Tony Blair

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

The Agreement part 1: An unsettling trip back to the era of bullets, Bertie, Blair and Baby Spice

RTÉ’s Belfast Agreement documentary sweeps you back to the days when Irish terrorism was routinely in the headlines

Agreement: An outstanding evening, a landmark play, a thoroughly deserved five stars

Theatre: Owen McCafferty’s searing new dramatisation of the Belfast Agreement negotiations is a political thriller with echoes of Greek drama

Blair warns that ‘constant’ political disruption in Northern Ireland will create difficulties for its future in UK

Former British prime minister urges DUP to restore stability by returning to Stormont

Lloyd George’s Ireland or John Hume’s? The people gave their answer

Declassified State papers detail the journey to the Belfast Agreement, a deal some wholeheartedly endorsed but others reluctantly accepted

Bertie Ahern threatened to stall over Articles 2 and 3 after Belfast Agreement

Then taoiseach said David Trimble had ‘done nothing’ on eve of Nobel prize award and feared ‘a lot of dangerous people’ had been let out of prison

How the Northern peace deal could have been the Barbados Agreement: State papers reveal last-ditch talks

State papers: Then Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam proposed Barbados as a venue more suited to the multi-party talks.

Newton Emerson: Britain has been helping to house key workers for two decades. What about Ireland?

It is time to look at subsidising homes for teachers, nurses, doctors

David Lloyd George played ‘a dishonourable role’ in bringing about Irish Civil War, Ahern says

Former Taoiseach tells Dick Barrett Commemoration in West Cork that Civil War as the greatest tragedy to befall Ireland in the 20th century

The Crown season five contains a king’s ransom of inaccuracies. But never mind that

Television: Truth and fiction mingle in the Netflix royal drama’s new series. Its showrunner, Peter Morgan, has never pretended otherwise

Diarmaid Ferriter: Liz Truss has yet to show any interest in or understanding of Ireland

When Tony Blair was elected 25 years ago, he was heavily engaged with the politics of Northern Ireland. Now we have a Tory elite that couldn’t care less

Bill Clinton: Trimble’s lifetime of service helped bring peace to North

Former first minister’s contribution to the Belfast Agreement cannot be underestimated, says Adams

Martin Wolf: Boris Johnson must embrace the Brexit he made

The row over Northern Ireland risks a deeper decline in UK trade in response to threats of violence from a tiny minority

Why it took the UK a long time to become a Russia hawk

Repositioning happens to now mesh with need to reset relations with EU but Putin was courted for years

MPs to vote on investigation over Johnson’s statements on parties

British prime minister apologises to Commons for breaching Covid-19 rules in 2020

Fintan O’Toole: The political centre cannot hold – we need a new consensus

If Macron is re-elected, it will be less because of what he is than what he is not: a crypto-fascist

Johnson defends Saudi trip in pursuit of broad anti-Putin bloc

PM mounts rearguard action despite execution of 81 people in kingdom last weekend

A unique journalist – Renagh Holohan remembers Mike Burns

An Irishwoman’s Diary

Ukraine crisis is drawing Britain reluctantly back towards Europe

London Letter: EU’s response to Russian invasion has made Johnson look slow-footed

Boris Johnson has underestimated the intelligence of the average Brit

An Irish comedian can’t find the funnies in Boris Johnson

Do differences in Christian doctrine or dogma matter anymore?

People have died for their belief in transubstantiation or papal infallibility

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