SQUINTER got asked on the radio last week to talk about Ulster Resistance and the DUP. He had assumed – perhaps naively – that the basis of the conversation would be firmly in place before he put the headphones on. That uncontested basis being that Ulster Resistance was founded in November 1986 by the DUP at a star-studded event at the Ulster Hall, during which senior members of the party donned red berets and paraded alongside notorious paramilitaries and gunrunners carrying swagger sticks in a none-too-subtle attempt to frighten the Brits away from the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

A WHISKEY club in Maddens Bar in Belfast city centre continues to go from strength to strength and is soon to celebrate its third anniversary.

CONCERNS have been raised about road safety around the one-way system in Cavendish Street in the Beechmount area of West Belfast.

A DEBUT novel by a West Belfast man has been selected as one of the 12 winners of the prestigious Irish Writers Centre International Debut Novel Competition 2026.

THIS Sunday the National Hunger Strike Commemoration will commence at 2.30pm in Ballina, County Mayo. The event will mark 45 years since the 1981 hunger strike in which ten men died. It will also remember all of those Irish republicans who died on hunger strike and especially the resolve and courage of three Mayo hunger strikers. Michael Gaughan (1974); Frank Stagg (1976); and Jack McNeela (1940).