I support a ‘New Ireland’, but why won’t anyone tell me what it will be like?

DAVID ADAMS, Irish News, April 10th, 2026

I SUPPORT the idea of a New Ireland. Not because I’m eager to get on board with something that’s inevitable (although very little in life is inevitable).

Rather, my decision stems in large part from the Northern Ireland situation having been put into stark perspective for me during many years working overseas in various conflict and natural disaster zones.

Still, I refuse to adopt an “I’ve seen the light. I’m even learning Irish”, evangelistic-style approach to a New Ireland.

For one simple reason: When people ask me what shape it will take, I have to admit that I haven’t a clue.

I can easily outline what kind of New Ireland I would like, but no more than that. After all, I won’t have any hand in its design.

And unfortunately, the possible and wannabe designers/influencers haven’t shown the slightest inclination to share their ideas with the rest of us. At least not any positive ideas.

It can hardly be the case that they haven’t considered the issue.

Many of the most vocal proponents of a New Ireland and/or their predecessors have spent the past 100-plus years arguing or – where a tiny minority was concerned – killing, maiming, and dying in its pursuit.

Yet, ask them about the New Ireland they’re seeking to create, and “That’s a matter for the Irish government”.

Which is blatant buck-passing, of course. Especially when you consider that the same people are never shy about voicing an opinion on every other issue, domestic and foreign, imaginable.

Even those who, courtesy of our flourishing peace industry, regularly travel the globe to lecture others on peace-building, when asked about the future of their homeland will not go much beyond this tired mantra.

There’s an occasional mumbling about citizens’ assemblies being set up to help design a New Ireland.

However, the plan, if one exists, is for these to come after successful border polls north and south.

‘A Brexit like leap in the dark’

Details “still to be decided” are: how many such assemblies are envisaged; where would they be located; how many participants in each; who would be choosing the participants; and what weight, if any, would be given to whatever recommendations might emerge?

So, unionists would be asked to take a Brexit-like leap in the dark by voting Yes in a border poll, and, if the poll was successful, then participate in yet-to-be-defined advisory assemblies.

The only certainty being that they would be hopelessly outnumbered.

Are New Irelanders really trying to sell this? Of course not. How could they possibly be.

Some of their most high-profile opinion writers, commentators, politicians, and members of New Ireland advocacy groups (most of whom have a foot in more than one of those camps) are already lecturing unionists (ie Protestants who haven’t proven themselves not to be unionist) about what won’t be happening in a New Ireland.

“ Selling a New Ireland? They’re doing the very opposite by alienating moderate people of every stripe from the very concept

They’re declaring that the Irish flag will not be changed. Same with the Irish constitution and national anthem.

Even the Shared Island fund, of all things, is now being labelled a cunning scheme to reinforce partition.

Boxing Day

At this rate, the only thing left to discuss in their assemblies would be Boxing Day versus St Stephen’s Day.

Add to all this the mountains of vitriol and abuse being heaped upon the unionist community by many of the same people and it’s abundantly clear what accommodatory changes they actually have in mind for a New Ireland: none.

Selling a New Ireland? They’re doing the very opposite by alienating moderate people of every stripe from the very concept.

Which is typical of this place, with two sets of opposite-end nationalists doing everything possible to advance the cause of the other.

Meanwhile, caught between the two are the Alliance and SDLP parties, struggling gamely to unite rather than divide people.

To be generous, perhaps nationalists are scared of spooking voters in the south, a large majority of whom are far from keen on the idea of a unitary state anyway – never mind them being expected to make changes to accommodate northerners.

The obvious problem with this theory, however, is that the reason southerners are put off by the north is the basket-case state of society here – the division and complete lack of any real effort towards reconciliation.

In what world is exploiting and perpetuating that division supposed to convince southerners to vote for an all-island state?

Is the immediate objective simply to secure border polls, which would open the door to making these a semi-regular feature of life here (not less than seven years apart, as per the Good Friday Agreement)?

The longer-term aim being to wear down unionist, moderate, and southern opposition to the point where they all just give up?

What a cunning plan – straight out of the Baldrick playbook.

Adams prepared to 'wade up to my knees in Protestant blood to united Ireland' claim

SAM MCBRIDE NORTHERN IRELAND EDITOR, Belfast Telegraph, April 10th, 2026

GOVERNMENT QUESTIONED IF CLAIMS WERE BELIEVABLE, WHILE FORMER SINN FEIN PRESIDENT NOW SAYS HE NEVER MADE SUCH A REMARK AND HAS 'ALWAYS BEEN AVOWEDLY ANTI-SECTARIAN'

Gerry Adams told a fellow republican in Long Kesh that he was prepared to “wade up to my knees in Protestant blood to a united Ireland”, a former republican comrade told British officials.

The comments allegedly made by a young Adams in the early 1970s were cited to the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) in 1996 as evidence of the Provisional movement's anti-Protestant sectarianism.

The man making the allegations was Des O'Hagan, who had been in the IRA from the late 1940s, but was expelled for swearing an oath of allegiance to the monarch to join the NI Civil Service.

He would go on to become a key figure in the Workers' Party, the Official IRA's political wing, and it was in that guise that he met the NIO in the mid-1990s.

However, the NIO official who was told this questioned whether it was wholly true or believable — and this week Adams utterly rejected the claim, saying it had been made public in the early 1980s, but was wholly false.

The same declassified file contains papers which show that the NIO's political director, Quentin Thomas, had met Sinn Féin on February 26, 1996, just a fortnight after the Canary Wharf bomb. One of those in the meeting was Martin McGuinness.

Thomas circulated a confidential memo to senior colleagues the following day, setting out “various theories of why the violence resumed”.

He said: “For a start, I saw nothing in yesterday's meeting to suggest that there had been any shift in the relationship between Sinn Féin and the IRA.

‘Coherent leadership’ of Sinn Fein and PIRA

“It seems to me that we continue to deal with a coherent joint leadership, where violence may be deployed as an extension of political strategy.

“I believe what we saw was consistent with the idea that the resumption, while perhaps arising from a number of factors, including the need to vent frustrations and to keep the organisations united, was primarily made for tactical reasons.”

Thomas said he believed “the movement does continue to look for salvation, and I suspect an interim settlement… they wish to enter those negotiations from a position of strength”.

He continued: “What we saw yesterday were not, it seemed to me, people under pressure nor people expressing strong emotions. For them, perhaps, the bombs have had a cathartic effect. Pity about the rest of us.”

In a confidential memo the following day, David Watkins in the NIO said he largely agreed with Thomas's view, but that he had been struck by a lunchtime discussion with O'Hagan and other Workers' Party representatives.

He said the people he met “persist with a very different and more malign analysis of Sinn Féin”.

During an “affable” discussion, he said “their unqualified view was that Sinn Féin remains wholly under the domination of the IRA through its Provisional Army Council and that its objectives remain as traditional as ever — 'Ireland united, Gaelic and free'.

“Sinn Féin was an irredeemably sectarian 'Roman Catholic nationalist terrorist group' with neither toleration for nor understanding of Protestants/unionists: O'Hagan quoted Adams in a discussion with him in the Maze in the early 70s as saying that he was prepared to 'wade up to my knees in Protestant blood to a united Ireland'.

Support for Kingsmill massacre

“Many in Sinn Féin continued to approve of the Kingsmill massacre…because of its sectarian character.”

He continued: “Because it had not departed from its traditional doctrines and objectives, there was no hope at any point that Sinn Féin would hoist fully on board the importance of the views of the majority in Northern Ireland: Northern Ireland remained illegitimate and irreformable.

“To recognise the position of unionists and, in particular, the principle of consent as expressed in the Joint Declaration would be fatal to Sinn Féin, and they would never do it.”

In fact, while Adams continued to denounce the principle of consent as a unionist veto on a united Ireland — and even did so for some time after the Good Friday Agreement — Sinn Féin ultimately did accept it and now agrees that Northern Ireland can only leave the Union if a majority of its inhabitants agree to do so.

Indeed, Sinn Féin now presents as a key republican benefit of the Agreement this formalisation of the position that Northern Ireland could leave the UK if most voters wanted a united Ireland.

Watkins continued: “To my argument that they were painting too gloomy a picture of republican immobilism, pointing to their recognition of partitionist governments in Dublin, I was told that this was merely a tactic: co-operating with such partitionist governments was justified only because there was confidence that by that route lay the achievement of their objective of a united Ireland.”

The republicans went on to say that “a lot of misunderstanding of Sinn Féin's true position occurred because of the utterances of people like [Mitchel] McLaughlin, [Tom] Hartley and [Jim] Gibney.

“But these were not representative of Sinn Féin. The true representatives were to be found in and around the persons of McGuinness and Kelly, who had not wavered in their adherence to sectarian and violent views. And the average republican was politically unsophisticated and ready to be led back to violence.

“Asked about the position of Adams, our interlocutors thought that it was conceivable that someone of Adams' standing who might genuinely disagree with traditional Sinn Féin methods could break off without becoming a personal target. Traditional sanctions might not apply in such cases, but traditional bitterness and opposition certainly would.”

The civil servant observed that it was “clear that a lot of the Sinn Féin leadership is personally well known to [John] Lowry and O'Hagan. Equally, their contempt is withering.

“But the other side of this coin tends to undermine the complete credibility of what they say: it is all part of the essence of the republican split around 1970, that the Provos were the Catholic and conservative wing, while the Stickies were the unreconstructed socialists — so the charges of Sinn Féin's sectarianism do not ring wholly true (or wholly believable either).

“Likewise, much chat about the failure of Adams and others to support the civil rights movement at the end of the 60s is interesting, but may tend again to undermine.”'

‘IRA psyche’ described by Fr Faul

A day later, senior NIO official John Steele replied to say that Monsignor Denis Faul had once described the IRA psyche to him as three-fold: “Nothing short of a united Ireland will do, it must be achieved by violence — either actual or threatened, and the IRA must get the credit”.

Steele said: “If this thesis is right, and there is precious little so far which is inconsistent with it, then the way ahead looks very difficult indeed.”

He said a difficulty was that by the IRA resuming violence and the Government emphasising its openness to talks, “they have shown us the whip, and we have quickened our pace”. That being so, he asked: “Can we really expect them to decommission the whip?”

Replying to Thomas, he added: “The picture of the Sinn Féin/PIRA leadership which can be drawn from your minute is of men united and at peace with themselves. I think this is realistic. The die had been cast, and they would either have their demand satisfied or go back to a full-scale campaign. In the meantime, they were secure at the head of an organisation which was not in danger of splitting — a prime consideration.”

Responding to O'Hagan's claim, Adams told the Belfast Telegraph: “This is a rubbish claim first publicly made by a representative of the Workers Party, Des O Hagan, in a television documentary in 1983.

“It was repeated as a quote from him in 'The Lost Revolution' — The Story of the Official IRA and the Workers Party' published in 2009 by Brian Hanley and Scott Millar. I never made such a remark and I have always been avowedly anti-sectarian.”

Stormont Economy Minister's U-turn helped to avert China crisis

ABDULLAH SABRI, Belfast Telegraph, April 10th, 2026

ARCHIBALD'S INITIAL DECISION NOT TO ATTEND TRADE FORUM SPARKED UMBRAGE

The Economy Minister U-turned on a decision not to attend an economic forum hosted by China following lobbying from the country's consulate in Belfast, internal emails have revealed.

After learning Caoimhe Archibald would be absent, consul general Li Nan wrote a letter expressing why her actions could be “easily misinterpreted”.

The Sinn Fein minister had initially confirmed her attendance last September for the event at the Culloden Estate and Spa in November.

The invitation described it as the China-NI Economic, Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum, a “high-level” event showcasing “authoritative insights” from economists and policy makers on local and Chinese “economic landscapes”.

On October 20, the minister's office said she would be able to speak at the event (she pulled out later), but was unavailable to attend the dinner.

The email highlighted that Ms Archibald's attendance “was subject to any urgent Assembly/Executive business being called at short notice”.

The consulate later proposed a meeting between the minister and China's ambassador to the UK, Zheng Zeguang.

The Department for the Economy (DfE) said Ms Archibald would be “delighted” to meet him.

A back-and-forth ensued over a number of days between DfE and the consulate around the location and timing of the meeting, with the consulate insisting it be held at the forum as opposed to at Stormont.

“I'm sorry for all the inconveniences this might cause and really look forward to your understanding and confirmation regarding the newly proposed meeting time soon,” the consulate said.

But DfE remained firm on holding the meeting at Stormont due to the minister having “urgent business”.

Ms Archibald's business in the Assembly that day related to a legislative consent motion for a sustainable aviation fuel Bill.

The issue took about 20 minutes, and the Assembly rose at 6.28pm.

The consulate responded that the ambassador would have a “very, very tight schedule”, and a “special VIP room” had been arranged for the meeting.

It added: “May I also ask whether the minister could accept an interview after the opening ceremony of the forum? Even for a short while? As you know, we have secured a large group of Chinese state-owned media teams and it will be a very good opportunity... for more Chinese people to know about NI.”

Five days passed with no response before the consulate requested an update.

DfE responded that the minister would no longer be able to attend the event, nor a private meeting, because she was “now required to participate in a debate in the Assembly that day”.

The email said: “She was very much looking forward to the event and regrets that she won't be able to join you as planned...”

It added DfE's permanent secretary could attend in the minister's place.

‘Urgent meeting’ request

In response, the consulate requested an “urgent meeting” to “discuss matters related to the minister's attendance at the upcoming forum”.

The following day, the consul general issued a pressing plea for Ms Archibald to attend, emphasising “the Chinese side takes the forum very seriously”.

Mr Nan opened by saying he was “deeply shocked and truly regrettable [sic]” to discover she would no longer be attending.

He described her presence as “pivotal to the success” of the forum and highlighted that over 50 local government and trade officials would be present.

“Your attendance and address would serve as a powerful encouragement to enterprises and potential investors from China,” the letter continued.

“The political and economic importance attached to this forum by the Chinese side cannot be overstated.”

He stressed her attendance would “convey the correct signal externally”.

He added: “Given the nature of this event, the absence of a senior official in charge of economic affairs of the NI Government could easily be misinterpreted by the China business community as a lack of willingness from NI to deepen investment cooperation — an outcome that could seriously undermine the very purpose of the forum and be far more negative than without the forum.”

DfE responded by saying the situation was beyond the minister's control, it was exploring a substitute speaker for the event, insisted the minister was now “committed” to attend the meeting with the ambassador, but couldn't confirm a precise time.

Following no response from the consulate, DfE sent a follow-up email stating Ms Archibald was “keen” to meet the ambassador at Stormont, and that she would now also attend the forum after her Assembly business was through.

Three days later, and with still no reply from the consulate, DfE said junior minister Aisling Reilly would deliver a speech, reiterating Ms Archibald would also attend the event, which she did.

Afterwards, DfE posted a photo of her with the ambassador and the consul general, hailing the “strong links” being built with China.

The ambassador later wrote to the minister saying: “Thank you for the beautiful art print of Stormont and the Belfast mug. The fudge is delicious as well. It was my pleasure to have the opportunity to meet and discuss the relations between China and NI.”

Ms Archibald subsequently visited China in December to promote trade.

DfE said: “The minister was keen to attend both the private meeting and the forum. However timings could not be confirmed as it was not known when Assembly business would conclude... she therefore attended the Forum once the Assembly business was completed.”

Campbell blasts Irish-American group's visit as 'deeply one-sided'

SUZANNE BREEN, Belfast Telegraph, April 10th, 2026

A visiting Irish-American group led by former Noraid publicity director Martin Galvin should meet IRA victims and Protestants who suffered “ethnic cleansing” in border areas, a DUP MP has said.

Mr Galvin is leading a 43-strong Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) delegation on a 10-day “fact-finding mission” around Northern Ireland.

Mr Galvin is the AOH's Freedom for All Ireland chair. The group will hold talks with campaigners for Irish unity, meet victims of state violence, and be briefed by those lobbying on justice issues.

However, DUP MP Gregory Campbell blasted it as a “deeply one-sided exercise dressed up as fact-finding”.

He said: “The itinerary is not about truth, it is about promoting a selective narrative of the past.

“It is notable that while significant time is being given to one perspective, there is no comparable effort to hear from the many innocent victims of IRA terrorism across Northern Ireland. It is a glaring omission.”

Mr Campbell said that Noraid had fundraised for the IRA “during the worst years of the Troubles”. The organisation has always denied that allegation, and said the money it collected went to republican prisoners or was spent on political initiatives in the US.

Widening the itinerary

The DUP MP called on the visiting AOH delegation to widen its itinerary.

“If this group genuinely wants facts, they should meet victims of IRA violence and visit border areas, where Protestant families were driven from their homes,” he said.

“They should meet Roman Catholic families who had their husbands and fathers butchered.

“Whilst in Londonderry meeting the MP for Foyle, they should take time to hear about the ethnic cleansing and forced exodus of Protestant families at the hands of republicans.”

The AOH delegation is set to meet the family of murdered GAA official Sean Brown. The Government is appealing to the Supreme Court a court ruling that ordered it to hold a public inquiry into his murder.

The 61-year-old was attacked by an LVF gang as he locked the gates of the Wolfe Tones GAA club in Bellaghy in 1997.

He was bundled into the boot of his own car and driven to Randalstown, where he was shot six times. Nobody has ever been convicted of the murder of the father-of-six.

The Browns have asked that the Government's appeal be abandoned, and have called on Secretary of State Hilary Benn to “do the right thing”.

The AOH delegation will meet Relatives for Justice's Mark Thompson and Amnesty International's Grainne Teggart in Belfast to discuss legacy issues and be briefed on the Springhill-Westrock massacre inquest, with the verdict due soon.

In Derry, the group will receive a briefing from SDLP MP Colum Eastwood. They are also set to meet the Bloody Sunday families and relatives of former Sinn Fein leader the late Martin McGuinness at the Museum of Free Derry before a tour of Bogside Murals with the Bogside Artists.

The AOH is presenting nearly $150,000 in Freedom for All Ireland grants, which will be broadcast live to the US from the grounds of Holy Cross Church in Ardoyne on Saturday.

The 17 successful applicants include the Ballymurphy Massacre Campaign, the Bloody Sunday Trust, Relatives for Justice, and the EALU Centre for its work with former republican prisoners in Tyrone.

Ireland’s first observer report on protest policing raises several concerns

CIAN O’CONNELL, Irish Times, April 10th, 2026

Of 70 protests attended by the Irish Network of Legal Observers in 2025, only one was considered non-compliant with human rights-based policing

Gardaí not wearing identification badges and lacking an awareness of human rights standards have been flagged as emerging issues for the policing of Irish protests.

The first report from the Irish Network of Legal Observers has found that the vast majority of protests attended by its members during 2025 were policed “largely within the parameters” of relevant human rights legislation.

Emily Williams, policing and justice policy officer at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), says the network has not “identified any discriminatory practices per se” but has spotted trends.

The ICCL established the network alongside Dr Illan Wall of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway in late 2024.

The civil liberties group has been monitoring the policing of protests since its establishment in 1976, including the presence of gardaí at evictions.

It says it has been aware of wider concerns about protest policing, while internationally it cites similar legal observer projects in the UK, Scotland, Australia and the US.

During its first active year in 2025, legal observers attended demonstrations relating to the genocide in Gaza, the housing crisis, trans rights, anti-racism and the climate crisis.

One example of an identified “trend”, Williams says, is the “more heavy-handed approaches and more use of force in Dublin and also in Shannon Airport . . . whereas we’ve had observers present frequently at protests in Galway and in Cork city, and gardaí there seem to take a very hands-off approach”.

The network’s findings suggest more forceful policing can occur “near sites of infrastructural significance”.

One of the guiding principles of the network is that they “do not send legal observers to protests which are advocating for the infringement on rights of others”, Williams says.

“What this means is we are only sending legal observers to protests that are seeking collective liberation for all disadvantaged or marginalised groups,” she says. The network does not send observers to the kind of anti-immigration demonstrations that have been prominent in recent times.

‘Designated hitter’ tactics

Regarding allegations of gardaí not wearing badge numbers, the report notes that in certain instances officers “who were unidentifiable seemed to be the ones who are quick to use violence, raising the spectre that gardaí may be unofficially using ‘designated hitter’ tactics”. A “designated hitter” is an officer encouraged to “rough up” protesters and who endeavours to remain anonymous while doing so.

In a response, An Garda Síochána described this as a serious allegation.

“Any person or organisation that has any information or has evidence that substantiates such a serious allegation, that An Garda Síochána is in anyway involved in such activity as suggested, should immediately bring that information to the Office of the Police Ombudsman, Fiosrú the office with the statutory responsibility to investigate complaints about the Gardaí,” it said in a statement.

Wall says there is a wider issue relating to transparency and claims gardaí are “really secretive about a lot of their procedures and policies”. He estimates that, at any given protest with a high Garda presence, roughly 10-30 per cent of officers do not wear badges.

“We can’t really speculate as to why the guards might not be wearing badges,” he says. “We do know that in certain [international] jurisdictions, there is a practice – not something which is official policy – but a practice of a ‘designated hitter’.”

‘Directive’

Legal observers also claim that gardaí sometimes misuse Section 8 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994, which allows them to direct a protester to cease their behaviour and exit the vicinity immediately in a peaceful manner.

Observers documented gardaí “giving a Section 8 directive and then very rapidly escalating the situation”, failing to allow a protester time and space to comply with the order.

Of the 70 protests attended by the network in 2025, only one was considered non-compliant with human rights-based policing guidelines – a Palestinian solidarity event in Dublin on October 4th.

On the day, Wall says, a smaller group of about 150 people broke away from a large demonstration in the city centre and rerouted to Dublin Port. There, they were stopped by a line of gardaí. Wall says the group linked arms and tried to push through Garda lines, and that officers responded by using pepper spray and drawing batons. Protesters withdrew and gardaí followed them, Wall says, continuing to use pepper spray.

A standoff ensued and, according to the claims, the protesters marched back around the block attempting to get to the port from a different direction. This time they were greeted by members of the Garda National Public Order Unit, who used pepper spray and batons “from the outset” as protesters again attempted to break through the lines.

“They beat a number of people [and] pepper-sprayed a number of people,” Wall says.

In a statement issued on October 4th, An Garda Síochána said its members “attempted to engage with the protest group over the course of the afternoon to disperse the protest in a voluntary manner”.

“Despite this engagement, there was a co-ordinated and concerted effort to physically breach the Garda cordon. In accordance with procedures, An Garda Síochána deployed an escalation of response.”

The statement said members of the public order unit and frontline uniformed gardaí “intervened to prevent a breach of the Garda cordon, which included the use of incapacitant spray on protesters”.

Wall says the network’s findings on October 4th were that “gardaí, in the first instance, had not given any direction to the protesters not to keep coming. The protesters were pushing and shoving, and the guards, in response to that, pepper-sprayed them and beat them”.

“There is perhaps a discussion about whether or not that initial interaction was legitimate,” he says. “What was not legitimate was for the guards to continue after they had started trying to get away.”

A guiding document for Williams and Wall is general comment 37 from the United Nations’s human rights committee.

It establishes the human right to peaceful assembly, setting a threshold for what is considered violence, and noting that there should be a presumption in favour of peaceful protest.

It defines violence in the context of protest as “physical force against others that is likely to result in injury or death, or serious damage to property. Mere pushing and shoving or disruption of vehicular or pedestrian movement or daily activities do not amount to ‘violence’”.

Citywest riots

Williams calls to mind demonstrations such as the Citywest riots last October, and the Dublin riots of November 2023, as events that clearly meet that threshold and fall outside the scope of peaceful protest.

Based on the network’s interactions with gardaí, Williams says members of An Garda Síochána do not seem to have “an understanding of what violence means within the context of peaceful protest” as determined by the UN.

Nobody in An Garda Síochána was available for interview, but in a statement it noted the constitutional right for citizens to express their views and opinions freely and to assemble peaceably, subject to statutory provisions.

“Any Garda response in relation to evolving events is in keeping with a community policing model and graduated policing response, taking into account relevant legislation and public safety.”

It says it policed more than 1,300 demonstrations last year, a broad categorisation that includes marches, rallies and meetings “where large public gatherings occur”. It says “the nature” of certain protests has changed in recent times.

“While the vast majority of protests are peaceful, there has also been an increase in public disorder at some protests.”

Legal observers within the newly formed network are volunteers, and the majority do not have any legal background.

In 2025, the ICCL ran about a dozen training events around the country, developing a base of more than 300 trained observers, 150 of whom are active with the network at any given time.

It says its observers are drawn from various backgrounds and that the network is overseen by a steering committee of international experts in protest, policing and criminal justice, including the UN special rapporteur on freedom of assembly and association.

This year, the network is on track to match the 70 protests it attended in 2025.

“There’s no suggestion that [Garda] policies should change,” says Wall. “The suggestion is simply that they should be upheld. Just holding the guards to account on their own policies is a really important thing to do.”

Lough Neagh algae returns: No quick fixes, says Daera

By Iain Gray, Belfast News Letter, April 9th, 2026

Toxic pollution is already back in Lough Neagh, Stormont has confirmed, as environmental campaigners announced a “flood the streets” protest against the government’s handling of the crisis.

For the past three summers, the UK’s biggest lake has hit international headlines due to the levels of blue-green algae found in its waters, with campaigners saying Lough Neagh is “dying before our eyes”.

Today Stormont’s Department for Agriculture, the Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) confirmed the pollution has returned, with a spokesman stating its presence is “sadly not surprising” while reinforcing minister Andrew Muir has stated there are no quick fixes for a problem “decades in the making”.

Said the spokesman: “Restoring and protecting the ecological health of the lough is possible by respecting the science and supporting the difficult decisions needed.

“The severity and scale of the problem this summer will depend on a number of factors including climate.

"Progress is being made to implement the actions required in [Daera’s] Lough Neagh Action Plan, with 20 implemented to date and a resolute focus from the minister on full implementation of the plan, together with all stakeholders.”

Activist group Save Lough Neagh has announced a protest march next month, walking a route of almost two miles to its Co Tyrone shore.

The campaigners are to call for “urgent environmental action and a drastic change of priorities on the government handling of the Lough Neagh crisis”.

Residents, fishers, swimmers and wildlife all at risk

As algae was found for a fourth year in a row, the group said, the protest will “unite families, swimmers, fishermen and more to walk for the rights of Lough Neagh and the right to clean water”.

Stated the activists: “Presently, Lough Neagh is experiencing a collapse of biodiversity and extreme eutrophication, leading to spells where the lough is coated in thick algal blooms with dead animals washing up along the shores.

“In February 2026, some signs of toxic algae appeared in spots around the shore, earlier than previous years.”

The march is planned for May 17, which the group said will mark the anniversary of a 1986 protest against the idea of mining coal in the area.

Backing the march, Lough Neagh fisherman Declan Coney said: “I was there at the very first rally in 1986 where 3,000 people marched – fishing families, farming families, local communities – all came to say ‘No, enough is enough to [the era’s mining plans], and to any exploitation of the lough at all’.

“For the 40th anniversary, we at least owe everybody who came down that path a gratitude of thanks. Our government has let us down constantly. Talk is cheap, time for action now.”

In 2023, the lough – which provides 40% of Northern Ireland’s drinking water – turned green as levels of noxious algae not seen since the 1970s choked aquatic life, and bird and insect populations plummeted.

Thought to be driven by fertiliser, slurry and other runoff from nearby farmland increasing bacteria levels in the lough, despite a national outcry over the incident the algae returned in 2024, then again in 2025 and is now back once more.

Pollution levels have been so bad the lough has repeatedly reached the point of being actively dangerous to wildlife and potentially even humans.