John Devine talks to DUP MP Gregory Campbell about what could happen after elections in May: “We are not going to dig people out of the hole they are in now. But after an election we will go to the …

A US fact finding delegation has arrived in Northern Ireland for a five day visit. Via Hawk Girl.

It looks like the government are determined to press ahead with plans for elections in May. According to officials in the DUP, this was Secretary of State Paul Murphy’s clear message in their meeting with him this morning.

Emily O’Reilly contrasts (subscription or registration needed) the fortunes of the Irish language inside and outside the Gaeltacht areas, and suggests that state intervention with the Gaeltacht has done little to halt the decline of the language. “…as the Gaeltacht …

The inimitable Newton Emerson looks at the theological grounding of one Northern Ireland’s most controversial figures, the Reverend Dr Ian Paisley.

If the hope behind the arrest of Johnny Adair on Friday was to facilitate an end to an incipient Loyalist feud, the government may be disappointed, says Henry McDonald. He also has distrubing news of events behind the withdrawal of …

Ruth Dudley Edwards still believes that a Trimble-led Unionist party is the best way forward and casts doubts on whether a new model DUP under the leadership of Peter Robinson can command the kind of numbers within the party to …

Eilis O’Hanlon criticises the leadership of Mark Durkan for not seeking to wrest the initiative for the Nationalist agenda from Sinn Fein: “He lacks concentration. He too easily allows himself to be drawn into pointless philosophical debates with Sinn Fein, …

Cork emigre, now an academic at the University of Arizona, Kieran Healey picks up on Junius’s Ladybird history theme.

Mark Devenport with his view of the re-start talks and the recent IRA statement. Meanwhile Mark Durkan is puzzled by the strong reactions to the that statement amd calls for steady nerves.