The BelTel
Belfast Telegraph
300 episodes
The BelTel brings you some of Northern Ireland's top journalists, Allison Morris, Sam McBride and Suzanne Breen to name but a few, giving you the inside stories behind what is in the news. Presented by Ciarán Dunbar, the Bel Tel investigates, debates and informs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
More about the show
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Episodes page 1 of 6
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How torture videos are escalating drug debt intimidation in Ireland
Incidents of violent drug-debt intimidation are rising in Ireland – and the methods are becoming more concerning and elaborate. Brutal enforcers are now using 'disappearing' video technology on social media platforms…
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Judge dismisses Orange Order challenge but warns against "joy in the outcome"
A judge has dismissed an Orange Order against the Secretary of State’s decision to ban the Drumcree parade from going down the Garvaghy Road. But Mr Justice Scoffield said those against the march should take “no…
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Is Carla Lockhart going to leave the DUP?
The Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart has been to the forefront of Northern Ireland's politics ever since the re-emergence of the Drumcree Parade issue. The DUP-woman has stridently defended the rights of Orangemen to…
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Jeffrey Donaldson: Dark questions over ex-DUP leader’s curious African shadow career
Jeffrey Donaldson was doing paid work for the ministry of defence in Africa even as acute political turmoil was engulfing his party at home in Northern Ireland. Why was the then DUP leader undertaking sensitive work…
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Jeffrey Donaldson: Former MP being investigated over alleged Westminster rape
The Metropolitan Police in London are investigating Jeffrey Donaldson over a rape allegation It is alleged to have happened in the former MP's Westminster office. Donaldson is currently serving a prison sentence in…
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Portadown District’s offers to secure Drumcree parade deal revealed in court
Offers made by Portadown District to allow Orangemen to walk the Garvaghy Road have been revealed in court – including a 4AM march, accompanied by a residents’ protest. The court has finished hearing submissions…
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Give My Head Peace: Comedies axed as BBC makes deep cuts
Perforated Ulster, Give My Head Peace, and The Long and the Short of it, all produced by the Hole in the Wall gang are being axed by the BBC. The Blame Game has also been culled. The BBC is making major cuts across…
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Ammi Burke: Solicitor's legal showdown with her former employer
The Burkes are back, but this time it's not Enoch grabbing the headlines, it's his sister Ammi. In 2019, Ammi Burke was dismissed from her role at one of Ireland’s most prestigious law firms, Arthur Cox, after just…
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Jeffrey Donaldson’s victims in their own words
The PSNI has released the audio statements of Jeffrey Donaldson’s victims, Victim A and Victim B. Their voices have been artificially generated to protect the victims’ identity. On Thursday, the former DUP leader was…
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Jeffrey Donaldson given 15 years - but will be out in seven
Jeffrey Donaldson received a 15 year sentence in prison for his crimes. He was given 11 years for rape against Victim B and four years for all offences against Victim A, to be served consecutively. The former MP and…
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Missing for 34 years: Patsy O’Sullivan and the secret family no one knew about
It was in April 1992 when Patrick 'Patsy' O'Sullivan called into his brother Jerry's home like it was any other day, but it’s a day that will forever remain etched in Jerry’s memory. Patrick went missing from his home…
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Drumcree: Garvaghy Residents’ challenge dismissed, dispute rumbles on despite parade ban
The parading crisis in Portadown seems over on the ground, but it is very much alive in the courts, on the airwaves, and in politics. The Northern Ireland Secretary of State Chris Bryant stepped in on Friday to ban…
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The St Andrews Agreement 20 years on: Paisley signs up to power-sharing
The St Andrews Agreement was signed twenty years ago on 13 October 2006. Officially. it just amended the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement, but it did bring about some profound changes in Northern Ireland’s politics.…
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BONUS: From green fields to factory farms: How ‘catastrophic’ industrial agriculture policy is trashing environment
Northern Ireland’s Agriculture and Environment Minister Andrew Muir interviewed by Belfast Telegraph Northern Ireland Editor Sam McBride, discussing how what he says has been a ‘catastrophic’ agricultural policy went…
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Encrochat: Spy hack on gangster phones still decimating NI drug dealers’ ranks
In recent weeks, the 2020 French hack into the secret gangster phone network Encrochat has continued to see Northern Ireland drug dealers sent to Maghaberry. Multiple prison sentences have been handed down to some…
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Drumcree: Suzanne Breen on how the impact Garvaghy dispute is having on politics
The stand-off between the Drumcree Orange men and the Garvaghy residents continues. In Belfast on Monday – a court reserved judgment on the residents’ renewed application to stop the march. The march – and the…
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Donaldson still in Maghaberry hospital as old home goes up for sale
He was once known as the Right Honourable Sir Jeffrey Donaldson but is now known as inmate number E5032. Donaldson once proudly walked the corridors of Westminster, ate in fancy restaurants, and commanded media…
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‘They’ve got Marty’: the unsolved murder of Sunday World journalist Martin O’Hagan
A fearless investigative reporter who exposed the criminal underworld behind Northern Ireland’s paramilitaries, O’Hagan had made dangerous enemies on both sides, but no one has ever been convicted of his murder.…
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Drumcree: No deal over Garvaghy march, £3m spent so far, O'Neill defiant
The standoff between the Orangemen on Drumcree and the residents of the Garvaghy Road continues in Portadown. Negotiations involving the Secretary of State Chris Bryant, the Orange Order and Garvaghy Road residents…
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The mistake that left ‘Slab' Murphy with a big bill and a massive problem
In 1990, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy lost his seminal libel case against the Sunday Times. But formerly secret files reveal the south Armagh republican was actually expected to win it – and that the paper was considering…
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Drumcree: nationalist and unionist camps completely divided over Garvaghy march
There is a stalemate in Portadown and deep division in Stormont. On the Orange side, the issue is the rights of a small number of people to march their traditional route – backed by a legal ruling. On the Garvaghy…
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Siobhán Fenton: Former insider on Sinn Féin' ideological conundrums
When journalist Siobhan Fenton was headhunted by Sinn Féin in 2020 she was an outsider. Entering the party press office in Dublin, she was from Belfast, and didn’t support IRA violence. At the time Sinn Fein was…
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Drumcree: Orange Order to march Garvaghy road again after 28 years
The Parades Commission has given go ahead for Drumcree Orange march down the Garvaghy Road - but with stringent conditions. Permission has been granted for no more than 35 people, including five named marshals, to…
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'Donaldson should get 10 years', court hears
The former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson should serve at least 10 years in prison, a court in Newry has heard. The remarks were made during a submission hearing for disgraced former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson. The…
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Manhunt continues as Derry murderer remains on the run
Gary Anderson is a dangerous murderer –and he’s on the run. The Derry man had been granted compassionate leave for his father's funeral, even though his brother Sean, guilty of the same murder, wasn’t. The 29-year-old…
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‘We’ll forget her soon enough’ - Earl Spencer’s explosive claims about Princess Diana and King Charles
“We’ll forget her soon enough.” That is the extraordinary comment Charles Spencer, Princess Diana's brother, claims King Charles made in the days following her death. Now, Spencer’s new book has reignited old tensions…
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Johnny ‘Mad dog’ Adair: “He created the mad dog persona”
Johnny Adair, commonly referred to as ‘Mad dog Adair’, was one the most well-known terror bosses of the Troubles. He said his war was aimed at the IRA, but innocent Catholics were more often than not his real victims.…
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‘Beast of Kincora’ William McGrath manifesto cassette emerges after 55 years
William McGrath, was an influential loyalist, founder of the paramilitary group Tara, and a hardline evangelical Protestant. He was also a notorious predatory paedophile who rape dozens of young boys. Widely known as…
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The Belfast Telegraph Bomb: The day the IRA attacked the newsroom
On September the 15th, 1976, the Belfast Telegraph offices in Belfast centre was bombed by the Provisional IRA. Journalists were clattering at their typewriters when the second evacuation warning of the day went out on…
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Noah Donohoe: Fiona Donohoe says PSNI and DfI "sought to blame Noah", as jury finds police didn’t contribute to teen’s death
The jury in the inquest into the death of Noah Donohoe has found that the teenager died on the night of his disappearance, meaning that the PSNI’s response to his disappearance did not contribute to his death.…
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Seán Quinn's podcast: How is his version of the story going down?
Once Ireland's richest man, Seán Quinn has returned to tell his story once again, this time through his new podcast, The Quinn Files. Fionnán Sheahan is joined by Sunday Independent’s Liam Collins and the Irish…
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The ‘Hen House Boy’: 70 years on from the story of neglect which shocked NI
In September 1956 a Crossgar schoolboy made a shocking discovery after peering into a hen house and locking eyes with a child. The eyes belonged to seven-year-old Kevin Halfpenny – but he has been better known ever…
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Kew Files: Who was the senior DUP member who supported violence just weeks before the Good Friday Agreement?
A senior DUP member set out their explicit support for violence - just weeks before the Good Friday Agreement. Files released in the National Archives in Kew have revealed the details of a politician’s comments to a…
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Holy Cross: Clerics Fr Troy and Rev Hamilton on the protest and resolving it
When many people hear the words ‘Holy Cross’ - short for Holy Cross Girls Primary School – the words take them back to a dark time. Holy Cross is a Catholic School in a loyalist area, Upper Ardoyne or Glenbryn. In…
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Holy Cross 25-years-on: Allison Morris on what she saw, and the loyalist point of view
The Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, but certain areas of Belfast felt little effect of peace. In September 2001, the Holy Cross dispute became one of the most disturbing flashpoints of the post-Agreement era.…
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David Sullivan: The mystery of the headless alleged paedophile’s murder
In September 2000 a body was found in a bog in Fermanagh. This was not a so called ‘bog-body’, sacrificed long ago - the body turned out to belong to local bus driver David Sullivan, who had gone missing 17 months…
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God, Religion, the Troubles, and Christian Peacebuilding
For much of the world, the Troubles in Northern Ireland were about Catholics and Protestants fighting each other. With those labels being used as shorthand to this day to describe members of the two main communities,…
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“Everything that I was told was a lie”: Lauren Bradford-Clarke, Colin Howell’s daughter
Lauren Bradford-Clarke grew up believing her mother Lesley had taken her own life before finding out the truth – her father was a murderer. She was told her mum Lesley took her own life, eventually being told it was…
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The IRA’s infamous escape from Belfast’s prison ship, the HMS Maidstone
HMS Maidstone, an ex-Royal Navy Ship, was used in the early 1970s to hold internees. In January 1972, a group of IRA prisoners swam 270 meters through an ice-cold Belfast Lough in a bid to escape, greasing themselves…
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Drumcree: The crisis over an Orange parade which brought NI to the brink
The Parades Commission acted wrongly in blocking Orangemen from seeking to march down a mainly nationalist road in Portadown, a court has ruled. Senior figures at Portadown District believe it now clears the way for…
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Maura Lyons: The Rev Ian Paisley and the 15-year-old 'abducted' from west Belfast
The Rev Ian Paisley rose to prominence as the face of hardline unionism but the first time some would have heard of him would have been in connection with Maura Lyons. In 1956, the west Belfast teenager was smuggled…
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‘Peace at last’: The 1994 Loyalist Ceasefires
On the 13 October 1994, six weeks after the IRA announced a ‘complete cessation’, the Loyalist paramilitary groups declared their ceasefires. The UVF’s Gusty Spence announced loyalist violence was over, in a step that…
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Jon Burrows and the UUP in a fix as Mike Nesbitt resigns
The UUP's Mike Nesbitt has resigned as health minister – with a stinging public resignation letter aimed at his UUP leader Jon Burrows The row is over retaining emergency general surgery at the Causeway Hospital in…
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'It’s Over’: The 1994 IRA 'ceasefire'
After 25 years of what it termed ‘Armed Struggle’ and the ‘Long War’ , the Provisional IRA called a “complete cessation of military operations” on 31st August 1994 – 30 years ago. By that stage, the organisation was…
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Families search for truth over 1983 south Armagh murders
Paddy Mackin and Eamon MacMahon's bodies were found on the morning of the 13th of July, 1983. They both had been blasted with a shotgun as close range. The murders of the 34 year olds were first blamed on INLA…
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Culture war rages in the wake of Prof Jason Arday resignation
UPDATE: Professor Jason Arday was found deceased in London on Friday afternoon. He was found at an address in Battersea and pronounced dead at the scene. At 37, Jason Arday became the University of Cambridge’s…
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Fleadh Cheoil hailed as an enormous success for Belfast
Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann took over Belfast City Centre for over a week drawing huge crowds. The all-Ireland traditional Irish music competition and festival has been near universally hailed as an enormous success.…
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Inside the court as alleged godfather Daniel Kinahan charged and jailed
Daniel Kinahan sounded bemused when he described the frenzy around his life as “movie stuff”, but the scenes that accompanied his trip back to Ireland were undeniably cinematic. A trip on a €53m government jet that…
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'Where have all the Prods gone?': 'Exodus' from Londonderry 'ignored'
The Protestant exodus from Londonderry's cityside was ‘largely ignored or denied’ according to a new report. Its authors say they would like to see 'acknowledgement’ and 'acceptance' of the massive population shift…
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Mystery as News Letter editor Ben Lowry dumped – and won't be replaced
Ben Lowry is no longer the editor of the News Letter. The outspoken commentator was removed from his position without explanation. Mr Lowry had spent 19 years at what is the world's oldest continuously published…
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