IRA dissidents - backed by IRA veterans - now pose a major threat to peace in Northern Ireland. That's according to the Independent Monitoring Commission which says the security threat is the highest since the 1996 Good Friday Peace Agreement.

He’s king of the box office yet again with his latest hit “Couples Retreat,” and Vince Vaughn is doing the rounds on a promotional victory lap in Europe. Dublin, it appears, was easily his favorite stop.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

Hillary Clinton met with Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Brian Cowen and President Mary McAleese and discussed the situation of Irish undocumented in the U.S. as well as Northern Ireland and global economic issues.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Dublin today and Belfast tomorrow amid speculation that she can help ensure a dramatic breakthrough in the current impasse in Northern Ireland.

Hillary Clinton will face a full blown crisis in the peace process when she visits Northern Ireland this weekend. Sinn Fein and the DUP are at loggerheads over when policing and justice powers will be devolved to the Northern Irish government from the British parliament.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown met with Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinnes to discuss the impasse between over the devolution of justice and police issues from London to Belfast.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

Former Irish Taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald has claimed that the IRA scuppered a deal which would have ended the Maze Hunger Strikes in 1981. Fitzgerald said he was convinced that the IRA refused a deal which would have prevented the last six of 10 deaths.

Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen and Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness came very close to blows and a stand up fight during negotiations on Northern Ireland.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to visit Dublin, Belfast and London on October 11th and 12th, IrishCentral has learned.

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams MP MLA will be leaving on Monday to attend the first two days of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York. Adams is a member of the CGI and has attended the event each year since it was established four years ago in 2005, by former US President Bill Clinton.

There is a deep sense of foreboding about the future of Northern Ireland as the new economic envoy from the U.S., Declan Kelly, ends his first round of meetings with the leaders of the government there. Overnight violence in Lurgan where three men were jailed Thursday for dissident IRA activities was just the latest in a series of violent incidents that have undermined the work of the peace process.

One of the most touching parts of the Ted Kennedy memoir "True Compass" are his words about his sister Jean, now the last of the Kennedy can.

The Moran clan have produced some very interesting folk. The anglicized "Moran" can be traced to multiple distinct Irish names, and though commonly linked to County Mayo, forms of the name originated throughout middle Ireland in Counties Leitrim, Galway, Kildare, Offaly, and more. Moran is so heavily anglicized - from the French "Morrin" to the Irish "Moran" - that exact knowledge of each Moran's lineage may be hard to trace.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

The name Dunne is derived a color - donn, the Gaelic word for brown. This is relatively unusual since the vast majority of Gaelic names are based on relationships, i.e.

Kelleher exists also as Keliher, Kellaher, Kelliher, etc. The modern forms of the name are derived from the Irish name O Ceileachair, from ceileachar, which means "uxorious," or "excessively fond of one's wife."

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has blasted the people behind the massive bomb find in Northern Ireland this week. "We have made it very, very clear that those days are gone,” he said. “It’s quite clear that the local people do not support what is happening.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams is starring in a new documentary about the famous Che Guevara portrait.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

The Irish government has suffered a catastrophic drop in support, according to a new poll due out on Thursday. The poll shows the two combined government parties at just 20 percent support with 17 percent for Fianna Fail — its worst performance ever, and just 3 percent for the Green Party.

One of the most historic days in the history of the island of Ireland was also the last time that IrishCentral Publisher Niall O'Dowd met Senator Ted Kennedy.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

Sinn Fein asked United States ambassador Richard Egan to attend the party's September ard fheis to signal to the rank and file that the US did not intend to shut them out of the negotiating

Richard Egan, former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland and billionaire businessman, killed himself with a shotgun blast at his Boston residence on Friday. He was 73 and the founder of EMC, a multimillion dollar corporation.

Two of Donegal’s most prominent councilors are working on a proposal to erect a memorial to Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was killed by the IRA thirty years ago this

No family has dominated American politics more in this century than the Kennedys, a clan which influenced the shaping of a nation to a degree rarely matched.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

Former Northern Ireland power-sharing partners Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley are still in touch more than a year after Paisley left office.

Two amazing new revelations about Lord Louis Mountbatten have emerged as the 30th anniversary approaches of his death at Mullaghmore, Co. Sligo.

SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams has blasted dissident republican groups for putting "people in graves for no good reason." Speaking ahead of a major meeting in Ireland Monday, Adams slammed both the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA for the March murders of British soldiers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey and PSNI officer Stephen Carroll.

Amidst claims that Sinn Fein has become irrelevant in the south of Ireland and rumors that Gerry Adams is facing his political demise, the Sinn Fein leader strongly states that he and his party aren’t going anywhere.

A unionist political party leader is calling on Northern Ireland’s police to investigate the circumstances surrounding a recently published photo showing Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness holding a pistol in Derry in 1972.

The two men jailed for the 1996 manslaughter of Irish police detective Jerry McCabe were released from prison in Limerick today. Kevin Walsh from Limerick and Pearse McCauley from Strabane, Co Tyrone, walked out of Castlerea Prison at about 7 a.m. and were met by Sinn Fein TD Martin Ferris.

Bits and bobs from newspapers across Ireland's 32 counties, North and South.

The name Duffy is derived from dubh, the Gaelic for black. This is relatively unusual since the vast majority of Gaelic names are based on relationships, i.e. "Son of" or "Follower of." The Duffy name is derived from the Gaelic O'Dubhthaig and is mainly associated with County Monaghan.

News bits from around the 32 counties in Ireland.

Irish Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney has discussed for the first time the stroke that almost felled him, a secret visit from President Bill Clinton to his Irish hospital and how his love for his wife helped keep him going through the worst moments of his life.

Michael Bloomberg’s Democratic opponent, City Comptroller William Thompson, has yet to get his campaign off the ground but is counting on a last minute surge of support and anger at Bloomberg pushing through a third term provision to bring him to victory. Thompson will also be counting on Irish support.

Northern Ireland police fired water cannons and plastic bullets Monday to disperse youths throwing petrol bombs as the Protestant marching season got off to its most violent start in years.

News bits from each of the 32 counties in Ireland.

The new culture minister for Northern Ireland is a man with a very limited view of Irish culture. He will not attend Catholic mass as it is against his religion and his knowledge of sports in the six counties is confined to lacrosse and squash. He is unfamiliar with the Irish language and did not know that one of his county's teams - Tyrone - are the all-Ireland GAA champions!

Irish America holds the key to a united Ireland. That's according to Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, who was speaking at the annual Sinn Fein forum in San Francisco on Saturday. Social media will form a crucial part of Sinn Fein's outreach. The new PR campaign will use Twitter and YouTube to virtually unite major American cities on St. Patrick's Day in calling for a "united Ireland.

In actions welcomed the length and breadth of Ireland, it is understood that loyalist paramilitary groups are to begin decommissioning arms.

What can a writer add to political dialogue? A lot, it was clear, when Brian Keenan spoke at the Sinn Fein conference in the Hilton on Saturday.

President Obama apparently had someone else in mind before he made Pittsburgh Steelers boss Dan Rooney the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland.

Gerry Adams' thoughts on a united Ireland, from the Sinn Fein conference in

Gerry Adams convened a conference on Irish unity in New York on Saturday as part of what he described as “the start of an engagement with the Irish diaspora.” Hundreds of Irish Americans attended, with writers and academics joining Adams on the podium.

The surname Feeney is one of the most common names in Counties Sligo and Mayo. Taken from the original Gaelic form, O Fiannaidhe, meaning "soldier," the clan originated from the population group Ui Fiachrac, and it has been established that this sect was located in the Connaught province.