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The new leader of the largest Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland has angered the gay community just a day after his election by saying they should stay celibate. Rev. Dr. Michael Barry (63) takes charge of the Presbyterian Church in June following his election as Moderator earlier on Tuesday. […] “We welcome all people into the Church, but we would have a problem with those who are involved in a gay relationship because we believe the Bible teaches that is against the word of God,” he said. “We would encourage people who are gay to live a celibate life.” …

'Liam Adams, a brother of Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams, has been jailed for 16 years for raping and abusing his daughter. Adams' sentence is subject to an automatic 50% remission. Adams, 58, from Bernagh Drive, Belfast, was convicted of 10 offences in October, including rape and gross indecency, against his daughter, Áine, who waived her right to anonymity. She welcomed the sentence but said it was "still much too little, too late".'

Retired police officers have warned they could be forced to reveal information which would undermine the peace process during any truth commission into Northern Ireland’s past. The warning from The Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers’ Association (NIRPOA) came in a 64-page submission to the Haass Commission for dealing with the past. The submission makes it clear that the body represents officers who have been involved in what was known as the “shoot to kill” policy, a term they reject, and it is also known to represent many retired Special Branch officers. …

Northern Ireland health minister Edwin Poots has insisted his controversial opposition to gay adoption is entirely natural. Man and woman should raise children, the senior Democratic Unionist said. The minister has tried to challenge an appeal court’s decision that paved the way for gay and lesbian couples to adopt children in the region. That bid was thrown out by the UK’s highest court, the Supreme Court. …

The dilapidated offices where plans for the Titanic were drawn up are to be re-opened as part of a £5 million regeneration project. The future of the historic building that used to house the headquarters and design studios of Harland and Wolff shipbuilders in Belfast has been secured by the Heritage Lottery Fund award. While the drawing offices will be opened for public use, the majority of the landmark structure is set to be transformed into a luxury Titanic-themed boutique hotel. The listed building is only yards from where the doomed liner was built and then launched more than a...

An £18 million ($29 million) EU offer to fund the building of a peace and reconciliation center at the former Maze prison site has been withdrawn. The Democratic Unionists earlier halted plans to build the facility at the Maze, near Lisburn, as relations with their power-sharing partners Sinn Féin deteriorate. Republicans have warned of a crisis facing the devolved administration after a summer of violence on the streets. The European Union had offered the money, but after talks with the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, the body responsible for allocating the finance said it had decided...

Liam Adams - the younger brother of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams - has been found guilty of a string of child sex abuse charges. Liam Dominic Adams, 58, from Bernagh Drive in west Belfast, was convicted of raping and sexually assaulting his daughter, Aine, over a six-year period between 1977 and 1983 when she was aged between four and nine. Bespectacled Adams, who was wearing a grey suit, cream shirt and blue tie, showed no emotion as the guilty verdicts were returned. Remanding him in custody Judge Corinne Philpott said: "Take him down." The jury of nine men and...

Wow, stop the presses. Bill Donohue of the Catholic League has issued a statement reprimanding conservatives who have taken out of context President Obama’s comments about Catholic schools in a recent speech in Ireland:(T)he reaction on the part of conservatives, many of whom are Catholic, over (Obama’s) speech in Ireland, is simply insane. Never did Obama say he wants “an end to Catholic education.” Indeed, he never said anything critical about the nature of Catholic schools. It makes me wonder: Have any of his critics bothered to actually read his speech? …

BELFAST June 20, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – President Barack Obama is under fire this week after a speech he gave in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in which he labeled Catholic education “divisive" and likened them to segregated schools in the Deep South. Obama’s comments have not only angered Catholics in Northern Ireland, but have put him at odds with the Vatican’s highest authorities in what remains an extremely complex and sensitive internal political dispute. In comments that the Scottish Catholic Observer called “alarming” and “unfounded,” Obama implied that tensions between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland would be eliminated if there were...

US President Barack Obama has argued that parochial schools are an impediment to the establishment of a lasting peace in Northern Ireland. Speaking to a crowd in Belfast, during a trip to Northern Ireland for a G8 summit meeting, Obama said that “segregated schools” block the path to full reconciliation. “If towns remain divided, if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can't see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division, it discourages cooperation," he said. …

June 17, 2013 Obama assassination bid fears - aircraft carriers on standby off Irish coast during G8 summit @Press Eye Ltd Northern Ireland - 17th June 2013 - Mandatory Credit - Brian Little/ Presseye --- Culture Minister Carl N Chuiln and Minister for Education, John O'Dowd MLA waiting for US President Barack Obama during his visit to the Waterfront Hall, Belfast ahead of the G8 Summit in County Fermanagh. ..It is understood that a contingency plan is in place for the unlikely event that an attempt would be made on the President’s life. The Secret Service also have diplomatic immunity...

British Prime Minister David Cameron says leaders gathering Monday for the G-8 summit in Northern Ireland should reach speedy agreement on trade and tax reforms, and draw inspiration from the host country’s ability to resolve its own stubborn conflict. … Referring to Northern Ireland’s ability to leave behind a four-decade conflict that claimed 3,700 lives, he said leaders of the Group of Eight wealthy nations should be inspired by the setting—the lush lakelands of County Fermanagh—to deliver their own economic breakthrough. … Obama, seizing on that theme, was beginning his trip in the Northern Ireland capital of Belfast, where he’s...

Northern Ireland’s Lord Mayor of Belfast offered an enthusiastic endorsement of a certain Irish-American mayoral candidate Thursday morning during a visit to Gracie Mansion. “We think that every city needs an Irish mayor. And New York has had a series of wonderful mayors and we think it would be wonderful in the days ahead, in the short time ahead, if New York had an Irish-American mayor again,” Lord Mayor Máirtin Ó Muilleoir told Politicker this morning, as he posed for photographs with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn by his side. While Mr. Ó Muilleoir didn’t mention...

A bid to legalize same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland has failed. Unionists voted down a motion at Stormont’s Assembly which called on the power-sharing ministerial Executive to legislate. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK without marriage rights for gay couples. The issue sparked impassioned debate, with protests outside the legislature and verbal clashes between campaigners in favor of or opposed to the change. Amnesty International has warned of a likely legal challenge. … Church leaders had urged Assembly members to vote against the legislation, with the Catholic church asserting marriage was between a man and a woman....

Being born and raised in Belfast, I’m used to hearing about terrorists, bombs and shootings on the local news, but I can honestly say that despite all that, I considered my hometown a pretty safe place to grow up. I moved to London a year ago, and while Northern Ireland is by no means front-page news here, I couldn’t help but notice that for the past month rioting in Belfast has been featured in almost every news bulletin. The rioting began when Belfast City Council voted to end the continuous flying of the Union Flag from City Hall and hasn’t...

A Conservative MP who served as a soldier in Northern Ireland has questioned the need for prosecutions in the Bloody Sunday killings. On Thursday, it was revealed that a team of 15 detectives will head up a murder investigation into the 1972 shootings. They will be led by a senior investigating officer who will be based in Londonderry. Patrick Mercer said he is “confused” by this latest development and does not know what prosecutions will achieve. …

Hillary Clinton has called for an end to “unacceptable” violence in Northern Ireland as she visited the region amid a revival of sectarian tensions. The US Secretary of State said she was “distressed” to hear about a death threat to Naomi Long, the East Belfast MP, and the discovery of two unexploded bombs. … Mrs. Clinton landed in Belfast as part of four-day European trip, just hours after police seized an unexploded bomb from suspected Republican dissidents in Londonderry. A second device was found in a postbox. …

A Free Presbyterian Church minister who sparked protest at Belfast Pride on Saturday has defended his actions, calling the parade “a very unpleasant experience”. Rev David McIlveen, of Sandown Free Presbyterian Church, amassed a crowd of protesters at the corner of Waring Street and North Street on the parade route. He criticized the Pride event claiming: “I certainly do not see it as an asset to Belfast in any way. It is something that is grieving to a good number of people”. The Irish Times report that McIlveen, who organizes an annual anti-Pride protest, did not see his actions as...

A 25-year-old police officer has been killed after a bomb exploded under his car in Omagh, County Tyrone.The device exploded under the vehicle outside his home in Highfield Close, off the Gortin Road, just before 1600 BST on Saturday. He is the second policeman to be killed since PSNI was formed out of the RUC. Since 2007, dissident republicans have planted dozens of booby-trap bombs under the private cars of police officers. The bombs have failed to detonate, but two policemen lost their legs in attacks in May 2008 and January 2010.

More than 54,000 people in Northern Ireland were waiting more than nine weeks for their first outpatient appointment, it has been revealed. The total number of people waiting for a first outpatient appointment at the end of December was 124,589. This represented a decrease of 4,246 on the number waiting at the end of September 2010 and an increase of 42,019 on the number waiting at the same time last year. At the end of December, there were 54,472 patients waiting more than nine weeks for a first outpatient appointment, of whom 37,655 were waiting more than 13 weeks. Mr...