Northern Ireland

DUBLIN -- Negotiations on reviving power-sharing in Northern Ireland, the goal of the 1998 peace accord, are to resume today on the 10th anniversary of an Irish Republican Army cease-fire. The key, all sides agree, will be whether the outlawed IRA makes sufficient peace commitments that persuade the Democratic Unionists, the dominant Protestant party, to cooperate with the IRA's Sinn Fein party. Such a marriage of extremes -- long unthinkable in a British territory where Democratic Unionists still refuse to negotiate face to face with Sinn Fein leaders, much less shake their hands -- is now...

DUBLIN - Residents of a Londonderry street voiced their anger at Irish Republican Army die-hards Tuesday after police seized at least two bombs in an apartment in the Northern Ireland city. Officers arrested a 30-year-old local man on suspicion of involvement with the bomb cache on Maureen Avenue near the city center. They declined to say whether the man was a resident of the four-story apartment block. Several families, including retired couples and young families, were evacuated overnight and slept in a local gym until Tuesday's all-clear by British Army bomb disposal specialists.

DUBLIN - Militant Protestant supporters of a Scottish soccer team beat to death a Roman Catholic man in the latest sign of how sports rivalries inspire sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland, police and politicians said yesterday. Witnesses said more than 20 Protestant supporters of the Glasgow Rangers, many of them wearing the team's blue-and-white jerseys and scarves, drove into a Catholic district in Coleraine after the Rangers clinched the Scottish Premier League championship yesterday.

DUBLIN - The widow of a Northern Ireland police officer killed by Irish Republican Army die-hards condemned the length of prison sentences imposed Monday on his murderers, saying they were too short to deter more attacks. Kate Carroll spoke out after a Belfast judge imposed minimum prison terms on two men from the Continuity IRA splinter group who were convicted of murdering her husband, Stephen, in 2009. He was the first officer to be killed in Northern Ireland since 1998, the year of the US-brokered Good Friday peace accord for the British territory.

BELFAST — Frustration and fears of disease mounted in Northern Ireland yesterday as 36,000 people were left without water, some for more than a week, after a deep freeze and a sudden thaw caused aging pipes to burst. With reservoirs running low, water supplies were cut off in scores of towns and cities, and residents turned to emergency water tankers and bottled water for their cooking, cleaning, and drinking needs. “It’s been a nightmare,’’ said James Lawson, a resident in Lisburn, near Belfast, who has gone without water for 13 days.

BERAGH, Northern Ireland — As the casket of a slain Catholic policeman was somberly hoisted through his town, Northern Ireland police investigating his killing announced a major weapons cache seizure and arrested a suspected Irish Republican Army dissident. Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris revealed the breakthrough yesterday as scenes of exceptional Catholic-Protestant unity, especially between Northern Ireland’s politicians, played out at the funeral of Constable Ronan Kerr.

LONDON - Police chiefs in London and Northern Ireland said Friday they had suspended officers from duty following a raft of new investigations into alleged racism, including some cases reported by police staff to their superiors. London's Metropolitan Police, Britain's largest police force, said it was dealing with 10 new race-related complaints from 20 staff, among them an allegation that an officer used a racial slur while arresting a black man in the aftermath of riots last August.

LONDON -- Gerry Fitt, a leader of Catholic nationalists in Northern Ireland and a fierce critic of the Irish Republican Army, died Friday, his family said. He was 79. He died at an undisclosed location in England, the family said. The cause of death was not announced, but he had a history of heart disease and had been in declining health for months. Mr. Fitt was a leader of a Catholic civil rights march that confronted police near Londonderry on Oct. 5, 1968. Violence broke out, gaining worldwide television coverage, and effectively...

BELFAST - Northern Ireland lawmakers voted overwhelmingly yesterday to create a new Justice Department, the next key step in making their Catholic-Protestant government work. Three of the four parties in Northern Ireland’s cross-community government backed the motion to take control of the territory’s police and courts from Britain next month. The long-debated move would put law and order back into local hands for the first time since Northern Ireland’s descent into civil war four decades ago. The British, Irish, and American governments have pressed...

LEEDS CASTLE, England -- Northern Ireland's rival politicians face "a moment of decision" in their six-year struggle to forge a stable Catholic-Protestant government, Prime Minister Tony Blair declared yesterday as he launched a high-stakes round of talks. Negotiations scheduled to last through tomorrow at Leeds Castle, a magnificent 12th-century castle set in a lake southeast of London, are supposed to establish whether the outlawed Irish Republican Army will disarm and disband in support of the Good Friday peace accord of 1998.

Five dissidents were arrested and charged with a range of serious and rarely invoked terror offenses, Northern Irish police said Friday. Five men aged between 33 and 47 were charged with offenses such as conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to cause an explosion, preparation of terrorist acts and collecting information of use to terrorism. Northern Irish police said three of the men were arrested in Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, on Monday as part of a "proactive investigation" into dissident republican terrorist activity.

LONDON - Police chiefs in London and Northern Ireland said Friday they had suspended officers from duty following a raft of new investigations into alleged racism, including some cases reported by police staff to their superiors. London's Metropolitan Police, Britain's largest police force, said it was dealing with 10 new race-related complaints from 20 staff, among them an allegation that an officer used a racial slur while arresting a black man in the aftermath of riots last August.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - After crucial testimony from a mystery witness, two Irish Republican Army dissidents were convicted Friday of murdering a Northern Ireland policeman. Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, was shot through the back of the head as he sat in his patrol car in February 2009. The Continuity IRA splinter group claimed responsibility for the first killing of a Northern Ireland police officer since 1998, the year of Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace accord. Brendan McConville, 40, and John Paul Wootton, 20, were both found guilty...

DONEGAL, Ireland - On a map, Ireland's northwest corner appears as if it were stepped on by a giant, splaying the land into fingers webbed by a ragged coastline. Here wind-scoured headlands cradle swaths of sand, forested valleys shelter shimmery ponds, and heath-clad mountains overlook barren peat bogs. The area is expansive yet intimate, tame yet wild. In spring, like much of the Emerald Isle, County Donegal is painted with brilliant greens and heather hues and splashed with sunshine-yellow gorse blossoms.

Students from Acton- Boxborough Regional High School and Beverly High faced a wide range of questions in their "High School Quiz Show" match. A sampling: Q: What is the only country that bans women from driving? A: Saudi Arabia. Q: In what year did the United States enter World War I? A: 1917. Q: What is the capital of Northern Ireland? A: Belfast. Q: Who was known as "Gloriana" and "Good Queen Bess"? A: Elizabeth I. Q: What is the earth's only natural satellite?

The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts has decided to support two journalists who are fighting release of interviews they conducted for the Belfast Project at Boston College, an oral history of the tumultuous times in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles. The ACLU filed legal arguments yesterday with the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit opposing release of the interviews, saying the journalists had a right to argue on their behalf and that the release of the information would jeopardize their integrity.

ANTRIM, Northern Ireland - Catholic and Protestant congregations prayed together for peace yesterday after IRA dissidents killed two British soldiers as they were receiving a pizza delivery - the first deadly attack on Northern Ireland security forces in 12 years. The leaders of the territory's Catholic-Protestant administration warned that Irish Republican Army dissidents were trying to tear apart their young coalition and drag Northern Ireland back toward its bloody past - but they said such tactics cannot be allowed to succeed.

BELFAST - The Protestant and Catholic leaders of Northern Ireland mounted an exceptional display of unity against rising violence from Irish Republican Army dissidents - and vowed yesterday to defeat hard-liners with the power of popular will. Former IRA commander Martin McGuinness, who long hoped that slaying police officers would help him achieve his dream of a united Ireland, stood shoulder to shoulder with his Protestant partner atop the government, Peter Robinson, and Northern Ireland police commander Hugh Orde.

A judge will hear arguments in a bid by federal prosecutors to dismiss a lawsuit filed by two men trying to block U.S. authorities from turning over interviews of former Irish Republican Army members to police in Northern Ireland. U.S. District Court Judge William Young will hold a hearing Tuesday in a legal battle over Boston College's oral history project on Northern Ireland. Young has already ruled that interviews with some former IRA members should be handed over to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Carrie Twomey got off a train at South Station yesterday and walked down the platform of Track 5 enjoying, just for the moment, something she'd give anything to have permanently: total anonymity. Her grandfather was from Lynn and her relatives worked at General Electric and the shoe factories. She grew up in California and married an Irishman named Anthony McIntyre and they made a life together in Ireland, first in the North, now in the South. She came to Boston because she believes the only way that life will be secure is if a bunch of tape recordings remain secured at the Burns Library at Boston College,...