New-look An Phoblacht on sale now.
With more pages, more photos and more colour, the 32-page July issue includes…
Ballymurphy Massacre, 1971 - Prelude to Bloody Sunday?
The Parachute Regiment shot dead 11 people over 3 days in west Belfast in the wake of internment in 1971 and just months before being deployed in Derry

The so-called ‘dissidents’
Belfast activist [...]

I gave up on Irish journalism about 18 months ago, just after the 2008 bank guarantee scheme and the December budget of that year. And while this has done my blood pressure no end of good - it’s not the news that drives me mad, it’s the inane analysis - it also means that I [...]

Why did I think the Ernst & Young forecasts wouldn’t make big news? Did I really imagine that its key projections on the deficit and employment would provide a sobering counter-point to all the ‘whistling past the economic graveyard’ commentary we get everyday. Yet, the analysis is worth poring over in detail, not because E&Y [...]

The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again. By Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols — Nation Books
What would Thomas Jefferson do?
That might seem an odd question for 21st-century analysts and activists to be posing. But the answer to that question in regards to journalism — that [...]

We are not Spain, we are not Italy, we are not Portugal. Repeat. We are not Spain, we are not Italy, we are not Portugal.
In one sense, that’s correct. In terms of the ‘market’ view of the Irish economy, we’re worse. But don’t expect commentators who have been demanding public spending cuts to point this [...]

The arrival of Matthew Elderfield a.k.a. The Financial Regulator a.k.a. The Regulator a.k.a. The Sheriff of Dodge City has been universally heralded by the media and political establishment as the second coming of Christ. Well, the Christ of ledgers, calculators and informal speeches at the Financial Services Ireland Conference anyway.
At a time when public sector workers and government are almost [...]

On Monday night The Frontline, RTE’s flagship current affairs show, broadcast a special programme on the state and direction of our health service.
Advertised for a week in advance, the programme promised to tell us if our health system is on the right track or going backwards?
A larger than usual studio audience was given an hour [...]

Writing in the Irish Independent today Brendan Keenan seemed to have an epiphany regarding Ireland’s deflation problem. He, like most Irish newspaper economic commentators considers the deflationary effects of the strategy to reduce spending, including public sector pay and pension provision as unimportant.  In order to achieve this revelation, however, all he had to do [...]

An interview with John Gibbons, formerly of the Irish Times
John Gibbons has covered the issue of climate change for the Irish Times for the past two years. Several weeks ago his weekly column abruptly came to an end. In his final piece Gibbons took the mainstream media to task over their climate coverage:
“Ireland’s most senior [...]