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/ 27 October 2004
At midnight in the Ritz bar, the country and western music brought the painfully shy bachelor farmers on to the dance floor. Gliding and turning and sweating with nerves, they briefly clung to that rare commodity on Ireland’s west coast: women.
Jack from Tipperary sipped a pint of Guinness at the bar. Pushing 80, this was his 40th fruitless year at the matchmaking festival but, as the song lyrics kept telling him, hope was a marvellous thing.
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/ 18 October 2004
Darren Dent surveyed the concrete walkways of Stella Gardens, the low-rise Dublin estate where he spent 15 years addicted to heroin and where children still alleviate boredom by sniffing Tippex painted on their sleeves. Stella Gardens is on the edge of Dublin 4, the capital’s best postcode and the heart of Ireland’s economic miracle.
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/ 21 September 2004
The most important political talks in the recent history of Northern Ireland, which began on Thursday last week, appear to hang on the uncertain health of the 78-year-old Ian Paisley. Paisley, the undisputed leader of unionism, resolved to make the 640km journey to Leeds Castle in Kent, south-east England — where British Prime Minister Tony Blair hosted the talks — by car and ferry after doctors banned him from flying.
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/ 19 January 2004
Not far from the red, white and blue paving stones, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) graffiti and the ”Chinks out” notices scratched outside Chinese takeaway restaurants in south Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, Hua Long Lin was at home watching TV when a man burst in and smashed a brick into his face.
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/ 24 January 2003
Libya secretly offered a huge donation to the United Kingdom’s cash-strapped Labour Party as part of its attempts to end its international isolation. The Libyan proposal was rejected. But the The Guardian has uncovered other attempts by Libya to get close to Labour.
As the Edinburgh festival swells in size —this year sees a record 20 342 performances on the fringe alone — there are worries it is becoming unsustainable, writes Angelique Chrisafis.