Irishman accused of buying arms for Real IRA has conviction overturned

Michael Campbell in court in Lithuania. He said he would return to Ireland as soon as possible. Photograph: Domantas Umbrasas/AP

An Irishman accused of buying arms for the Real IRA in an MI5 sting operation has had his conviction overturned by a Lithuanian court.

The Baltic country's court of appeal found that prosecutors had failed to prove Michael Campbell had ties with the Real IRA.

Campbell, from Dundalk in County Louth, was found guilty in October 2011 after an MI5 sting operation in 2008 recorded him attempting to buy explosives and guns. He was originally sentenced to 12 years in prison.

His brother Liam Campbell was found liable in a civil trial in Belfast for the Real IRA bombing of Omagh in 1998.

Judge Viktoras Kazys ruled on Wednesday that there was insufficient evidence to deny statements that his actions had been provoked by undercover MI5 agents.

Campbell, 41, said he would return to Ireland as soon as possible.

His lawyer said: "A person cannot be sentenced for a crime committed by state officials," and suggested that he would be seeking compensation.

"He was acquitted because the court found that what he was accused of was a provocation. It was just an activity of the state security services," she said.

She added that almost six years after his arrest he was glad to be free. "It was unexpected. We thought that this case would reach the European court of human rights. We thought it would go a longer distance. Some very serious things are not right in this case but we are happy

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In praise of … hurling | Editorial

'The hand-eye co-ordination and the courage and commitment of Cork and Clare were a shining example of sportsmanship.' Photograph: Dori Oconnell/Getty Images

Sporting combatants playing for love not money, with only helmets for protection, clash with ash sticks while trying to catch a ball consisting of cork wrapped in thick leather flying through the air at a terrifying velocity. Welcome to the ancient Irish game of hurling, arguably the fastest contact sport played on grass. Last weekend, 82,000 people wearing the red and white of Cork or the yellow and blue of Clare watched their heroes play out what many regard as the greatest All-Ireland hurling final. Hopefully the Gaelic Athletic Association will do all sports fans everywhere a massive favour and produce DVD copies of this memorable game, where Clare emerged victorious. As Premier League soccer is again soiled with prima donna antics

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Irish voters set to back Seanad abolition

Enda Kenny, the Irish taoiseach, at a campaign event in Dublin. Photograph: Art Widak/Demotix/Corbis

Despite an alumni that includes Nobel laureate WB Yeats, former president Mary Robinson and the gay rights campaigner and James Joyce expert David Norris, Ireland's electorate is expected on Friday to vote for the abolition of the Republic's second parliamentary chamber.

But as Irish voters go to the polls in a referendum to turn the Republic into a unicameral democracy, defenders of the Seanad (Senate) say abolishing it will lead to a "power grab" by the taoiseach, Enda Kenny.

The last national opinion poll published by the Irish Times/MRBI Ipsos at the start of this week found that 44% will vote to get rid of the Seanad while 27% will oppose abolition.

Senators such as one of Ireland's leading cancer surgeons John Crown are now pinning their hopes on the 21% undecided moving to the NO camp.
For Kenny, the referendum, which also includes a vote on creating a new Irish court of appeal, is a key test of his authority as premier ahead of yet another austerity budget later this month.

But for Crown and fellow Senators, as well as the main opposition party Fianna Fáil, Kenny's claim that abolition will save

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Ireland's game scene back on its feet

BatCat, which made twin-stick shooter P-3 Biotic, is developing a hack and slash game called Honour Bound.

Sometimes you have to see a place through fresh eyes to appreciate it. This writer, having grown up in Dublin, takes for granted a lot of the best things about the city: its size, its nightlife, its people, instead focusing on its bad weather and worse economy. Beyond these shores, media horror stories paint an even bleaker picture of Ireland, with property crashes, bad banks and game office closures including Big Fish and PopCap.

But there's a veritable infestation of start-ups in Dublin at the moment. And thankfully, entrepreneurs, investors and high-level employees from outside the country are coming here for reasons beyond tax breaks and location.

"Derelict warehouse, plus IKEA, equals the Digit offices," says Richard Barnwell, founder and CEO of Digit Games, a new company that employs dozens of people for Kings of the Realm, an ambitious cross-platform online MMO. So far, Digit has received total investment of $3.75m (

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Philip Chevron was more than the 'guitarist with the Pogues'

Philip Chevron performing in New York in 2011. Photograph: D Dipasupil/FilmMagic

Most of the tributes to Philip Chevron, who died earlier this week, described him as "guitarist with the Pogues", which is true but somewhat reductive. He was also a songwriter of some note as Thousands Are Sailing and Faithful Departed by the Pogues attest. As does Kitty Ricketts by his early punk band, The Radiators, released in 1979 with vocals by the Dublin-based chanteuse, Agnes Bernelle.

Chevron and Bernelle were soulmates. He produced her strange and haunting album, Father's Lying Dead on the Ironing Board (1985), which is well worth seeking out for its Brechtian lyrics and Chevron's restrained but muscular musical settings which perfectly complemented her often eccentric delivery. The song Chansonette has one of the great opening verses: "There are warts on the body of my blue-blooded lord/ And the sight of a skirt sends him screwy/ Fathers lying dead on the ironing board/ And he reeks of Lux and Drambuie."

A melancholy trawl of YouTube also led me to Philip's stirring rendition of Brendan Behan's scathing satirical song The Captains and the Kings from 1983, a sophisticated critique of colonialism and empire.

Reading on mobile? Hear the song here

"By the moon that shines above us in the misty morning night
Let us cease to run ourselves down and praise God that we are white
And better still we're English, tea and toast and muffin rings
And old ladies with stern faces and the captains and the kings..."

For me, The Captains and the Kings remains Philip's finest moment. Co-produced by Elvis Costello and arranged by David Bedford, it is a thing of complex beauty and anger. So, as well as "guitarist with the Pogues", he was also a sophisticated songwriter, producer, musical director and interpreter. He was also entertaining and erudite company, with an extraordinary wide-ranging knowledge of literature and music. Remember him this way, too.

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Northern Ireland bomb alert closes Belfast motorway

Police Service of Northern Ireland officers have closed the motorway. Photograph: PAUL MCERLANE

The main motorway linking Belfast to Dublin has been reopened after a bomb alert temporarily closed the M1 at the end of one of the bloodiest and most active periods of dissident republican violence in almost a year.

While the Police Service of Northern Ireland has allowed motorists to again use the M1 between the two cities after the security shut down earlier on Saturday, their counterparts across the border are still hunting for the chief suspect in a murder that took place in Derry on Thursday morning.

Armed Garda Síochána officers almost intercepted the ex-Real IRA prisoner Kieran McLaughlin at a farmhouse in Co Donegal late on Friday night. While they surrounded a barn in Burnfoot just across the border from Derry it is understood that the 58-year-old veteran republican had fled from the area only an hour earlier.

McLaughlin is wanted for questioning about the murder on Thursday morning of Barry McGrory at a flat in Derry city centre. The PSNI took the unprecedented step of naming McLaughlin as the chief suspect in the killing of the father of four. An all-Ireland manhunt is still under way to track down McLaughlin, who has served several prison sentences for the Real IRA and, earlier, the Irish National Liberation Army.

Meanwhile the PSNI are still questioning a 39-year-old man arrested in west Belfast on Friday over the murder of Kevin Kearney, whose body was found dumped in a lake in a public park on Wednesday. The dissident republican New IRA admitted responsibility for murdering Kearney.

As well being behind two murders, dissident republicans were also responsible for a series of bomb alerts across Belfast and Derry over the last week.

The New IRA also tried to fire a mortar bomb device at Derry's main police station at Strand Road on Friday but the attack was thwarted after a huge security operation in the city that at one stage forced 1,000 people out of their homes.

The planned attack on the station had been designed to coincide with the opening of an international investment conference in Belfast, which was attended by David Cameron.

The latest security alert caused traffic chaos and disruption to the lives of those in nearby homes, and was condemned by the SDLP's Fearghal McKinney.

He said: "There have been a number of security alerts in Belfast in the past week and there has been a hugely negative impact on not only traffic movement around the city but more importantly

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Enda Kenny confirms December date for Ireland's bailout exit

Enda Kenny said: 'After some disastrous years, confidence is gradually being restored.' Photograph: Julien Behal/PA

Ireland will leave the international bailout programme run by Europe and the IMF on 15 December, the republic's prime minister has promised.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the country was now on course to "retrieve our economic sovereignty and independence".

The exit from the IMF/EU bailout will fulfill one of the key goals of the Fine Gael-Labour coalition since it came to power. The last Fianna Fáil-led government had to go cap in hand to the IMF and the EU back in November 2010 to seek a multibillion euro rescue package and save the country from national bankruptcy.

Kenny told his Fine Gael party's annual conference in Limerick on Saturday night: "There's still a long way to go. But at last, the era of the bailout will be no-more. The economic emergency will be over. "

Warning that there was still a long way to go to rebuild the Irish economy after the Celtic Tiger's collapse, Kenny said: "Ireland is at long last on the road back to recovery and to work. Yes, our competitiveness has improved. We have 34,000 new jobs in the last year alone."

He said: "Yes, there are too many people still out of work. Yes, there are too many people still leaving the country. But you know something, there's a change happening.

"Job creation is now at its highest level in five years. The live-register number has fallen every month for 15 consecutive months. That's progress.

"Before we came to office, Ireland was losing 7,000 jobs a month. Now we're creating 3,000 new jobs every month."

The Irish premier added: "After some disastrous years, confidence is gradually being restored. Despite a tough international environment, our economy has started to grow

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Irish drug dealer set for release from prison

John Gilligan in 2008. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA

One of Ireland's most notorious drug dealers, whose gang murdered the campaigning journalist Veronica Guerin, will be released from prison on Tuesday.

John Gilligan was sentenced to 20 years for importing drugs to the Republic in 2001. He had already served several years on remand in an English jail awaiting extradition to Ireland.

Prior to her murder on the outskirts of Dublin in 1996, Guerin had been investigating Gilligan's criminal empire. He was never convicted in connection with her killing, but Gilligan made threats to the journalist and her young son while she was looking into his lifestyle and wealth.

Before his release Gilligan said he would be making no statements to the media and would not do so even if he was offered

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Ireland austerity budget announced as markets cling to debt ceiling deal hopes - as it happened

"Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin (left) and Minister for Finance Michael Noonan deliver the 2014 Budget at Government Buildings, Dublin." width

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Ireland announces more budget cuts despite recovery

Michael Noonan, Ireland's finance minister. In his budget, one in 10 of the over-70s will lose access to free healthcare. Photograph: Cathal Mcnaughton/Reuters

Ireland's recovery is well under way, according to the country's finance minister, but its government asked pensioners and the young unemployed on Tuesday to shoulder the burden of yet another austerity budget.

Michael Noonan announced cuts totalling

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Ireland closes loopholes that led to tax haven allegations

"Noonan: 'Let me be crystal clear. Ireland wants to be part of the solution to this global tax challenge, not part of the problem.' Photograph: Art Widak/Demotix/Corbis"/

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The Taoiseach Enda Kenny is wrong to claim that austerity is coming to an end | Michael Burke

Anti-austerity protesters in politician masks gather on O'Connell Street in Dublin city centre as the Irish government announces its budget for 2014. Photograph: Brendan Donnelly/Brendan Donnelly/Demotix/Corbis

Ireland is being held up once more as the star pupil of the austerity school of economics in Europe, with the Taoiseach Enda Kenny arguing that his government is exiting the bailout programme set by the troika of European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF. He says the era of austerity is coming to an end.

Both of these claims are clearly questionable, but they do illuminate some important features of the situation in Europe

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