangelism a fraud?
She was the sequinned star of the airwaves back in the 1920s, the first preacher to realise the potential of…
The lesson of the young men fighting for Isis: evil is in all of us
I had an interesting discussion with my friend Aidan Hartley earlier this week about whether the young men fighting for…
Ukraine vs Sparta
As rebels, terrorists, fascists, foreign forces, activists, separatists, militants, militias, nationalist groups, Neo-Nazis, Right Sector forces — take your pick — spread…
Was I abused by Jimmy Savile?
‘Twenty-six million people in Europe are looking for work. And whose jobs are they after?’ asks the Ukip poster for…
Letters
Being good without God Sir: It is a rash person who tangles with the Chief Rabbi, but his piece on…
Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s diary: Peter King, terror hypocrite, and the joys of Longhorns
As we landed at Houston, I suddenly thought of my first visit to America, in 1965 during what we didn’t…
Will Boston still fund the Real IRA?
One of the first world statesmen to send a message of sympathy to Boston after last week’s outrage was Gerry…
After the Brighton bomb
20 October 1984: She has survived an attempt on her life, but does she have a strategy for dealing with the IRA