Benn to pressure Dublin over Troubles legacy info
Hilary Benn to press Dublin on ‘hugely important’ sharing of Troubles information
By Claudia Savage, Press Association, Belfast News Letter and Irish News, February 26th, 2026
Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn will press the Irish government on sharing information in relation to Troubles legacy investigations.
It is “hugely important” that the Irish government shares information in relation to Troubles legacy investigations, the Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn will press on a visit to Dublin.
Today, Mr Benn is set to meet with Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee and Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan in Dublin.
In Belfast in January, Ms McEntee said any significant changes to legislation linked to a joint UK/Irish framework on the Troubles must have the full agreement of both governments, after UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer indicated there may be new protections for military veterans.
The joint framework on legacy unveiled by London and Dublin last September outlined a range of measures and mechanisms for dealing with historical cases from the Northern Ireland conflict.
The framework included commitments to fundamentally reform the structures established by the last Conservative government’s contentious Legacy Act, including the removal of a controversial provision that offered a form of conditional immunity to perpetrators of Troubles crimes.
The Irish Government committed to the “fullest possible” co-operation with the new legacy commission and the creation of a dedicated legacy unit within the Irish police force, An Garda Siochana.
Sir Declan Morgan, chief commissioner of the Independent Commission on Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) – which investigates Troubles Crimes under the Labour Government’s reformed Legacy Act, has said the body does not have information sharing arrangements with the Irish authorities.
Ahead of his visit to Dublin, Mr Benn said the UK and Ireland have “a warm and strong relationship, which is underpinned by our shared interests and values, and our unwavering commitment to the Good Friday Agreement”.
“On the legacy of the Troubles, both governments are making good progress in delivering on our respective commitments,” he said.
“There is no doubt that sharing of information by the Irish authorities will be hugely important for legacy investigations and the Omagh bombing inquiry.
“I greatly look forward to discussing the Irish and UK legislation, and other issues of mutual interest, with Ministers McEntee and O’Callaghan later today.”
The ICRIR is already investigating more killings than the Metropolitan police. It has more than 100 live investigations, including into a number of unsolved IRA attacks on UK service personnel such as the Guildford pub bombings, the Warrenpoint massacre and the M62 coach bombing.
Last year, Sir Declan said “it is essential” for victims and survivors to find out “what information Ireland holds in relation to what happened to their loved ones”.
Irish State apologies often followed by inaction
ELLEN COYNE, Political Correspondent, Irish Times, February 26th, 2026
Apologies may come easier with each passing decade but the practicalities of following them up with action may get harder
“We must start by apologising.” And so Bertie Ahern did.
When he rose to his feet in the Dáil chamber in 1999 to offer the first State apology to abuse victims, Ahern may not have intended to start an almost 30-year trend of taoisigh performing similar acts of atonement to those who have been failed by the State in the most cruel and catastrophic ways.
Since Ahern’s landmark apology to those who had suffered child abuse in residential institutions run by religious congregations, every single taoiseach who has come after him has made at least one similar apology – the majority of which have been offered to survivors of religious-run institutions.
Leo Varadkar apologised to the women who were failed by the CervicalCheck controversy and men who were criminalised for their homosexuality, while Simon Harris apologised to the victims and survivors of the Stardust tragedy.
Every other apology related to religious abuse: Brian Cowen’s 2009 apology on the publication of the Ryan Report, Enda Kenny’s 2013 apology to the survivors of Magdalene laundries and Micheál Martin’s 2021 apology to former residents of mother and baby institutions and county homes.
Martin, once again the latest Government leader to have to articulate such regrets in his speech to survivors of institutional abuse yesterday, was this week building on that first 1999 apology that he himself had helped to craft 26 years ago.
Ahern had been keenly aware of the harrowing stories of institutional abuse survivors including Christine Buckley, having heard the testimony first-hand from survivors in his own constituency in Dublin.
Ahern and Martin have form
Buckley, who became one of the first survivors to go public with her story in the mid-nineties, had been frustrated that the national outcry that followed the Dear Daughter documentary about her story had not moved the government to act. (Ahern’s apology would happen to coincide with the broadcast of the landmark States of Fear documentary series on Ireland’s industrial school system.)
Buckley and other survivors sought a meeting with Martin in 1999 – given that the Department of Education had historic responsibility for those who had been assigned to the institutions. Survivors like Buckley had been accused by some of suffering from false memories of their abuse.
Martin himself would go on to tell the 2004 Ryan commission into child abuse, which followed on from Ahern’s apology, that the meeting with Buckley in 1999 had left a “deep impression” on him and had been the “catalyst” for the State apology that followed.
The survivors had looked Martin in the eye at the meeting and asked him to “tell us you believe us”. Afterwards, Martin told Ahern that to not issue an apology “would have been a devastating blow to survivors”.
Last November, decades on from that first encounter with Buckley, Martin was once again having a fateful meeting with survivors of institutional abuse.
Miriam Moriarty Owens, Mary Donovan, Mary Dunlevy Greene and Maurice Patton O’Connell had been on hunger strike outside Leinster House for 51 days, in protest at what they described as a lack of State support in existing services for survivors of industrial and reformatory schools.
In that meeting, survivors were promised financial assistance, social housing and healthcare support – as well as a commitment to offer this week’s State apology.
When he issued an apology in January 2021 for the “profound generational wrong” visited upon Irish mothers and their children who were in either mother and baby or county homes, the Taoiseach said an apology on its own was not enough” and that “actions speak louder than words.”
Since the historic first of Ahern’s apology, what was a stunning rarity of a political moment in 1999 has become a successive feature of modern Irish politics. But many of the most profound State apologies have often been followed by actions which have failed to match the strength of sorry words.
Enda Kenny’s profound and emotional state apology to Magdalene survivors in 2013 was followed by a support scheme that was lambasted by survivors and human rights groups for being narrow and exclusionary.
Ahern’s own apology was followed by a highly controversial deal between the Government and the religious orders which allowed them to pay €128 million in return for an indemnity against all future actions against them.
Martin’s apologies to survivors of industrial and reformatory schools is separate to but comes before a practical test for the Government of its ability to match words with actions for survivors of abuse.
Last year, the Government set up the McGrath Commission into how historical child sexual abuse allegations were handled in schools. The commission was set up after a scoping inquiry detailed 2,395 allegations of sexual abuse at 308 schools run by religious congregations, involving 884 alleged abusers. The scoping inquiry had called for both a commission of investigation and a redress scheme.
There have already been dire warnings within Government about the cost of what will likely be the biggest redress scheme in the history of the State – with estimates that up to 40,000 survivors could be entitled to compensation under the scheme.
The prose for apologies may come easier with each passing decade but the practicalities of following them up with action may get harder.
Man to have convictions over explosives admissions quashed
ALAN ERWIN, Irish News, February 26th, 2026
A CO ANTRIM man who says he was tortured into making disputed admissions about possessing explosives more than 50 years ago is to have his convictions quashed, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.
Senior judges held that a failure to disclose medical evidence of injuries sustained by Laurence O’Neill undermined the reliability of confession evidence. Describing the trial proceedings as “unconscionable”, Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan confirmed: “We could not properly conclude that the convictions are safe.”
Mr O’Neill, 82, declared himself fully vindicated in the battle to finally clear his name.
“I have waited 54 years for this day, and I feel elated ,” he said outside the court.
“Torture wouldn’t describe what happened to me, I was interrogated for four-anda-half days around the clock with no food, no sleep and no toilet.”
In 1972 Mr O’Neill was convicted of possessing ammunition with intent and possessing explosives with intent to endanger life.
He received a 15-year prison sentence and served eight years behind bars.
Charges had been brought against him over an incident in November 1971.
Two members of the Scots Guards approached him while he sat in a car outside an address in Belfast.
At the time Mr O’Neill said he was waiting for someone
At his trial a police detective claimed Mr O’Neill had admitted responsibility for the ammunition but declined to make a written statement.
Document found by Finucane Centre
However, in 2016 documents in a civil action related to the case were discovered at the Public Records Office in Kew, London by human rights group the Pat Finucane Centre.
Following that development, Mr O’Neill’s legal team applied to the Criminal Cases in the property, but they denied knowing him. Searches of the vehicle were said to have uncovered 700 rounds of ammunition in a concealed compartment on the driver’s side. The following day a quantity of arms was found at his family’s farm.
Mr O’Neill was transferred to Palace Barracks in Holywood, Co Down to be interrogated on six occasions by Special Branch officers without the presence of a solicitor. He was later medically examined and several injuries noted, according to a body which probes potential miscarriages of justice.
Review Commission to examine the safety of his convictions.
The CCRC referred the case back to the Court of Appeal due to the potential use of torture or inhuman and degrading treatment during the interrogation process.
Citing “executive misconduct”, the inadmissibility of confession evidence and insufficient other evidence, the body believed there was a real possibility Mr O’Neill’s convictions would not be upheld.
In court today it was argued that the findings of an Army doctor who examined him during his detention at Palace Barracks had been concealed from the criminal trial.
The pensioner’s barrister, Brian Fee KC, said the medical report referred to significant injuries consistent with the type of abuse he was allegedly subjected to.
“This has been a long and winding road for the appellant, allow him to live out what’s left of his life free from the stain of convictions which should not have been imposed upon him,” Mr Fee submitted.
Ciaran Murphy KC, for the Public Prosecution Service, did not resist the appeal.
He accepted the non-disclosure of medical evidence and interrogations had a cumulative effect of “tainting” the reliability of Mr O’Neill’s confessions.
“The remaining evidence was insufficient to sustain a conviction,” counsel added.
Dame Siobhan, sitting with Lord Justices Treacy and Col-ton, agreed with his assessment of the trial being rendered unconscionable.
“These convictions should be quashed on the basis of the safety issues raised in the prosecution case,” the Lady Chief Justice ruled.
“In light of the medical evidence and its bearing on the admissions made by the appellant, together with the non-disclosure of that evidence and material related to the circumstances in which the admissions were made.”
Outside court, Mr O’Neill recalled how his own father failed to recognise him at the police station due to the level of injuries allegedly inflicted during interrogation.
“I was born and reared in a sectarian state, the police force that operated then did what they were instructed to do, and that was to torture their subjects,” he claimed.
Mr O’Neill’s solicitor, Patricia Coyle of Harte Coyle Collins, insisted he had been subjected to “horrendous” treatment: “There were physical beatings and firearms with blanks in them were discharged against his ears,” she said.
“He was within a cohort of victims from August 1971 who were essentially used as guinea pigs by the state…
“Those who subjected my client to this conduct operated in the dark, but that apparatus of denial has been demolished today.”
Paul O’Connor from the Pat Finucane Centre claimed: “The striking thing about the documents in Kew is how many people knew what had happened to Laurence. His treatment has been described as torture, and that is what people need to hear.”
Journalist Kearney ‘spied on by PSNI, MI5 and Met Police over eight years’
CONNLA YOUNG, CRIME and SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, Irish News, February 26th, 2026
Wife and mother-in-law also caught up in snooping scandal, spy tribunal hears
ONE of Ireland’s best known journalists was placed under state surveillance that included close family members over an eight-year period, a powerful spy tribunal has been told.
The London-based Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) has heard how Vincent Kearney was unlawfully spied on by MI5, which admitted its role last year, the PSNI and Metropolitan Police at various times between 2006 and 2014 when he worked with the BBC.
The IPT examines complaints from people who believe they have been the victim of unlawful covert surveillance.
The tribunal heard there were seven separate police or MI5 operations where Mr Kearney’s, or the BBC’s, communication data was unlawfully obtained between 2006 and 2018.
In a single operation the PSNI gathered information relating to 1,580 calls or texts made and received by the journalist.
Its three-person tribunal panel has also been told that Mr Kearney “seems to have been targeted more than any other journalist in Northern Ireland”.
Several hearings, some of which will be closed, are listed to take place over three days this week.
Fresh details about the extent of surveillance placed on Mr Kearney’s communication data emerged during a hearing in London yesterday.
Mr Kearney was appointed home affairs correspondent with the BBC in Belfast in April 2006, a role he held until 2019, and is currently Northern Editor with RTÉ.
In the past the high-profile journalist was often involved in sensitive investigative work focusing on the PSNI, Police Ombudsman and paramilitary groups.
The tribunal has heard that in addition to MI5, the PSNI now “concedes illegality” in respect of “numerous operations” during which it “obtained, stored and used Mr Kearney’s communications data”.
This includes four “authorisations” relating to the a Continuity IRA sniper attack that claimed the life of PSNI man Stephen Carroll in 2009.
Mr Kearney later received a claim of responsibility from the paramilitary group.
Two separate authorisations arose from an Operation Erewhon, which was linked to alleged leaks from the Police Ombudsman’s office, while a PSNI anti-corruption probe known as Operation Samarium generated a further two.
Another PSNI investigation into the “provision of information” known as Operation Basanti resulted in four authorisations.
Probe into personal life
The tribunal has also been told of the level of intrusion into Mr Kearney’s personal life.
The tribunal has been told that the PSNI “obtained and created a detailed profile” of Mr Kearney that included his date of birth, home and work addresses, landline and mobile telephone numbers, and vehicle registrations.
Personal details also included his wife’s name, his mother-in-law’s name, and who was living with him at the relevant time.
In submissions Mr Kearney said the snooping authorisations were “self evidently not isolated events”.
“They reveal a systematic and years-long pattern of accessing my journalistic sources and map my professional activity,” he said.
“This was taking place on an almost annual basis between 2006 and 2014.
“I am not aware of any other journalist in the UK or Ireland who has been targeted in such a sustained way over so many years.”
Mr Kearney has also revealed the impact the surveillance revelations have had on him professionally.
Tribunal papers state 2024 PSNI report to the Policing Board confirmed it made 323 applications for communications data from journalists between January 2011 and March 31, 2024.
Of that number ten sought to identify a journalistic source.
MR Kearney’s legal team say that it now appears that applications made in relation to Mr Kearney make up “all or almost all of the requests” by the PSNI over the 13-year period.
The PSNI also admitted carrying out six investigations “into suspected illicit” relationships with public officials.
The legal team say it now appears that Mr Kearney “was the target of many, if not most” of the six cases.
Mr Kearney and his team believe there are “more interferences” than state bodies have so far conceded to.
It emerged last year that the prominent journalist was the victim of MI5 snooping in 2006 and 2007 “in connection with investigations into individuals suspected of making unauthorised disclosures…of national security information”.
It later emerged that the British spy agency sought and obtained access to Mr Kearney’s communications data on multiple occasions.
In 2006 MI5 made a request to “open a file” on the journalist.
It is believed information obtained by MI5 involved personal data of other unidentified individuals.
MI5 refuses to confirm how many surveillance applications were made and what information was obtained.
Information retained for years
The Metropolitan Police has also admitted obtaining communication data on two occasions in 2012 covering a period of four and a half months, which was retained for many years.
Jude Bunting KC, acting for Mr Kearney and the BBC, said his client should be awarded £10,000 from the PSNI in damages, with an “additional award against MI5”.
Cathryn McGahey KC, for the PSNI, said the force had made “a number of clear and extensive concessions”.
She added that while the force did not object to the tribunal ruling that the PSNI breached Mr Kearney and the BBC’s rights, it opposed the journalist being awarded damages as it would be unnecessary “to award just satisfaction”.
Mr Kearney said the IPT process has confirmed he was “the target of a long and consistent campaign of unlawful interference with my confidential journalistic material by the PSNI, MI5 and other public authorities”.
“The extent of the admitted illegal monitoring of my communications data over a period of many years in an attempt to identify sources was shocking and stark and it’s likely there was more than has been publicly conceded.
“This conceded illegality has had a real and significant impact and has had a chilling effect on my ability to carry out public interest journalism. Former colleagues in the BBC have also suffered damage to source relationships.”
Mr Kearney said “journalists must be free to pursue their lawful duties without fear of illegal efforts by the state to drive a coach and horses through source confidentiality, which is an essential journalistic tenet”.
Details of state surveillance on Mr Kearney came to light as part of IPT proceedings involving two other Belfast journalists, Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney, in 2024.
The tribunal later found that the PSNI and Metropolitan Police acted illegally by spying on both journalists to identify their sources.
Last year a review carried out by London-based barrister Angus McCullough KC revealed the PSNI carried out two identified ‘defensive operations’ involving hundreds of journalists between 2011 and 2024.
Amnesty International’s Patrick Corrigan has now called for a public inquiry into covert surveillance of journalists in the north.
“Today’s findings expose a pattern of unlawful surveillance that strikes at the heart of press freedom,” he said.
Laura Davison, National Union of Journalists (NUJ) general secretary, said: “The NUJ once again demands a broader, independent investigation to uncover the full extent of surveillance against journalists in Northern Ireland – not only by the PSNI but also other police forces and security services.”
Deirdre McCarthy, Managing Director, RTÉ News and Current Affairs, said: “The scale of the covert surveillance and accessing of journalist Vincent Kearney’s communications data by British security and policing agencies is deeply concerning.”
SDLP MP Colum Eastwood and his Sinn Féin counterpart John Finucane also raised concerns about the case.
Kearney case raises grave questions over PSNI’s attempts to broaden its appeal
ANALYSIS SUZANNE BREEN, Belfast Telegraph, February 26th, 2026
Vincent Kearney's first report after being appointed BBC Northern Ireland's home affairs correspondent in 2006 was on the murder of Denis Donaldson, the British agent at the heart of Sinn Fein.
In that very same year, MI5 made a request to “open a file” in respect of the journalist — the timing is hardly coincidental.
Kearney has been a familiar face on our TV screens for over two decades. Initially for the BBC, and as RTE's northern editor for the past seven years. This week, he's standing on the other side of the cameras. A case taken by the journalist and his former employer is being heard at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) in London.
Shocking details have emerged of what his legal team assert is a “long and consistent campaign of unlawful interference with confidential journalistic material”. The “sheer volume and extent” of that interference is described as “unprecedented”.
Kearney's lawyer Jude Bunting told the IPT there were seven separate police or MI5 operations where his phone data was unlawfully obtained for around a decade. They were all aimed at identifying sources.
The journalist only became aware of it when contacted by solicitor Niall Murphy of KRW Law who was acting for two other reporters, Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey. Disclosure in their cases revealed that Kearney had also been targeted.
MI5 has admitted that it obtained his phone data in 2006 and 2009 “in connection with investigations into individuals suspected of making unauthorised disclosures”.
It later revealed that it had accessed his data on multiple other occasions.
Kearney and the BBC still have no idea how many applications the security service made, what they were aimed at, the time-frame, or what material was obtained. MI5 has relied on the “neither confirm nor deny” principle.
The PSNI was spying on the journalist too. It sought his phone data in relation to the 2009 Continuity IRA murder of Constable Stephen Carroll in Craigavon, and other matters.
Kearney had taken the claim of responsibility for that killing. The journalist had notified the PSNI and, separately, Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris, but he'd declined to give a witness statement.
Honest broker
At one point, the PSNI created a detailed “profile” of him. It included his date of birth; home and work addresses; landline and mobile telephone numbers; vehicle registrations; his wife's and mother-in-law's names; and who resided in his home.
In his witness statement, Kearney described it as “a systemic and years-long pattern of accessing my journalistic sources and mapping my professional activity. I am not aware of any other journalist in the UK or Ireland targeted in such a sustained way over so many years”.
The extent of his targeting was “particularly shocking since, following the Good Friday Agreement, there was supposed to be a new environment for policing in Northern Ireland”. The RTE northern editor recounted how he'd grown up in west Belfast. “I decided to become a journalist in part because I was able to see that the narratives advanced by the state institutions did not reflect my lived experiences during the Troubles,” he said.
Kearney said maintaining his independence as a journalist and being viewed as an “honest broker” was essential as “perceptions matter in this jurisdiction more than most”.
In a 36-year-career during which he'd also worked for the Belfast Telegraph and Sunday Times, he had “maintained trusted relationships with sources across policing, national security, politics, public administration and paramilitary organisations”.
Those relationships had always depended on “a clear and consistent assurance that I will not disclose a source's identity or any information likely to lead to their identity”.
Kearney said: “Where confidentiality is not maintained, sources — and journalists — face significant risk. Protecting source confidentiality is what makes much public interest journalism possible.”
He outlined the “chilling effect” that the spying on him had on his journalism, with some relationships damaged or destroyed. Following reports that he had been subjected to surveillance by the PSNI and MI5, a longstanding republican source ended contact with him. They had no internal authorisation to speak to him, and felt that continuing to do so would compromise their safety.
A senior political source said they would “limit and change the way they communicate with me”. A former senior police officer “who spoke to me on a confidential basis for years, expressed concern that they may have become collateral damage in what they described as a police 'fishing expedition'.” The journalist said he had also been described as an MI5 “tout”. He is seeking damages in the case before the IPT.
His evidence raises grave questions for the PSNI. It significantly harms attempts by Chief Constable Jon Boutcher to draw a line under the past in his efforts to broaden the force's appeal.
Kearney said his journalism was treated “as a policing problem to be tracked, monitored and potentially criminalised rather than as protected activity in the public interest. This is something which is highlighted in particular by the PSNI profile and descriptions of me as a suspect.”
The case continues.
Sth Belfast residents say they haven’t been consulted about planned GAA pitch
MICHAEL KENWOOD, Irish News, February 26th, 2026
RESIDENTS living close to a south Belfast green space earmarked for a GAA pitch say they have not been consulted on the plan despite Sinn Féin announcing that the decision has already been made.
Local opposition is mounting against a plan in the Botanic area which would get rid of community gardens, a wildflower meadow, and Queens University environmental research plots to make way for an astroturf GAA pitch.
Locals who use the Lower Botanic field in Stranmillis were perplexed and outraged when earlier this month Sinn Féin MLA Deirdre Hargey posted on Instagram what she described as “confirmation (of) the delivery of new GAA pitch” in reference to a decision made at a Belfast City Council committee meeting.
Residents from the area complained that the announcement came out of the blue, with no trailing or local consultation, and the whole question of the Botanic field’s use appears shrouded in secrecy in council meetings and minutes of committees.
The announcement by Sinn Féin ultimately proved to be premature, after the full council agreed to shelve the plans for further discussion, but locals who use the field have expressed alarm and uncertainty about the future of the space.
But during a meeting of the council’s important Strategic Policy and Resources Committee last Friday (February 20), Sinn Féin Councillor Ciaran Beattie again declared the decision for a pitch had already been made. There has been no local consultation for a permanent pitch.
On an item referring to a six month extension of a contract for the Friends of the Field community group, Councillor Beattie said: “For clarity’s sake, the decision has been made, in terms of the pitches. There is going to be a pitch going into Botanic. This agreement is just to obviously facilitate the current on the site, which was never agreed to in the full term anyway.”
Belfast City Council have been contacted to confirm whether a decision has been made on the future of the site, away from the public and press, but have not responded.
A week ago, at another City Hall committee meeting, a council official said that hundreds of thousands of pounds that have been put into the field via the EU Upsurge environmental project would never have been funded if the project had been anything other than permanent.
Uneasy exchanges
On Saturday (February 21), representatives from three parties, Sinn Féin, Alliance, and the SDLP, as well as council officials and journalists from the BBC, descended upon the field and held uneasy exchanges with some members of the Friends of the Field community group.
Members and locals have described their further confusion as representatives from Sinn Féin and the SDLP have promised the field could accommodate both the community gardens and a pitch, while council officers at the same time are suggesting local residents start proposing new sites for the community gardens. They described the local politicians’ proposition that both the gardens and pitch exist side by side as “disingenuous,” and have warned that relationships formed in the space will be destroyed if the community gardens are removed.
Meanwhile the local Stranmillis Neighbourhood Association is stressing a lack of transparency and accountability in the process, and has sent a letter to all the area’s local politicians.
The Association’s secretary, Jonathan Harris, writes: “I am writing to raise concerns about the sudden announcement of plans for the conversion of Lower Botanic Gardens to sports pitches by Belfast City Council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee on February 6, and subsequent deliberations in the council.
Opposition is building to the replacement of community gardens at Lower Botanic fields in Stranmillis
“Our primary concern is that this decision appears to be made without the opportunity for public consultation. The proposed changes to the use of the site will likely have a great impact on the Stranmillis neighbourhood, and many of our members are anxious to know more about the proposed development.
“Specifically, the proposed pitch is located on the site of ‘Upsurge’, an EU Horizon-funded (valued at €660,375 for Belfast City Council), five-city research initiative examining how nature-based solutions can help cities adapt to rapid climate change. We understand that the site also received an investment of £240,367 for the installation of a new path and community garden via the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
“Over the past four years, these investments have transformed this formerly underused land into a valued and freely-accessible community resource. The project’s initial phase (2021–2026), followed by monitoring to 2030, was intended to generate knowledge and demonstrate good practice critical to sustainable urban living in Belfast and beyond.
“Our association stands ready to assist with community consultation regarding this and any future plans for the Lower Botanic Gardens.”
Special meeting
At a special meeting of the full Belfast City Council at City Hall on Friday February 13, a plan for two new GAA pitches and a soccer pitch at Boucher Road Playing Fields was approved, meaning Belfast will most likely lose its largest current outdoor venue in a matter of years.
It was supported by Sinn Féin, the SDLP, the Green Party and People Before Profit, with the DUP, Alliance, the UUP and TUV in opposition. The recorded vote showed 32 elected members in favour, to 24 in opposition.
At the meeting Sinn Féin Councillor Ciaran Beattie appeared to champion the opinions of locals living close to the Boucher Road park. He said: “If you see the commentary from residents (close to Boucher Road Playing Fields), they feel like prisoners in their own homes. Anyone who speaks to residents that live around there, they don’t like it.”
He added: “There is a massive problem that this site causes, and the communities around it feel it. So it is not only about addressing the sporting issues, it is about addressing the community issues, the people who are feeling the negative effect of this.
“It is okay to live five or ten miles away from this and think it is a great idea, but go and speak to the residents. Go and knock on a couple of doors and you will see what their opinions are.”
'Fleadh Fringe' event clash with Pipe Band Championships -Bangor Council to review Tourism strategy
By Iain Gray, Belfast News Letter, February 26th, 2026
A controversial ‘Fleadh Fringe’ event clashing with Ulster’s annual Pipe Band Championships ha s been approved – but the council responsible is to how it conducts tourism in the wake of the outcry.
An eight-hour ‘Fleadh Fringe’ Irish folk show is to be staged on the same day as the 73rd annual Ulster Pipe Band Championships, each taking place just a few minutes’ walk from each other in Bangor on August 1st. The all-Ireland Fleadh begins in Belfast the following day.
Last night, Bangor’s council voted to hold them both at the same time, after officials concluded that staging them both at the same time was a better idea than keeping them separate.
But unionists pushed through a move to have the council potentially rework its entire approach to tourism events, after the fleadh event was awarded £40,000 without a full breakdown of how that money will be spent.
Several years ago, the council axed tourism funding for a range of smaller festivals popular with their local community to focus on wooing people from outside the area. At a debate last night, unionists pointed out that community event organisers now often struggle to jump through bureaucratic hoops to get cash, and could be unhappy with the decision to hand a five-figure sum to the fleadh event despite the council not having a complete set of details.
In a report, council officials argued that staging the Fleadh Fringe on a different day wouldn’t work, though pipe band parades could be restricted as a result.
Holding it on Friday, July 31 would mean only around half as many people would be likely to show up as it’s “a working day”, say officials, and may mean the event would have to be shortened to just the evening instead of the full eight hours.
It’s also predicted that people coming to the fleadh from outside Northern Ireland will arrive on Friday night and Saturday morning, so wouldn’t be around to visit a Friday fringe event.
The folk show is due to feature performances from the local Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, which teaches Irish traditional music and dance to children and is to be heavily involved in programming the event.
According to the council report, that organisation has “indicated they are not available to participate in July dates”.
