Although most of the talk about Mitt Romney’s infamous Boca Raton video has focused on what he said about the 47% of Americans he claims won’t take responsibility for their lives, his comments on the Mideast also say a lot about the kind of president he would be.
 
Romney said straight out that the situation between Israel and the Palestinians, “is going to remain an unsolved problem.” His remarkable confession of defeat on the Mideast, an abject no mas even before getting himself in the ring, sounds eerily like what many said not too long ago about another seemingly insoluble problem: the centuries old warfare in Northern Ireland.
 
There was in Ireland and Britain an abundance of sage advice that the most that could be hoped for was to maintain the violence at a tolerable level and otherwise muddle through and hope for generational change.

When one thinks of Vince Vaughn, popular comedies such as Wedding Crashers and The Break Up usually come to mind, but these days Vaughn is interested in promoting an Irish pet project that he’s been working on for years – a documentary about the political murals that are so prevalent all over the North.

A brand new center for conflict intervention is to be established at Ireland's prestigious, Maynooth University.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to use the Irish American assistance to the Irish peace process as an example to other ethnic groups how to deal with their regional conflicts.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has agreed to be guest of honor at the American Ireland Fund dinner in Washington D.C. in March around St. Patrick's Day, informed sources tell IrishCentral. She will use her appearance at the dinner to further her view that the resolution of the Irish conflict can be an example for all other conflicts worldwide.

The site of the Maze prison will have the same symbolic value for world peace as Ground Zero, Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, said yesterday.

"Ireland Since 1939: The Persistence of Conflict" by Henry Patterson does a solid job of highlighting the events which laid the foundation for the far-reaching changes which took place in the 1990s and 2000s. As Patterson's title makes clear, change is far from recent in Ireland. Currently a professor of politics at the University of Ulster, Patterson gives the infamous Troubles their due, but also sets a keen yet sober eye on other forces - both positive and negative - which have shaped the island of Ireland. Patterson's previous books include "The Politics of Illusion: A Political History of the IRA." ($16 / 429 pages / Penguin )