Newton Emerson: There is a strong if painful case to be made for amnesty

Newton Emerson

The government has leaked plans to ban most further Troubles prosecutions - as close as the law permits to a general amnesty, which would require pardons.

Read the Article

Columnists

Patrick Murphy: Clapped-out DUP needs more than a new driver

Columnists

Alex Kane: If the assembly goes down again, it isn't coming back

Columnists

Denis Bradley: Consequences of partition have cascaded down the decades

Columnists

Newton Emerson: DUP slipping to second or even third place would transform our politics

MORE Columnists

Newton Emerson: DUP slipping to second or even third place would transform our politics

Newton Emerson 06 May, 2021

What is the presumed mechanism, beyond nationalist wishful thinking, by which electoral disaster for the DUP means disaster for the union?

Deaglán de Bréadún: Waves from Scottish election could wash up on our shores

Deaglán de Bréadún 05 May, 2021

IT was only when I moved to Belfast for a number of years in the late 1990s, reporting on the peace process and other news, that I came to realise the importance of the link between the north and Scotland, especially for unionists.

Brian Feeney: Whichever candidate wins will hasten the demise of the DUP

Brian Feeney 05 May, 2021

Years ago, it must have been the 1994 European election, canvassers in Belfast’s republican New Lodge Road district were taken aback by a few people saying they were voting for Paisley.

Anita Robinson: After so much sacrifice, let's not lose the run of ourselves

Anita Robinson 04 May, 2021

Well, I suppose we got what we’d yearned for last Friday – a return to what passes for normality in these parts.

Fionnuala O Connor: For DUP and Sinn Féin, reverence for past service not what it was

Fionnuala O Connor 04 May, 2021

Between now and the next assembly election, be that sooner or later, events now unforeseen may decide the outcome.

Jim Gibney: Out of chaos can come meaningful change

Jim Gibney 03 May, 2021

Might I respectfully suggest to the incoming leadership of the DUP that they use the next few months before the departure of Arlene Foster, to read Brian Rowan's new book: ‘Political Purgatory – the Battle to Save Stormont and the Play for a New Ireland'.