First search to begin for remains of Disappeared victim on land in Co Antrim
SEAMUS MAGUIRE (29) BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN KILLED AND BURIED IN 1976
ANDREW MADDEN, Belfast Telegraph, May 26th, 2026
A first search will begin today for one of the final four members of the Disappeared who remain missing.
Seamus Maguire (29), from Aghagallon near Lurgan, is thought to have been killed and secretly buried by republican paramilitaries 50 years ago.
The search operation centres on land in Co Antrim.
His family said they hope their “much loved eldest brother” can be found and finally laid to rest alongside his parents.
It is the first search for one of the Disappeared to take place in Northern Ireland for 16 years.
Several other recent searches have taken place in the Republic.
The three others still to be found are teenager Columba McVeigh, missing since 1975; Army Captain Robert Nairac, who was abducted and murdered in 1977, and former monk-turned-IRA man Joe Lynskey, missing since 1972.
It was originally thought that Mr Maguire disappeared around 1973 or 1974.
However, it was later determined that he may have spent time in Manchester, before returning home, after which he was killed and secretly buried in the Aghagallon/Derryclone area in 1976. He was 29 at the time.
It is unclear which faction of the IRA, Officials or Provisionals, were responsible.
Mr Maguire was added to the list of the Disappeared in 2022 by the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) following an assessment of information received by the PSNI.
The ICLVR was set up following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement to find those who had been secretly buried.
Officially, there are 17 Disappeared victims — 13 have been recovered to date.
Eamonn Henry, the ICLVR's lead investigator, said that, as with other Disappeared cases, it was not immediately clear whether Mr Maguire was a missing person's case or the victim of an abduction, murder and secret burial by a paramilitary group.
Added to missing in 2022
“On the basis of information received from the PSNI, Seamus Maguire became one of the Disappeared in 2022,” he said.
Mr Henry, a former Garda detective who took up the role of lead investigator with the ICLVR last year, said that the commission is “now satisfied that there is sufficient credible information” to begin the search. He said: “The search area is around two acres in size, and while unlike Bragan Bog, where we searched for the remains of Columba McVeigh, regrettably without success, farmland is more stable. Each search site throws up its own challenges.
“As with all our searches, we will be there until we find what we are looking for or are satisfied that Seamus Maguire is not there, and so I'm not going to put a specific timeframe on the search.”
Mr Henry said just because a search had started, it did not mean the ICLVR had all the information it needs.
“If there is anyone who has any information on this case, please get it to us,” he said.
“All information is treated in the strictest confidence and our sole purpose is to return the remains of a loved one to their family for a Christian burial.”
A statement from the Maguire family said: “Seamus was our much loved eldest brother. He has been missing now for over 50 years.
“We hope that the ICLVR can now recover Seamus's body so that he can be buried in St Patrick's graveyard in Aghagallon with our parents May and Patrick.
“Our Mum looked for Seamus right up until the day that she died.
“We appeal for privacy at this time.
“Our thanks to the ICLVR and all those involved in the search process.
“We urge anyone who can help the ICLVR with any of the Disappeared cases to do so on 00 353 (1) 602 8655, secretary@iclvr.ie or write to PO Box 10827, Dublin 2.”
Secretary of State Hilary Benn said his thoughts are with the Maguire family, who have “endured so many years of anguish since the abduction and disappearance of Seamus”.
“I am deeply grateful to the commission for their unceasing efforts to find the Disappeared, and for their painstaking efforts to help ease these families' long suffering,” he added.
“As well as the Maguire family, the families of Columba McVeigh, Joseph Lynskey and Robert Nairac still await the return of their loved ones' remains.”
Mr Benn urged anyone with any information regarding the Disappeared to contact the ICLVR.
Give relatives the closure they so desperately deserve
Pro Fide et Patria, Irish News, May 26th, 2026
IN a short statement accompanying news of the latest search for one of the remaining ‘Disappeared’, relatives of Seamus Maguire described how his mother had looked for him “right up until the day that she died”.
Just a few words that capture decades of pain that members of the Co Armagh man’s family have been forced to endure because of the cruellest of actions half a century ago.
Mr Maguire (29) is the most recent person to be added to the grim list of those abducted, murdered and secretly buried by republicans during the Troubles.
Information received in 2022 led to his official inclusion among the Disappeared.
It had initially been believed that he disappeared some time around 1973-74, but subsequent information suggests he may have returned to the north and been killed in 1976. A fresh appeal for information was made a year ago.
“ Almost three decades after the Good Friday Agreement, there is no reason why republican and loyalist groups, as well as the range of state forces, could not volunteer the information they possess about all deaths that took place during the Troubles
The first ever dig for his remains will now begin over two acres of farmland not far from the family home at Derryclone near Lurgan today.
In the statement, Mr Maguire’s family said Seamus was their much-loved eldest brother and their hope is that his body can be recovered so he can be buried at St Patrick’s graveyard in Aghagallon with his parents May and Patrick.
“Our Mum looked for Seamus right up until the day that she died,” they said.
Mr Maguire’s is one of four bodies, along with Columba McVeigh, Joe Lynskey and British Army Captain Robert Nairac, yet to be located since the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) began its important work in 1999.
Legislation allows it to operates on a strictly confidential basis, with the sole aim of locating and returning remains to families, with information passed to investigators unable to be used in legal proceedings.
It should be stressed that just because a search is underway in the case of Mr Maguire, that does not mean the commission has all the details it may need. It remains the case that anyone else in possession of information should immediately come forward.
It can also be pointed out that there is no reason why republican and loyalist groups, as well as the range of state forces, could not volunteer in a similar way the information they possess about all deaths that took place during the Troubles.
Almost three decades after the Good Friday Agreement, there has been almost no effort by those responsible to give closure to families like the Maguires who have seen relatives pass away without receiving the answers they sought.
Long-delayed legacy processes or fear of criminal prosecution should not be an excuse for failing to provide basic details about the circumstances and rationale for killings, when families are content to receive this.
The successful recovery of more than a dozen bodies by the ICLVR demonstrates that some wrongs can still be righted decades after the fact.
It is the minimum that all those who still carry the wounds of our violent past deserve.
West Belfast man’s Troubles-themed AirBnB features British Army Saracen in Ballymurphy
CONOR COYLE, Irish News, May 26th, 2026
A BRITISH Army Saracen vehicle has returned to the streets of west Belfast, but this time to feature as part of a new AirBnB property in the area.
The Humber Pig vehicle arrived in Ballymurphy on Sunday morning as dozens of curious residents came out to find out more about what it was doing there.
The army vehicle has been purchased by local man Arder Corbett, who is due to open his nearby home up for rent to tourists coming to the area to learn more about Ballymurphy.
Mr Corbett was left the family home but spends large parts of the year abroad working in the construction industry. He had been part of the group which installed the glass dome in Victoria Square
“I work all the world with my job so don’t really stay around, so the agreement was that I would turn it into a history home of the Ballymurphy area,” he said.
“So when people come and stay, they’ll learn about Ballymurphy, rather than just coming in, sleeping and going off again.
“Books have been donated, pictures have been donated from some senior politicians and authors.
“So the Saracen will sit in the driveway as part of the history of Ballymurphy and the Troubles.
Saracen Fan
“I had a Saracen back in 2001, I made a bit of a name back then, so it’s been 25 years and everyone asks me when I’m in Belfast whether I’ve still got it.
“I always told them I was going to buy another one, so I did.”
Mr Corbett says he hopes to open the holiday rental next month, and has already had a number of reservations.
“There is a lot of interest in it at the minute, we have got the Fleadh coming up and a few families from down south who have booked it already,” he said.
“Even today the amount of cars stopping to take photographs – it brought me back to 25 years ago when the police arrived at the door.
“I think it’s really rejigged people’s memories of what went on during the Troubles.
“Why not? It’s part of the history, people need to learn that this is what they drove up and down the streets in and terrorised the community in, basically.”
The west Belfast native says he wants the new generation of young people in the area to learn about the history of why the Saracen vehicle was used.
“It’s just the nostalgia of it, most of the kids now in the present day didn’t even know about the one in 2001.
“There was even some of them asking today whether it was the IRA who used to drive around in these.
“We had to tell them that it was actually the British Army who used them.”
Blue Plaque to be unveiled for trade union pioneer Alexander Bowman
MARK BAIN, Belfast Telegraph, May 26th, 2026
The founding secretary of the Belfast Trades Council will be remembered in his adopted city of Belfast.
Alexander Bowman, who went on to become president of the Irish TUC, will be commemorated with an Ulster History Circle Blue Plaque.
Bowman was also the first working class man in Ireland to stand for Parliament, though his support for Home Rule caused a rift with fellow trade union activists.
In 1885, Bowman was serving as the first secretary of the Belfast Trades Council, set up four years earlier.
That October he was persuaded to stand for election to Westminster as the working men's independent candidate in North Belfast, losing to sitting Conservative MP William Ewart, who had previously been Bowman's employer at the Crumlin Road Mill.
Alexander Bowman's approach to Irish politics and trade unionism was a product of his early years. He was born a Catholic and raised a Presbyterian.
Living in the Shankill area, a 10-year-old Alexander went to work as an apprentice flaxdresser but aged 20 he joined a workers' delegation to management about a work grievance and was promptly sacked.
His next job was at William Ewart and Son, where his employer was his future opponent for the North Belfast Westminster seat and he was the first delegate the Belfast Trades Council sent to a British Trades Union Congress.
Growing loyalist hostility to Home Rule led to divisions within trade unionism and outright hostility to Bowman as secretary of the Trades Council when he helped found the Irish Protestant Home Rule Association in Belfast.
He resigned from the Trades Council and moved house out of concern for his family's safety.
After a move to Glasgow and then London, Bowman returned to Belfast and in the 1897 elctions, the Belfast Trades Council chose him as its candidate in Duncairn. He topped the poll and joined five other newly elected Labour councillors, though left two years later.
At the annual gathering of the Irish TUC in 1901, he was elected president.
In his later life he became superintendent of Falls Road baths, working there for 21 years.
He died on November 3, 1924 and is buried in Carrickfergus.
The plaque will be unveiled today at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions building on Donegall Street.
How secret group linked to security services helped devise Legacy Act
THE DETAIL, Belfast Telegraph, May 26th, 2026
Security and policing figures took part in a confidential government working group that helped shape the Legacy Act, it can be revealed.
The role of policing and state agency figures in advising on the act has angered victims' groups, who were already critical of the legislation.
Daniel Holder, from the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), spent eight months seeking the release of documents relating to the Senior Legacy Investigations Working Group, which met in mid-2020.
Mr Holder, who shared the documents marked “official secret” with investigative website The Detail, said: “It is only now that some detail of the group has emerged.
“The legacy investigations senior working group was set up behind closed doors to assist the development of what became Boris Johnson's government's notorious Legacy Act.
“Despite the legal duties to ensure effective and independent investigations into legacy cases — which clearly include those involving the security forces — the group itself tasked with advising on how the policy should be developed heavily involves policing and security figures.”
The last attempt to address legacy issues, the Historical Enquiries Team, was folded in 2014 after it was found to have failed to properly investigate state killings.
Mr Holder said the Legacy Act that emerged from the meetings “led to the shutting down on May 1, 2024, of hundreds of cases under the then existing legacy mechanisms, and their disastrous replacement with the ICRIR [Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery], which, almost two years on, is yet to complete a single case”.
The documents show the group met on June 19 and July 20, 2020.
A third meeting was scheduled, but no further information has been disclosed about it.
Members of Group
Members of the group included the former PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton, and Madeleine Alessandri, who was the UK deputy national security adviser until 2020, before being appointed permanent secretary for the Northern Ireland Office.
Another attendee, Chloe Squire, was the director of national security at the Home Office at the time of the meeting. Most of the other attendees worked for the state — chiefly its policing and security apparatus.
Minutes from a meeting recorded Mr Hamilton warning that the proposals were unpopular in Northern Ireland and questioned whether they could be achieved within the current legal framework.
He also said: “Families will welcome information recovery.
“It is the small vocal minority that will present the legal challenges, and we should be ready for that, but they do not speak for the silent majority who just want to move on.”
In response, Mark Thompson of Relatives for Justice said he would not describe “1,100 bereaved relatives of murder victims, including victims of torture, who want answers” as a “small and vocal minority”, referring to the number of civil cases lodged by bereaved families when the Legacy Act was introduced.
Another released document underlined the government's aim to conclude investigations of the 3,500 deaths that occurred during the Troubles “within two years”, a timeframe it acknowledged as “ambitious”.
It said: “A key component of the policy package is the intention to introduce a legal bar on further criminal investigations or prosecutions as a way of providing certainty to veterans and victims and 'unlocking' further information recovery opportunities.”
Mr Holder said that the “very existence of the group only seems to have been revealed incidentally when the then PSNI Chief Constable Simon Byrne, to his credit, told a Westminster committee that the PSNI had declined to join the group in order to remain impartial”.
A NIO spokesperson said the meetings related to the previous government's Legacy Act, “which this government is repealing and replacing”.
Mr Hamilton said he agreed to be part of the working group “to ensure the lessons of previous attempts at dealing with legacy investigations were understood and to ensure learnings were not lost.”
He said the minutes did not reflect all his comments, including how strongly he advocated for an Operation Kenova model of legacy investigations.
In addition, he said believed NIO closed down the working group because some attendees challenged the government's proposals.
Angry Nolan Show caller triggered by events from year he was born
Malachi O’Doherty, Belfast Telegraph, May 26th, 2026
'm on the phone to The Nolan Show and listening to a rant. A caller is saying that the IRA fought a just war and he's warning Protestants and unionists to “build bridges” because there will be no indulgence of them in a united Ireland.
He says the murder of children was justified, because “when they killed our children, we killed theirs”.
You don't often hear such frank venom from republicans on air, and this will have embarrassed Sinn Féin. It's not the version they want us to hear.
They will insist on their right to honour the martyrs and volunteers, but they don't want to hear their friends and allies gloating over murder.
This rant was on Monday of last week. I had been brought on to the show to discuss Timothy Gaston's proposal that the site of the old Maze prison should be levelled.
Timothy, like several callers, said the site would glorify terrorists. It would be a shrine to the IRA.
I was on the phone in my study upstairs at home, in front of a computer with my three key points on the screen in front of me to help me organise my thoughts.
I argued against demolition. I said that many communities have their stories to tell about life and work at the Maze.
These include the prison officers who were taunted and threatened, whose colleagues were murdered. They include the soldiers, the social workers and educators who, like David Trimble and others, went into the prison to teach students. And the loyalists, some of whom went on hunger strike too.
There could hardly be a better location for illustrating the complexity of life here at that time or a better place to challenge the mythologising of it all as a straightforward anti-imperialist freedom struggle. Though, there'd have to be room for that argument too.
The caller, 'Paul', said he had found a rage rising up in him after hearing inquest reports on the killings of civilians by British soldiers in Springhill in July 1972.
He said he was 54, which means he was born in 1972. He was only nine years old at the time of the hunger strikes and 22 years old at the time of the 1994 ceasefire, so he is unlikely to have been a big player.
He was 16 the year Pat Magee tried to kill Margaret Thatcher with a bomb in the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Paul said he would have been happy to bomb her himself at that age.
Yet he said: “See the anger when Springhill was brought up last week again. See the anger that was in me... I never realised that.”
Triggering rage
He was triggered to rage by reports of events in the year he was born of which he could have no memory. I remember that day. I was in Lenadoon, where the IRA broke their ceasefire, where hundreds, perhaps thousands of shots were fired, echoing across Black Mountain and surely audible in Springhill.
Paul was describing something more like generational trauma.
I hadn't prepared for his anger and inevitably Nolan invited me to respond.
At that point Paul said: “Don't talk to him. He's a turncoat.”
I thought he was calling me a turncoat, but he might actually have been levelling that at Stephen.
I have so often been called a turncoat and a souper and a West Brit and a Castle Catholic and a token taig that I have very clear ideas about the people who throw those jibes at me.
I tell them they are sectarian bigots. Because sectarianism isn't just about the kind of insults 'Paul' was throwing at Timothy Gaston. It's not just about standing your ground in one community and reviling another. It is also about saying to people you presume to be of your own community that they are traitors to the cause if they don't agree with you. And he had been laying that one on Nolan.
So, I said he was sectarian and spoke up about my right to think for myself as an independent-minded individual.
And 'Paul' didn't come back to me on that. I suspect the fader on his phone line had been quietly closed and that he might have been shouting into dead air, but I don't know.
Afterwards, I thought about what I had said on the show.
I am not actually very distinct in my thinking from those I grew up among and the political activists I sympathised with in my youth. I was always more interested in befriending Protestants and unionists than in defeating them.
To call me a turncoat because I didn't support the IRA is to miss the point that, back then, most of us didn't.
I may be framed by my background as much as 'Paul' is. I just happen to think I'm right. But so does he.
Integrity of a system relies on safeguarding the innocent
Sam McBride, Belfast Telegraph, May 26th, 2026
SOMETIMES WE TRY TO STOP YOU COMMENTING ON OUR POSTS ABOUT COURT CASES; SOMETIMES WE DON'T. WHY THE DIFFERENCE? SAM MCBRIDE EXPLAINS
A frequent question raised by Belfast Telegraph readers is the absence of an online comment section whereby you can give your views beneath articles on the website.
The main reason we don't do this is largely due to the potential for it becoming a legal quagmire which sucks in vast resources to moderate, thus distracting us from our primary role as journalists.
However, there's a second area where the eagle-eyed among you might have spotted in more recent times that commenting can be disabled on articles. This relates to our posts on social media.
Not all media outlets take this approach. However, a glance at the comments sections beneath posts about high profile court cases makes the case for why this is problematic.
Not all court cases are identical. A criminal case is very different to a civil action. A Diplock judge sitting without a jury involves different considerations than a standard Crown Court trial.
Understandably, when comments are disabled on some posts, this is open to misinterpretation.
When that involves Jeffrey Donaldson, the former DUP leader, it's easy for a republican to claim we are trying to protect someone who was a major political figure.
When that involves Gerry Adams, it's easy for a unionist to believe we are trying to protect someone who was a major republican figure.
When that involves Stephen McCullagh - who was employed by this newspaper in a junior role - it's easy to see how someone might think we are protecting him. In all these cases, even a glance at our coverage of these people over the course of their careers (or in McCullagh's case, the prominence given to our coverage of the trial and our subsequent coverage when he was found guilty of Natalie McNally's murder) would demonstrate the absurdity of this criticism.
Last week a judge decided that Eleanor Donaldson is mentally incapable of instructing her lawyers and following the evidence.
The judge ruled that she will therefore face a 'trial of the facts' alongside her husband's criminal trial, meaning she cannot be found criminally liable, regardless of the verdict.
As you almost certainly know by now, the case involves serious sex abuse charges which the former DUP leader and his wife both deny. As the case goes to trial from today, this will become a regular complaint online.
Yet there is good reason for seeking to restrict the likelihood of material which could prejudice court proceedings being published.
Integrity of the system
As a newspaper, we often find ourselves questioning aspects of the criminal justice system - everything from chronic court delays to the legal aid bill and the actions of the police. Yet as a responsible publisher we have a responsibility to take reasonable steps to safeguard the integrity of a system which our society relies upon to convict the guilty and to clear the innocent.
This is an exceptionally complex area. The nature of the charges against the Donaldsons make it especially problematic. Complainants in sex abuse trials have life-long anonymity.
Journalists are trained in media law, and at the Belfast Telegraph we receive regular refresher training sessions from lawyers.
This element of being a journalist involves a serious responsibility. If we get it badly wrong, some of the most vulnerable people in society can suffer.
In many ways, the internet provides for a great democratisation of comment.
You don't need to persuade a newspaper or broadcaster to share your views, but can do so to the entire world. The trade-off is almost no quality control. Along with racism, Nazism, and endless stupidity, the internet is awash with prejudicial material.
In relation to the Donaldson trial alone, for more than two years there has been a slew of outrageously contemptuous commentary online. A few weeks ago the Attorney General, Dame Brenda King, issued a media advisory notice to warn people that they could be jailed for contempt.
But she'd issued a similar warning two years ago. It was simply ignored by at least hundreds - and probably thousands - of people. I asked the Attorney General's Office why there have been no prosecutions for contempt over the case.
It isn't practical to prosecute everyone, but a few high-profile cases would drive home the message that such warnings have teeth. Dame Brenda's office said that it had brought four contempt cases to court since the office was established in 2010 and that where a matter is also covered by criminal law, such as identifying complainants, “it is most appropriate for the PSNI to lead on investigation… and for the PPS to initiate criminal proceedings if the test for prosecution is met”.
Dame Brenda's office said that in relation to the Donaldson trial “correspondence has issued”.
Reading between the lines, that appears to be a warning rather than a prosecution.
None of this means you can't comment on court cases.
When a verdict has been delivered, the case is no longer live for the purposes of contempt and so there is considerable latitude for commentary — although you could still fall foul of the libel law if you for instance state that someone just found not guilty is in fact guilty - and it is a criminal offence if you name complainants or victims in sex abuse cases.
The Attorney General has published guidance which is commendable for its clarity and - unlike this article - brevity at 196 words.
You can also comment through a letter to the editor (writeback@belfasttelegraph.co.uk).
If we publish such a letter, we are as liable as the writer - which aside from anything else involves considerable self-interest in getting it right.
Across the UK, newspapers have on occasion been heftily fined for contempt of court, sometimes involving the collapse of trials.
Editors can be jailed for contempt, even if they weren't personally involved. The ultimate sanction is rare, but focuses the mind.
At the heart of this is something of a cultural clash.
Older readers will probably be instinctively familiar with these rules, even if they didn't know the details. Younger people have grown up in a world of instant online gratification where everyone has the right to be heard and the means to make themselves heard.
As journalists, we believe more fervently than most in free speech. Daily we see the consequences of having or not having free speech.
But free speech cannot be absolute. Just as there are consequences for someone who thinks it's funny to shout fire in a crowded room where people are then killed in a stampede to the exits, so there should be consequences for someone who prevents a fair trial and in so doing undermines the criminal justice system.
So if you see that by restricting comments someone claiming person X or person Y is being “protected by the mainstream media”, you can tell them they're talking through their hat.
Archbishop Martin welcomes Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas
Archbishop Eamon Martin, Primate of All Ireland and chair of the Bishops' Council for Communications
Archbishop Martin: "I encourage as many people as possible across the island of Ireland to read and reflect upon Pope Leo’s first encyclical Magnificent Humanity. From Ireland’s point of view, the development of Artificial Intelligence is not an abstract issue or something happening far away. AI is being hosted, shaped, governed and developed here on this island."
"I invite leaders in public life, technology, education, business, healthcare, research and faith communities here in Ireland to take up this encyclical with seriousness and courage. We must ask together: 'What responsibilities do governments, companies and citizens have in shaping ethical AI on the island of Ireland, and beyond? In a rapidly changing technological environment, how do we defend the dignity of workers and every human person, especially the most vulnerable among us?'"
Statement
I warmly welcome the publication of Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical letter, Magnifica Humanitas: On the Protection of the Human Person in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
This is a much needed intervention from the Holy Father at a time when Humanity stands at a “historic crossroads.” We are at a phase in human history when artificial intelligence is already shaping our personal lives, homes, workplaces, schools and communities, hospitals, public services, economies and democracies.
Magnifica Humanitas asks us to look carefully at the ongoing development of Artificial Intelligence asking not just, ‘What can AI do for us?’, but more profound questions like, ‘What kind of people are we becoming, and what kind of world are we building?’
Choices
Human creativity is a gift from God. When technology protects life, relieves suffering, supports learning, strengthens good work and helps us care for the vulnerable and for our common home, we welcome it with gratitude. We must therefore work to ensure that AI brings good, and assists real advances in medicine, education, accessibility, public services, scientific discovery, environmental protection and care for those often forgotten by society. Still, many people are rightly asking what Artificial Intelligence will mean for their children, their work, their privacy and freedoms, their relationships and their future.
Today, Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical places before us two contrasting biblical images and choices for humanity: Babel, and The City of God.
Babel is what happens when human power turns in on itself. It is the world of control, pride, domination and confusion. It is what we build when we forget God, or want to be “gods” ourselves; when we ignore our neighbour and neglect the poor. Magnifica Humanitas offers, on the other hand, a vision of the holy ‘City of God’, built upon foundations of peace and reconciliation, love and fraternity, which is always deeply respectful of human dignity for all. This vision reaches for the transcendent and opens our hearts to building the Kingdom of God where every voice matters and the vulnerable are not pushed aside.
At the heart of Pope Leo’s encyclical lies the conviction of faith that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God, and that in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, ‘the Word became flesh, and lived among us.’ God did not communicate with us from a distance but came among us with a human voice, a human face and a human heart. A human person can therefore never be reduced to data to be copied or manipulated. In a world of screens, artificial voices and digital masks, the Church defends the dignity of the human person with a real face and authentic voice.
AI can do remarkable things. It can sort through vast amounts of information, recognise patterns, and create words, images and voices that feel very real. It can even at times mimic human behaviour and qualities, but AI does not have a conscience. It cannot care, love, suffer, forgive, pray or hope as humans can, nor can it be truly “wise”. Wisdom grows in human hearts and minds, in families and communities and in society through the growth of truth, humility, mercy, good judgement and love of neighbour, and sometimes also through bitter experiences and mistakes. As Pope Leo puts it: “artificial intelligences do not experience life, do not possess a body, do not experience joy and pain, and do not know from within what love, work and responsibility mean.”
Truth Work Freedom
In particular, Magnifica Humanitas reflects on how three priorities: Truth, Work and Freedom are already being affected by AI. Truth is fragile when images, voices and information can be changed or invented, and narratives are manipulated and polarised. Work is put under pressure when people are expected to keep up with machines, rather than machines being used to assist workers and support human dignity. Freedom is weakened when data, surveillance or hidden systems shape people’s choices without them fully knowing it.
War and Peace
Pope Leo warns against the delegation of “life-and-death decisions to automated systems”, in a way that “the protection of civilians is subordinated to strategic logic.” This is especially urgent where AI and machines are used for war and violent purposes. Pope Leo is clear: Human responsibility and discernment regarding the use of force can never be “reduced to a technical calculation”. “No algorithm can make war morally acceptable.”
AI on the island of Ireland - Questions for Reflection
I encourage as many people as possible across the island of Ireland to read and reflect upon Pope Leo’s first encyclical Magnificent Humanity. From Ireland’s point of view, the development of Artificial Intelligence is not an abstract issue or something happening far away. AI is being hosted, shaped, governed and developed here on this island. It is already shaping the lives of our people in real and significant ways. My hope is that Pope Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas will open a serious, honest and practical conversation across Ireland about AI, one that will involve Church, State, universities, schools, legislators and public bodies, technology companies, workers, families, young people and wider society.
Christians - and all people of goodwill - must ask of AI: 'Is it true? Is it just? Does it honour the person made in God’s image? Does it protect the vulnerable and serve the common good, or is it used to accumulate wealth and power in the hands of a few? What is its impact on human life and dignity, solidarity, justice, care for creation, and the Common Good. Does it serve human persons or, instead, tend to dehumanise or aim to replace them?'
The Church does not claim to have a technical answer to every AI question, but she does offer ethical principles to guide integral human development. The Church has faced technological revolutions before. Each time the question returns: 'What does it mean to be human?' The choice before us is therefore, not whether to accept or reject technology, but whether we will use AI advances to nurture a world grounded in fraternity and cohesion. Will we be architects of Babel, or builders of the City of God?
For that reason, I invite leaders in public life, technology, education, business, healthcare, research and faith communities here in Ireland to take up this encyclical with seriousness and courage. We must ask together: 'What responsibilities do governments, companies and citizens have in shaping ethical AI on the island of Ireland, and beyond? In a rapidly changing technological environment, how do we defend the dignity of workers and every human person, especially the most vulnerable among us?'
These critical questions cannot be left only to markets, machines or private interests. We must bring them into the light and discuss AI with honesty and hope, and with care for those whose faces and voices are too often hidden. As Pope Leo’s new encyclical urges us: “Let us protect our magnificent humanity.”
Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh is Primate of All Ireland and chairperson of the Council for Communications of the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference
Sixty years after being jailed with Ian Paisley, veteran minister dares church to expel him
SAM MCBRIDE, Belfast Telegraph, May 26th, 2026
REV IVAN FOSTER ACCUSES SENIOR FREE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH FIGURES OF BREAKING RULES
The Free Presbyterian Church's most outspoken cleric has dared colleagues to expel him, accusing them of breaking Church rules before they launched a disciplinary investigation into him.
Rev Ivan Foster, a firebrand minister who was jailed with Ian Paisley 60 years ago, has spoken out to denounce his accusers over what until now has been a secret internal process.
The Belfast Telegraph revealed on Saturday that the hardline denomination is split, with attempts under way to discipline both Rev Foster and a second cleric, Rev David Linden.
Rev Linden had publicly accused fellow clerics of “sin” for supporting modern Christian music by artists such as Keith and Kristyn Getty, two of the most successful figures in contemporary Christian music.
His objections included that the Gettys had attended the Grammy awards in the US, where they are based, on a Sunday. The Church has long protested against working or playing sport on a Sunday.
In a 50-minute sermon last month, Rev Linden said the Church was in danger of losing its way with “nice buildings” and a pompous sense “we have arrived — look at us now” while abandoning its founding teachings.
Rev Foster approvingly described Rev Linden's outspokenness as “courageous”, posting his sermon under the headline: 'Startling exposure of deep sin within the Free Presbyterian Church.'
Rev Linden then preached a second sermon in which he rounded on the Rev Marcus Lecky, the Free Presbyterian minister in Cookstown, who had posted a 1,200-word comment on Facebook in which he said that even in Rev Paisley's days the Church “has always been fairly modern in its worship”.
Rev Lecky told the Belfast Telegraph he was not responding to Rev Linden and still hasn't even listened to his sermon. Regardless, Rev Linden read it and promptly denounced his colleague from the pulpit.
The Church hierarchy has not taken kindly to being the target of accusations of sinfulness which the denomination is known for making of other Christian churches.
The Church's ruling presbytery is meant to operate in strict secrecy but details of its meeting last month leaked and it reportedly agreed to setting up an investigation into the two clerics.
As part of that, Rev Foster, a former DUP Assemblyman from Kilskeery in Co Tyrone, met two senior clerical colleagues last Friday.
Rev Foster (83) is retired but remains a thorn in the side of the Church authorities, largely through his Burning Bush website which is a focal point for conservative dissent within the denomination.
In a post on his website yesterday, Rev Foster accused the presbytery of having broken its own rules by allowing the Rev Lecky and the Rev Ron Johnstone — a former moderator who Foster had publicly criticised — to make statements about him without informing him.
He said that he only received a copy of Rev Johnstone's statement — which he said ran to 2,000 words — on Friday.
Rev Foster said: “Presbytery officers had given Rev Johnstone and Rev Lecky permission to make personal statements about myself and Rev David Linden, five days before the presbytery took place on May 1, but did not inform myself or Rev Linden that such would be happening.#
Rule 10.5
“That was a clear breach of Rule 10.5, which states: 'Presbytery business will be strictly according to an agenda agreed and compiled by the moderator and clerk. In normal circumstances, any member who wishes to have a matter raised must notify the clerk no later than one week before the meeting. The moderator will read the agenda at the start of the presbytery meeting. Any business relating to any member of presbytery shall be brought to the member's attention as soon as possible.'
“There was a period of at least five days in which we should have been informed.”
Rev Foster said that the one Biblical reference in Rev Johnston's statement was to verse 11 in chapter five of St Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, which says: “But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.”
Rev Foster said: “Mr Johnstone delights in 'oblique' wording, but I can see no other meaning to his quoting the above verse than that he is applying it to me. If that is the case, I can think of no greater accusation to be levelled against a minister, and yet the commission [the presbytery investigation] has repeatedly stated that Rev Johnstone had levelled no charge against me in presbytery… if the verse he quotes indeed applies to me, then presbytery should take immediate steps to cast me out!”
Rev Foster went on to challenge Rev Johnstone over his role as an Orange Order grand chaplain, which he said involved “repeated and very public fellowshipping with 'evangelicals' within the ecumenical movement”.
When asked by the Belfast Telegraph if he disputed Rev Foster's claim that he had broken the Church's rules, Rev Johnstone would only say: “No comment.”
Rev Lecky also declined to comment.
The issue is expected to come to a head at the next meeting of presbytery which is due to be held next Friday.
As it happens, that is the eve of the 60th anniversary of the seminal protest outside the Presbyterian General Assembly after which Revs Paisley and Foster were jailed — a moment the Church commemorates to this day.
The Free Presbyterian Church has always been far more influential than its relatively small membership would suggest — in large part because of its very public protests, and the political influence which many of its members have wielded through the DUP.
The 2021 Census revealed that the Church's membership was 8,433, down from 12,363 in 1991 — and a faster decline than the mainstream Presbyterian Church.
Comment, Letters, Irish News, May 26th, 2026
Politicians talk a great reform game but implementation always lacking
WATCHING ‘A View from Stormont’ last week, following my return from holiday, it was as if I had never been away. Representatives from across the political spectrum discussed the ongoing budget crisis, the pressures on public services, and the need for additional funding from Westminster. All agreed they “need the British Treasury to cough up”. There were nuanced disagreements among the contributors, but they all sang largely from the same hymn sheet. ATCHING ‘A View from Stormont’ last week, following my return from holiday, it was as if I had never been away. Representatives from across the political spectrum discussed the ongoing budget crisis, the pressures on public services, and the need for additional funding from Westminster. All agreed they “need the British Treasury to cough up”. There were nuanced disagreements among the contributors, but they all sang largely from the same hymn sheet.
One particular comment stood out. An MLA argued that meaningful transformation cannot happen while services remain ‘on fire’. I took this to mean we cannot rebuild or reform while the system is functioning but is currently broken.
At one level, that is entirely understandable. Health services are under enormous strain. Schools are struggling financially. Public sector budgets are stretched. Anyone working on the frontline can see that.
But listening to the debate, I found myself asking a more uncomfortable question.
What if Northern Ireland’s public services have been ‘on fire’ for the last 25 years and what if that has become the permanent reason never to properly reform anything at all?
“We have become trapped in a cycle where ‘transformation’ is endlessly discussed, and indeed partially implemented, but rarely, if ever, measured against outcomes
And, actually, are any of the incumbents capable of ensuring real reform is progressed?
Over the past two decades Northern Ireland has undergone repeated structural reorganisations, all presented as major reforms designed to improve efficiency, reduce duplication and save money.
We reduced 26 local councils to 11 ‘super councils’. The old Education and Library Boards were abolished and replaced by the Education Authority. Health services have been subjected to endless reviews, restructures and transformation strategies. Many argue that we have too many health trusts: we have five geographical trusts and one ambulance trust currently. We used to have 18.
Each reform came wrapped in the same language – modernisation, efficiency, improved governance, better outcomes, reduced bureaucracy.
Yet here we are in 2026, still facing the same conversations about overspending, duplication, inefficiency and financial crisis.
The uncomfortable truth is that very few people ever seem willing to ask the obvious follow-up question: did any of these previous ‘reforms’ actually save money, improve delivery of services or make life better for the man and woman in the street?
Because from the perspective of many ordinary taxpayers, it is difficult to see convincing evidence that Northern Ireland’s public sector has become leaner, faster or more accountable despite two decades of constant ‘reform’.
Too often, what we call reform here is actually administrative reorganisation. Structures change, logos change, reporting lines change and acronyms change, but culture, accountability and delivery frequently remain untouched.
Meanwhile, politicians return every few years to the same position: public services are under pressure and Westminster must provide more money.
To be clear, Northern Ireland does face genuine structural challenges. Political instability has damaged long-term planning. Demand within health and social care continues to rise sharply. The legacy of the Troubles created layers of complexity and caution across government. But acknowledging those realities cannot become an excuse for permanent stagnation. Because if reform is always delayed until the crisis passes, then actual reform never actually arrives.
EUGENE REID, Ballymena, Co Antrim
British side of Irish heritage must be recognised as well
COMMENTATORS have been debating about compulsory Irish as being something that can be bargained if there was a united Ireland.
Many unionists would argue that the special privileged position of the Irish language would have to be toned down for the sake of equality and fairness.
You could not have a situation where Irish is compulsory for Irish people but not compulsory for unionists – all citizens must have the same rights.
If Irish is compulsory, it has to be compulsory for all, because how can you differentiate between someone with a unionist viewpoint and someone with a nationalist viewpoint?
If there is to be a united Ireland, then Irish can no longer be compulsory and the British side of Irish heritage must be recognised as well.
JACK SINNOTT Killinick, Co Wexford
‘I couldn’t get an Irish passport. I felt I had this identity taken away’
BBC broadcaster Kirsty Lang on how Brexit sent her searching for her Irish roots, how reporting the Troubles affected her, and the ‘unique quiz culture’ of Britain and Ireland
Freya McClements, Irish Times, May 23rd, 2026
Kirsty Lang always thought she was Irish.
The journalist, broadcaster and presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Round Britain Quiz grew up believing she had inherited the personality, temperament and red hair of her Irish grandmother.
They were the only two redheads in her family, and “there was this sort of running thing that my mother would say, ‘well, you know, your grandmother had red hair’,” Lang says.
“She died when I was five, of breast cancer, and I then got breast cancer at exactly the same age as my grandmother, so clearly I had inherited the red hair and the breast cancer gene.”
It took Brexit to begin a search for her grandmother’s birth certificate, so Lang could apply for an Irish passport; then she discovered her grandmother Winifred Warden, née Merry, had been born, not in Ireland, but in the workhouse in Stafford in the north of England. “It was a bitter disappointment, because I felt this connection ... there were so many mixed emotions, and a great deal of sadness.
“I couldn’t get an Irish passport, and I was furious, but also, I felt I had this Irish identity taken away from me.
“It was my great-grandmother [who was Irish], not my actual grandmother, but it deprived me of being able to become Irish, which I really, really wanted to do.”
Lang’s story is the story of many in Ireland and indeed Britain, and of the complex relationship between these two islands. Her understanding now is that her great-grandmother came from “somewhere near Kilkenny” and “was a domestic servant, born in 1911, and whether she was a domestic servant in England, and then got pregnant, or whether she was shipped off from Ireland, we don’t know.
“She was just registered as coming to the workhouse pregnant, giving birth, and then leaving the child, my grandmother, presumably because she couldn’t look after her.”
The story Lang’s grandmother always told was that “her family were from Ireland, and she was adopted from Ireland, or fostered, by this farming family in Staffordshire, and that they were horrible to her, and she ran away when she was 16”.
Lang emphasises the “terrible sadness” when she discovered the reality: “She must have lived with this terrible shame all her life that she was born in a workhouse.”
This, too, is part of the more recent history of Ireland and Britain; how stories such as these, which would once have been kept hidden, have been uncovered, acknowledged and reclaimed. Does Lang think about her family’s place in this history?
“Yes, a lot. When you read things like that brilliant book by Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These, absolutely, I always think about my grandmother and my great-grandmother.
“I definitely feel a connection to that, and I feel terribly sad about it.”
So she does not have an Irish passport, even though her husband, the writer and broadcaster Misha Glenny, did become an Irish citizen thanks to his Newry-born grandfather.
“I was so jealous,” she laughs. “He whizzes through the passport queues and I’m in the other one [queue] and I look at his Irish passport with so much envy.”
Lang is a Londoner; it is where she went to university and where her family had a home, even though her father’s job meant she grew up in different countries around the world. “London, being a big, cosmopolitan city, I was able to identify [with it].”
She is about to move back to London permanently after almost four years in Vienna, where Glenny was rector at the Institute for Human Sciences; following in his wife’s footsteps as the custodian of another BBC Radio 4 institution, he replaced Melvyn Bragg as the presenter of In Our Time in January.
As a reporter, Lang has been all over the world. Her first overseas posting was to Hungary for the BBC in 1989, just in time to witness the fall of the Iron Curtain. She covered the war in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, was posted to Paris for the BBC and then the Sunday Times, and was Channel 4’s Europe editor before returning to the BBC – first as a news presenter, and later as one of the long-standing presenters of Radio 4’s Front Row. But it all began with a six-month stint in Northern Ireland in the late 1980s.
“Pretty much all of us wanted to go to Northern Ireland because it was exciting. Obviously, if you’re a journalist, you want to run towards the flames, don’t you, not away,” she says.
On one of her first days in the BBC newsroom in Belfast, a bomb exploded in the city centre. “I threw myself to the ground underneath my desk, and when I appeared again, everybody was laughing. ‘Don’t worry love, it’s miles away.’ That was my starting point.”
She recalls “the first time I went to somebody’s house with an open coffin ... it was an incredibly steep learning curve, and it made me realise how incredibly ignorant we were in England of what was happening.
“I’ve always hated the word ‘Troubles’ as a kind of euphemism, because it was a war, in my view, and it should have been called a war, and we should have called it a war, and I think those things about language are really important.”
She learned about the North by reading novels, something she still does when she goes to other countries, devouring fiction and poetry. “I tried in that way to get under the skin of what it meant to live in a society so riven by sectarianism, and it was incredibly useful training for covering the collapse of Yugoslavia later on.
“In eastern Croatia in the summer of 1991 ... it was familiar, to be in this small place where everybody looks the same, speaks the same language, and yet have these divisions.
“I understood it in a way I think I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t had that experience in Northern Ireland.”
Yet, as she reflects on her nearly 40-year career, most of it with the BBC, Lang is keen to emphasise how worried she is about the broadcaster’s future, not least given the announcement last month that it would cut almost one in 10 staff in a bid to make savings of £500 million (€575 million). “I do think it [the BBC] faces an existential crisis, and I don’t think that’s too strong to say.
“I think we take it for granted, and having lived in a lot of other countries and being aware of what’s on offer there, I realise how incredibly valuable the BBC is.
“In an age where we have endless information but very little wisdom, it provides us with wisdom and analysis.
“I have Radio 4 on all day, and I would feel absolutely bereft [without it], as would millions of people.”
She has seen first-hand the “undermining of public sector broadcasting” under right-wing populist governments and warns of the “systematic attack” under way in Europe and the US.
Fourth Estate
“The fourth estate is a very important part of our democracies, and that’s why I worry about the BBC being salami-sliced to death.”
Round Britain Quiz is the longest-running quiz in the world, and celebrates its 80th birthday next year – which comes with its own set of pressures.
“It’s like somebody’s handed you a very valuable bit of Radio 4 crystal and you’re thinking ‘oh no, I don’t want to drop it’,” says Lang.
She took over in 2022, much to her own surprise; as she confessed to the BBC Radio 4 controller who offered her the job: “I’m not very good at quizzes.”
“I enjoy them,” she stresses, “even though I can very rarely answer anything.
“But I like watching other people do it, and of course it’s sort of aspirational, because when you do manage to get something [right], you feel really clever.”
Round Britain Quiz is complex and hard to define. “The Everest of quizzes,” says Lang. Teams from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland tackle “multi-part questions that mix general knowledge with cryptic clues”, with plenty of hints from their host.
There was a “Dublin” team in the 1940s and a “Republic of Ireland” team in the late 1970s and 1980s. The current Irish representation comes from this journalist and Paddy Duffy, a broadcaster and film-maker from Lifford, Co Donegal, representing Northern Ireland; former competitors include writer Polly Devlin, political columnist Brian Feeney and magistrate Martin McBirney, who was shot dead by the IRA in 1974.
A friend of the poet Michael Longley, he recalled how McBirney would return from recording the latest series and meet them in Belfast’s Crown Bar with the questions so that their group of poets and friends could all have a go.
This is the “unique quiz culture” of Britain and Ireland that the show taps into, says Lang. “Other countries have gameshows, but they don’t have quizzes embedded quite so much in the community – be it pubs, schools, working men’s clubs, universities, whatever – it’s a sort of social glue, and it’s actually something really important.”
At home, Glenny “makes up quizzes all the time, at every family event, for Christmas, or somebody’s birthday ... we’ve done that with our kids since they were little” and she brought this to Round Britain Quiz.
“My vision was to see it as a kind of parlour game whereby, if you’re at home, you can join in and not feel intimidated if you can’t get something.”
Unsurprisingly, it has its own community – many of the questions are sent in by listeners – and an online group plays along with the show as it is broadcast, though some – “men of a certain age”, says Lang – found her triggering. “They wrote in – still do, actually – to complain that I laugh too much and it’s annoying.
“It was a little bit upsetting ... I don’t want to say it was a huge amount, but it was quite a few.”
She followed her producer’s advice and ignored them. Round Britain Quiz “is joy and a privilege, and I think the fact that it was unexpected – I mean, if you’d said to me when I first started working in news as a reporter that I would end up hosting a quizshow, I would have laughed in your face.”
Round Britain Quiz grew out of Transatlantic Quiz, designed to boost Anglo-American relations during the Second World War, and subsequently reinvented as Trans-Britain Quiz; in the decades since, it has survived both geopolitical crises and BBC cuts.
Lang hopes the celebrations will get listeners even more involved – “I just love the idea of groups of people getting together, or at home, wherever, and playing with us” – while also bringing in younger fans.
“In the current series, we had a 17-year-old girl who sent a question in. That warmed my heart, because she’ll be listening to Round Britain Quiz for the rest of her life,” she says.
So will many others. “There’s something gloriously smart and intellectual about Round Britain Quiz, but also very democratic,” says Lang. “There are loads and loads of smart people out there, so let’s appreciate it, let’s keep the bar high.
“In a world where everything is dumbed down, why shouldn’t we have something super smart?”
This year’s final of Round Britain Quiz is on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday, May 24th, and on podcast platforms
