Sam McBride Northern Ireland Editor
  • Belfast
  • Belfast Telegraph

Sam McBride is the Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph and the Sunday Independent. His 2019 book Burned: The Inside Story of the Cash-for-Ash Scandal and Northern Ireland’s Secretive New Elite became a Sunday Times and Irish Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize. He is a regular presence on radio and television, giving analysis of events which impact on Northern Irish politics and society.

Published In

Belfast Telegraph, Sunday Independent

Focus Areas

  • Northern Ireland

844 Articles
8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Tens of thousands are homeless in NI as Stormont’s landlord class grows wealthier

One of the most depressing elements of Northern Ireland’s situation is not that it doesn’t have a government – a prob...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Poor planning has destroyed much of NI’s countryside – at a massive cost

Disastrous planning has not only destroyed much of Northern Ireland’s countryside with dispersed rural properties but...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Sentencing of Mobuoy illegal dump criminals delayed yet again due to legal aid dispute

More than ten years after the authorities finally shut down Mobuoy illegal dump, the sentencing of two men who have a...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Why I don’t buy Heaton-Harris’ defence of ‘unbelievably straightforward’ trade system

If the Irish Sea border was a person, it would have been groaning in dismay at hearing Chris Heaton-Harris try to def...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Housing has come a long way in this country… but we still have distance to travel

Few human needs are as basic as housing. After food, water and air, shelter is crucial to our ability to survive.

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Lawyer pulls out of Nama trial which now won't happen for at least another year

One of Northern Ireland’s biggest criminal trials in years which involves allegations of criminality by some of Belfa...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

We might all have been seriously misreading who Jeffrey Donaldson is and where he wants to take N...

What if the real Jeffrey Donaldson is not the man we’ve thought him to be? For years, Donaldson has widely been seen ...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

More than 2,000 civil servants on ‘temporary’ promotion... one for over 18 years

More than 10% of all civil servants are on temporary promotion — and one of them has been ‘temporarily’ promoted for ...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Northern Ireland’s frightening decay is breaking public services, and breaking people

There’s an end of days feel to Northern Ireland. It’s not that Irish unity is necessarily looming, but that dramatic ...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Lough Neagh will remain seriously polluted for 20 years, even if we cut emissions — which are sti...

Lough Neagh is so heavily polluted that it would take 20 years to make it environmentally “safe” even if the pollutio...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Disquiet within PSNI’s most elite unit over proposal to move it to RAF Aldergrove

A plan to move the PSNI’s most elite officers to RAF Aldergrove has led to internal disquiet amid concerns that the l...

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8 months ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Testing of Lough Neagh fish for poison begins 10 days after full extent of pollution crisis revealed

Ten days after the Belfast Telegraph revealed the scale of devastating pollution afflicting Lough Neagh, the authorit...

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