Free Republic

An Irish man has spent five months in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and faces deportation despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record. Seamus Culleton was a “model immigrant” who had become the victim of a capricious and inept system, said his lawyer, Ogor Winnie Okoye. Originally from County Kilkenny, Culleton is married to a US citizen and runs a plastering business in the Boston area. While buying supplies at a hardware store on 9 September 2025 he was arrested in a random immigration sweep, according to Okoye, of BOS Legal Group in Massachusetts. Culleton entered...

The “beep test”, a standard aerobic fitness test for prospective firefighters for the last 40 years, discriminates against women and advantages younger candidates, a tribunal has found, following a legal challenge by a prospective recruit. Cork Fire Brigade has been ordered to pay €8,000 ($9,536) in compensation to Terézia Foott, a part-time firefighter aged in her 40s who failed to advance in a November 2023 recruitment competition for a full-time post because she did not make the cut. Ms. Foott, a qualified sports therapist and personal trainer, said she passed every element of the fitness test on the day on...

Queen’s University Belfast is to remove the name of former US Senator George Mitchell — one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement — from a peace center following the emergence of new information contained in the Jeffrey Epstein files released on Friday. A bust of Mr. Mitchell will also be removed from the university grounds. Mr. Mitchell chaired the negotiations which led to the 1998 peace agreement. The former senator has a long-standing association with the university where he was chancellor from 1999 to 2009. …

Bounties as high as $100,000 are being offered to contract killers for the murder of dozens of Israeli researchers, including some in the US, on the website of a hateful anti-Zionist group. “The Punishment for Justice Movement” website offers between $50,000 for murdering one of the Jewish academics listed — and twice that amount for the killing of “special targets” — claiming the high-achieving researchers are complicit in child murder. Home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and social media accounts were listed for at least 40 academics, according to The Jerusalem Post. The website offered a $2,000 USD as reward...

Ireland has joined 10 other European countries calling for Israel to halt demolitions of the headquarters belonging to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in east Jerusalem by Israeli authorities. Earlier this month, Israeli bulldozers began demolishing the compound, having effectively banned the organization from operating in the country in January 2026. The joint letter was signed by Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee and the foreign ministers of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Spain and the UK. It described the demolition as an unprecedented act which marked the “latest unacceptable move” to undermine a UN...

China has suspended imports of Irish beef following the detection of an outbreak of bluetongue in County Wexford last week, while more cases of the virus have been confirmed in three additional cattle herds in the county. Minister for Agriculture said that his department informed Chinese authorities of the cases and that they “subsequently informed us that they have suspended the acceptance of Irish beef exported from Ireland with effect from 27 January 2026”. Minister Heydon added: “As with all temporary suspensions, it is a matter for the importing country when they will recommence the acceptance of exports of Irish...

Heartfelt tributes have been paid to a "beautiful" and "very talented" young Irish man that "always had a smile on his face" who died suddenly while living in Canada. Deep condolences have been expressed to the family of Kildare man, Jeremy Burke, 27, who passed away peacefully in his sleep in Toronto, on January 22. "The family are in awe of the support they are receiving from all around the world," a fundraiser entitled Bringing Jeremy Home, which has raised over €24,000, has said.

The prospect of a full-blown trade war between the EU and the US was averted for the second time in less than 12 months following President Donald Trump's dramatic U-turn on Greenland. For Ireland, several uncomfortable truths are emerging after this week’s geopolitical chaos. The trading relationship with the US is part of the bedrock of the Irish economic success story. It is based on Ireland providing an environment of stability for multinationals. One of the certainties important for US corporations is the level of tariffs applied to exports shipped across the Atlantic. […] Fortunately for Ireland, pharmaceuticals and computer...

Brusselstown Ring lies within the Baltinglass hillfort cluster, a landscape of up to 13 large hilltop enclosures that shows nearly continuous activity from the Early Neolithic through the Bronze Age. What is singular about Brusselstown, however, is its extraordinary scale and layout. Two widely spaced ramparts surround the site, with the outer boundary encompassing not only the main hillfort but also the nearby Neolithic enclosure at Spinas Hill 1. Enclosures extending across more than one hill are rare in Ireland and Britain and are very uncommon even in later Iron Age Europe.Airborne and topographical surveys identified more than 600 subtle...

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) remains Europe’s largest data enforcer by a wide margin, having issued €4.04 billion in fines since May 2018. The annual Data Breach Survey from law firm DLA Piper found that Ireland’s GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) fine total is almost four times more than second-placed France. The DPC issued the largest fine of 2025, a €530 million penalty against TikTok over the transfer of the personal data of European users to China. TikTok is currently appealing the ruling. The Data Breach Survey shows that European GDPR fines totaled approximately €1.2 billion in 2025, consistent...

The first members of what would later become Iran’s fearsome revolutionary guards were trained in a quiet village outside Paris. Those close to the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who was in exile in Neauphle-le-Château, secretly began recruiting Iranian revolutionaries in the West to establish a “people’s army”. One of the group’s founders, Mohsen Sazegara, has told The Telegraph that the aim in 1978 was to gather loyalists prepared to confront the Shah’s regime head-on in Iran. The recruits first studied the theory of guerrilla warfare before being dispatched to Beirut and Damascus for military training. There, they learnt...

Ireland is to give €42 million in aid to the people of Palestine over the course of 2026, up from €36 million last year. Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee made the announcement during a visit to the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza. The funding will include €20 million to support the work of UNRWA that provides vital services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the West Bank, and across the region, while €2 million will assist the work of the Egyptian and Palestinian Red Crescent Societies. …

Those who want to see a new government in Ireland to cut immigration and break ties with globalist elites need to “reach across the Atlantic” and seek help from the Irish diaspora in the US MAGA movement, Eddie Hobbs told a conference on Saturday. The audience for the weekend-long IRL Forum in Ashbourne, County Meath, who had paid €90 each for a two-day pass or €50 a day, numbered 300 to 400 on Saturday morning and included US ambassador to Ireland, Edward Walsh. Participants in the sessions, which were all moderated by Mr. Hobbs, a financial adviser-turned podcaster and campaigner,...

U2 frontman and activist Bono has publicly backed a campaign calling for the release of Marwan Barghouti from an Israeli jail. Barghouti has been serving multiple life sentences since 2002 for orchestrating murderous terrorist attacks against Israelis. He is widely believed to have planned the Second Intifada, which claimed thousands of Israeli lives from 2000 to 2005. Barghouti has continued inciting terrorism from his jail cell. Despite his convictions, he is viewed by many Palestinian Arabs as a unifying figure and potential future leader. In a personal essay published in The Atlantic, Bono described Barghouti as “a leader of vision,...

An elusive bird which is now considered to be extremely rare in Northern Ireland made an unexpected visit to a Belfast street, where it was found behind a bin. Office staff who spotted it on the Lisburn Road thought it might be a bird of prey and called wildlife rescuer Debbie Nelson, who works under the name Debbie Doolittle. She was surprised to find it was in fact a nightjar - a bird she described as "almost extinct" in Northern Ireland, with only a handful of sightings since the 1950s. "They were about to put some rubbish in the bin...

China is keen on expanding economic and trade cooperation with Ireland while aiming for mutually beneficial results, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the Irish prime minister on Monday, positioning stronger bilateral ties as a way to also boost relations with the European Union. Xi emphasized mutual respect and achieving win-win outcomes as “valuable experiences” for long-term and stable development of China-Ireland ties in his opening remarks at a meeting with Prime Minister Micheál Martin at the Great Hall of the People, a media pool report showed. […] China is interested in cooperating with Ireland in fields such as artificial intelligence,...

Large crowds gathered in Kells, County Meath, Ireland, on St Stephen’s Day as the town hosted its traditional hunt meet, which proceeded shortly after a proposed ban on hunting with hounds was defeated in the Dáil. Riders assembled in the town centre before midday, accompanied by spectators who lined the streets to watch the annual departure. The event took place in a festive atmosphere and attracted families and visitors from across the region. The timing of the hunt placed it at the centre of renewed national attention, coming just days after parliament rejected legislation that would have outlawed the practice....

Gardaí, the Irish police, have opened a hate crime investigation after antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas and the words “Jew” and “rat,” was sprayed on roads in Co Louth, the Irish Times reports. Holocaust Awareness Ireland condemned the incident, saying the graffiti “repeats one of the most disturbing antisemitic caricatures deployed by Nazis in pre-war Germany.” In a statement, the Garda confirmed it had received a report of criminal damage and is treating the case as a hate crime. It urged anyone with information to come forward. .....

Representatives of the fishing sector have said the loss of one third of Ireland’s national fish quota in 2026 means they are facing their toughest year ever. The Government is establishing a taskforce aimed at supporting those affected. Minister of State for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Timmy Dooley has met representatives of the sector in Killybegs, County Donegal. At the meeting, he outlined the Government’s plan to address challenges facing coastal communities. The minister said fish stocks have reduced dramatically in the Atlantic Ocean because of the overfishing, principally by Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. “The Government is demanding...

Former White House strategist Steve Bannon has been helping to form an Irish “national party” as he works “behind the scenes” on what he described as “the Irish situation”, he said in an interview. The Donald Trump ally, whose anti-EU rhetoric previously included an expressed desire “to drive a stake through the Brussels vampire”, told the Politico news website that there would soon be an “Irish Trump”. Mr. Bannon, who hosts the War Room podcast and retains influence in the grassroots of the MAGA (Make American Great Again) movement of Trump-supporting populists, is quoted as supporting the new US national...