John Prescott obituary: Plain-speaking former UK deputy prime minister
In an age when politics became increasingly managed by media advisers known as spin doctors, Prescott stood out as an authentic, if unorthodox, communicator
Tony Blair
Former UK deputy prime minister John Prescott dies aged 86
Ex-US vice-president Al Gore says he ‘never worked with anyone in politics’ like Labour politician
John Bruton’s former adviser says history of the peace process needs to be rewritten
Shane Kenny says the then taoiseach never received the credit due for his role leading up to the Belfast Agreement
Few would have thought a play about the fraught Belfast Agreement talks could be so gripping
The message that “contradiction is better than violence” is more relevant and urgent than ever
Agreement: No play about the Good Friday negotiations has the right to be this much fun
Dublin Theatre Festival 2024: Owen McCafferty’s writing cuts through the Belfast peace talks’ seriousness to find levity in personal stakes and political bluster
On Leadership by Tony Blair: The work of a mechanic, not a magician, and all the better for it
This is a work for those who want to understand the plumbing of government, not the grandeur and glamour of governing
Oasis: There are reasons why they are last great working-class band to conquer the world
After Britpop, creative industries became cliquey, closed off and harder to break, especially if your dad didn’t go to school with lads working at Sony or Universal
The Irish Times view on 1990s nostalgia: don’t look back in anger
For a remarkable number of people across the world, it was a time of relative peace and rising prosperity
Ambani wedding: Son of Asia’s richest man ties knot at star-studded celebration
Former British prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, John Cena, David Beckham and several Bollywood stars among those in attendance
Four-day Mumbai wedding extravaganza to cost more than €550m
The marriage of the son of Asia’s richest businessman, Mukesh Ambani, takes place over the weekend with guests including Kim Kardashian, Tony Blair and Mark Zuckerberg
The Music Quiz: Netflix’s Bridgerton has given a classical makeover to which song by Pitbull?
Plus: What was the name of future PM Tony Blair’s 1970s rock’n’roll band?
Why chief executive succession is so difficult to get right
Boards are being forced to think about finding future leaders much earlier than in the past as shareholders demand greater insight
There’s an obvious solution to the migration row: compatible national identity cards for Ireland and Britain
Rights groups who raised valid objections to the intrusiveness of identity cards need to accept that ship has sailed - the alternative is Kafkaesque bureaucracy and racial profiling
Governments need to take record-keeping seriously in the digital age
Disappearing WhatsApp messages will be a problem for future historians
How Labour wants to change the British economy
Their plans should not make things worse. But can they make them better?
Tough, lucky and clever (but not too clever): what makes a good taoiseach?
It’s like no other job in the country. If you think anyone can do it, you have no idea what’s involved
John Bruton was more complex than his ‘nice, straightforward, violently anti-IRA’ reputation suggests
Some of Bruton’s admirers think his role in the peace process has been unduly neglected
John Bowman: Peace deal forced Fianna Fáil to dial down ‘lost Six Counties’ rhetoric
State papers: Newly-released files show how the signatories to the Belfast Agreement came to view it as the least worst option
Peter Mandelson viewed by Irish officials as ‘arrogant’ in public but ‘insecure in private’
State papers: An MP colleague also remarked that Mandelson’s tunnel vision was his greatest strength and his greatest weakness
Priest brought Biafra refugees to Wicklow without permission – and other strange tales from Dublin and London files
Records released by Irish and British archives include details of a ‘republican’ artefact thief and a ‘radical’ UK proposal to hold asylum seekers on a Scottish island
Bertie Ahern feared outbreak of violence between Provisional IRA and Real IRA in 2000, files show
State papers: Justice minister sought ‘pre-emptive round-up’ of 150 dissident republicans
Blair told Mowlam to put abortion law reform ‘on ice’ 20 years before it was legalised in North
Prime minister’s private secretary wrote that Blair ‘sees little scope for bi-communal support for a change to the law’
Dick Spring: ‘I don’t want to sound like I’m lecturing or hectoring young people’
Having helped pave the way for the Downing Street Declaration and peace in Northern Ireland, the former Labour leader is wary of being seen to preach to generations with no memory of the Troubles
The Crown’s final episodes review: A thudding close with all the panache of an old Spitting Image sketch
Netflix series finale's most remarkable aspect is that it has so much of the queen
‘They attempted to kill John – they attempted to kill his family’: John Hume, the IRA and decades of death threats
Loyalists and republicans were opposed to the SDLP leader’s efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement in Northern Ireland, as these extracts from a new book by Stephen Walker show
Newton Emerson: The threat of joint authority in the North is a scare story unionism has heard before
A Sinn Féin government in Dublin might settle for an enhanced consultative role while cranking up the optics
Miriam Lord’s Week: The men who dined for Ireland made sacrifices too
Bertie Ahern and Michael McDowell remember how they had to ‘endure Jamie Oliver’s squid in ink for lunch’ in Downing Street during Belfast Agreement negotiations
Who is the Irish man sanctioned for allegedly facilitating movement of Russian money?
Dublin businessman previously worked for Irish company providing corporate services to overseas clients
Bertie Ahern ‘had the kind of BS I always wished I had’, says Bill Clinton
Former taoiseach, former US president and Tony Blair - key figures in sealing Belfast Agreement - recall turbulent time of accord negotiation at Queen’s University Belfast conference
Belfast Agreement conference: Politicians in Northern Ireland ‘took risks’, says Blair - as it happened
Bill Clinton, Bertie Ahern and George Mitchell among speakers at three-day conference to mark 25th anniversary
Ahern, Clinton and Blair to reflect on their role as guarantors of Belfast Agreement at major conference
The three-day Queen’s University event, which marks the 25th anniversary of the peace deal, will be hosted by former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton
What was achieved on Good Friday 1998 still feels remarkable
As a journalist waiting outside Stormont that day, we knew a deal was possible but never certain
The Belfast Agreement achieved its aim, stopped the killing and created a better future
When my family’s bookshop was destroyed in an explosion, I remember thinking it was inevitable because that was what happened here – shops got blown up
Diarmaid Ferriter: North still not the shared society Belfast Agreement promised
Institutionalising two tribes and structuring power sharing accordingly is seen by many as flaw of accord
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