Welcome to this week’s IT Sunday, a selection of the best Irish Times journalism for our subscribers.
The new deal agreed to resolve the dispute around the Northern Ireland protocol was the main story this week. The EU and UK agreed a new mechanism for post-Brexit trading rules in the North that gives the Northern Ireland Assembly a say in new EU laws applying in the North. Simon Carswell explains it all if you don’t know your Stormont Brakes from your Windsor Frameworks. He also examines whether the agreement passes the “seven tests” the DUP has been insisting must be addressed if they are to support the deal and the restoration of the powersharing institutions in the North. In his column, Fintan O’Toole comments on the “reality distortion” field the DUP has found itself in following its various shifts on Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol.
Newton Emerson comments on the separate guides the UK and the EU have published giving their own descriptions of the deal. “As a rough summary, the EU insists little has changed in principle while the UK insists much has changed in practice. While these opposite spins are not necessarily contradictory, the contrast between them can be absurd.”
David McWilliams also addresses the new deal on the protocol. He writes that the “deal provides the chance to reframe what the North stands for. Is it an enterprising part of the global economy, focused on raising the living standards and conditions of its people or an atavistic backwater, preferring flags over fortune? Unionism faces that choice. Yet again it appears that the leaders of unionism will vouch for the past over the future; rendering them yet again the politicians who never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
Tony O’Reilly, Nell McCafferty, Ian Bailey and more: 50 people who died in 2024
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‘I personally only come here for the ladies’: Fog hits racing but not youthful glamour at Leopardstown
This weekend the Ballyseedy massacre in which nine anti-Treaty IRA prisoners were tied to a landmine and blown up during the Civil War is being commemorated at a number of events in Co Kerry. In his weekend column, Fintan O’Toole considers “the strange overlap” between Ballyseedy and the Kerry Babies scandal of the 1980s, “the chilling way in which the State inflicted terrible trauma on a family – and then returned 60 years later to retraumatise the same family”.
Businessman Denis O’Brien was in the headlines this week with news he may end up losing as much as 90 per cent of his heavily-indebted Digicel telecoms group to bond creditors as they move to seize control of the business in return for writing off $1.8 billion (€1.7 billion) of its borrowings. You can read all about it with a timeline of the Digicel debt saga, a profile of the 64-year-old and a long read from Joe Brennan on how O’Brien ran out of road at Digicel.
This week Corinna Hardgrave reviews Alfama in Dublin. She was impressed. In her Tell Me About It column, psychotherapist Trish Murphy answers a reader who is concerned her ruined a stranger’s date night by asking her to turn her phone off at the cinema while Roe McDermott responds to a reader whose best friend wants to be a bit more than that.
Finally, based on your feedback, we have started two new weekly newsletters. Gerry Thornley’s Counter Ruck (sign-up here) deals with all things rugby, while our personal finance team will help you make smart financial decisions in On The Money. We’ve also revamped the Morning Sports Briefing, with Mary Hannigan taking the reins this week. Mary will cherry-pick the very best of our sports coverage and serve it up to you on a silver platter, along with the best TV sport of the day, and a news story worth keeping an eye on. Here’s Friday’s edition if you want a taste of what to expect.
As always, there is much more on irishtimes.com, including rundowns of all the latest movies in our film reviews, tips for the best restaurants in our food section and all the latest Six Nations reports, reaction and analysis in our sport section. There are plenty more articles exclusively available for Irish Times subscribers here.
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