Common Ground

Evolving Islands: Ireland & Britain - a special series from The Irish Times exploring the complex relationship between the two

Daniel Wiffen finds inspiration from Joyce on the next stage of his swimming odyssey

The Olympic champion was in UCD on Wednesday evening to receive the James Joyce award

Oscar winner David Puttnam says film production can play role in ‘shared’ Ireland

Acclaimed producer says governments North and South should invest in cross-Border culture to build mutual understanding

Sinn Féin’s leaders are not really leaders. They’re more like glove puppets for unseen controllers

Recent controversies are not the reason for Sinn Féin’s decline, they’re symptoms of its underlying reality

Shooting Crows by Trevor Birney: Heartfelt personal writing meets hard-edged journalism

Birney recounts horror of Loughinisland murders and PSNI’s attempt to prevent exposure of collusion

War and remembrance – Ronan McGreevy on the Battle of Le Pilly

A dark time for the 2nd Royal Irish Regiment

Nearly two thirds of Irish SMEs have reduced or stopped using British suppliers since Brexit

New survey by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) reveals ‘stark changes in Irish SME trading patterns with Britain’ after EU departure

Kneecap: Could Ireland be on track for its second international feature Oscar nomination?

In 2023, An Cailín Ciúin secured Ireland’s first ever nomination in this category. Could Kneecap make it twice in three years?

Four-fifths of Northern Irish households receive more in benefits than they pay in tax

Average Southern household pays three times more tax

‘I met Nigel Farage in the bar’: the vicar’s daughter who ‘liked to party’ and is now first minister of Wales

Eluned Morgan travels to Cork on Thursday for a bilateral with the Irish Government, but first she must learn a cúpla focail for her trip to the Áras

Ireland will have to decide what neutrality means, says former head of security inquiry

Ireland’s geographical location has been enough to offer security over recent decades, but ‘the world is changing’

Why do so few students from Northern Ireland attend college in the South?

A-level conversion rates, the career guidance culture and cost of living are among reasons why just 1% of CAO applicants are from the North

Sinn Féin’s old rules of secrecy will no longer do amid fresh controversy

Sinn Féin figures did not know what to say about the party’s handling of job references for a former official now convicted of a child sex offence, but it was the issue they couldn’t escape

The quiet campaigner: Geraldine Finucane on her 35-year fight for justice for her husband Pat

The wife of Pat Finucane has always been intensely private. At 74, she reflects on life as she and her family prepare for a public inquiry into his murder

Thirty years on from ceasefire, loyalist communities remain ignored, poor and threatened from within

‘People try to make distinctions between a good paramilitary and a bad paramilitary. A good paramilitary might be somebody who sells coke on a Saturday night. A bad paramilitary would be somebody who’s dealing heroin’

Telling the story of an IRA hunger-striker: ‘What’s on stage is the reality: death, brutality, viciousness’

Staging the Martin Hurson Story has caused disquiet in parts of the North. Its aim is not to glorify, says its writer

Thirty years on from ceasefire, it’s time for loyalist paramilitaries to leave Northern Ireland

Change must be unambiguous and demonstrate intent to finally end the paramilitary structures that continue to exist

The curtain is coming down on Ireland’s soft power in the US

Whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the presidency in November, Ireland will not be much of a priority

Michael McMonagle scandal: Sinn Féin needs to get to grips with its troubled relationship with money

Not every organisation passes its employees around like a pilfered stapler until nobody is quite sure what is going on

Fluent Irish requirement ‘a barrier’ to more working-class young people becoming teachers

Nineteen-year-old Alex Grogan ‘realised very early I wanted to be a teacher’ and give back to ‘my community’

Daughter of man killed by loyalists in 1977 calls for investigations to be reinstated

Police Ombudsman inquiries should restart after demise of Legacy Act, says Deirdre McHugh whose father was murdered by the UDA-UFF

‘It’s just a no brainer’ - renters swap the Republic for lower-cost homes in Belfast

Two students, from Dublin and Galway, have chosen to move North for cheaper housing - and one is even considering commuting home for work from her new rented home

Being English in Ireland, I often sense I’m being too frank

An English person in Ireland speaks with eight centuries of history gesticulating over her shoulder

Jon Sopel on the madness of post-Brexit Britain: ‘I think we’ve done some stupid sh*t’

The BBC correspondent turned award-winning podcaster has published a new book, Strangeland: How Britain Stopped Making Sense

Ireland’s most infamous unsolved murder: a massacre intended to strike fear into the hearts of Catholics

In a new book Edward Burke identifies the man he believes to have been responsible for the brutal killing of a Belfast Catholic family in 1922, a massacre whose repercussions continue to be felt

New SDLP leader Claire Hanna: ‘We are extremely limited by being a part of the UK. It feels like a straitjacket’

Colum Eastwood’s successor talks about family, Sinn Féin, sectarian challenges, misogyny, and her ambitions for a united Ireland

Atlas of the Irish Civil War. New Perspectives: History presented with imagination and innovation

Issues raised in third volume of historical series are at core of concerns still with us today

Ghosts of a Family review: Superlative account of the sectarian McMahon murders

Edward Burke investigates the 1922 massacre in the context of collusion and archives reluctant to yield truth about the North

The pub bombs ‘blew away the Irish community’ in Birmingham. Healing is slow

Next month marks the 50th anniversary of one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles, as the local Irish community joins victims’ families to remember

Is Varadkar right that every party should make a united Ireland an objective? Conor O’Malley and Fergus O’Dowd debate

Former taoiseach Leo Varadkar said every party should make Irish unification ‘an objective, not an aspiration’. But is that the right goal? And what needs to happen first?

On Leadership by Tony Blair: The work of a mechanic, not a magician, and all the better for it

This is a work for those who want to understand the plumbing of government, not the grandeur and glamour of governing

Sinn Féin plans to move Northern Ireland remit out of DFA in government

Party will immediately begin ‘structured and detailed planning towards Irish unity’ if elected to office, ardfheis told

Has Leo Varadkar really found his ‘inner Shinner’ with Irish unity comments?

Give me a Crash Course in ... the former taoiseach reigniting the debate about a united Ireland

‘This is the opportunity for people to tell their story in full’: People held in institutions in Northern Ireland urged to come forward

An independent panel is seeking testimony from anyone who spent time in mother and baby homes, Magdalene laundries and workhouses, along with those who worked, volunteered in, or lived nearby

Varadkar and Eastwood speak to Derry students - but only the Catholics show up

The word ‘safe’ comes up a lot from the students, as does the desire for a peaceful future, more university places in their home city and the chance of a job locally

To agree on an all-Ireland future, our past must not be concealed or forgotten

Our collective history cannot simply be ‘put behind us’, as though of no more import than a bad day at the office

Leo Varadkar says vote on Irish unity could involve a ‘two-stage referendum’

Former taoiseach says people could first vote on the idea in principle before getting a subsequent confirmatory vote on a proposed new constitution

‘No reason why Dáil couldn’t sit for a time in Stormont,’ says Varadkar

Former taoiseach calls for all parties to make pledge on Irish unity

Belfast-Dublin train service: commuter delays prompt call by Minister of State to scrap new early-morning service

Timetable changes increasing journey times for commuters in Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush, Lusk and Donabate, says Minister

Leo Varadkar: ‘All trends point towards Irish unification in the next few decades’

Former taoiseach believes a New Ireland Forum should be established to plan the journey to Irish unity

Why Dublin, London and Stormont are still bankrolling loyalists

Throughout the negotiations of the 1990s, the British government and many others encouraged loyalism to develop a political project mirroring that of Sinn Féin. This briefly appeared realistic

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