Reading room
Legacy & the Troubles
Northern Ireland is still working out how to deal with killings from the Troubles. These pieces set out what courts, inquests, ombudsmen and governments have said on the record, and where people disagree.
- A united Ireland: how a border poll would work under the Good Friday AgreementThe legal rules for a referendum on Irish unity: the consent principle, when the Secretary of State must call a poll, the 1973 precedent and the 2021 census.
- Ballymurphy inquest: coroner finds all ten victims 'entirely innocent'What the 2021 Ballymurphy inquest found about ten people shot dead in west Belfast in August 1971, who was responsible for each death, and what followed.
- Brandon Lewis's 2021 legacy plan and the campaign against itWhat the UK government proposed in July 2021 to end Troubles prosecutions and inquests, why campaigners called it a whitewash, and where legacy law stands now.
- Drawing a line under the Troubles: Desmond Rea's argument and the repliesSir Desmond Rea's 2021 case for drawing a line under Troubles prosecutions, the objections from victims, and what has happened to legacy law since.
- Forced from home: sectarian threats and families in east BelfastWhat happened when a Catholic family left their Cregagh home in 2021 after a loyalist threat, the political response, and what the numbers say about intimidation.
- How paramilitary intimidation intersects with social housing in Northern IrelandHow Northern Ireland's housing points system gives priority to people intimidated from their homes, and how researchers say paramilitary groups have exploited it.
- Jeffrey Donaldson, the 'Garda mole' claim and the Smithwick TribunalWhat Jeffrey Donaldson alleged about a Garda 'mole' in the 1989 IRA murders of two RUC officers, what the Smithwick Tribunal found in 2013, and who denied what.
- Patrick Kielty, his father's murder, and how victims speak about early releaseHow broadcaster Patrick Kielty has spoken publicly about his father's 1988 murder and the early release of killers, and why his words resonated with other families.
- Poetry and the fallout of paramilitary killingsHow poets from Northern Ireland, including Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley, wrote about paramilitary punishments, killings and the moral fallout of the Troubles.
- Police Ombudsman upholds journalist's complaint over threat to her babyHow the Police Ombudsman found missed opportunities in the PSNI investigation of a 2019 threat against journalist Patricia Devlin's newborn son, and what followed.
- The Northern Ireland Protocol row: Dublin's concerns about London's toneWhy the Irish government publicly worried about the UK's approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol in 2021–22, and how the Windsor Framework changed things.