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

834 Articles
16 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

The Kingsmill massacre: A squeeze of the hand on a cold winter’s night shows hope was always there

Imagine you are driving down a dark country road on a winter evening when you are stopped by armed men blocking the r...

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17 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Inside IRA decommissioning: US spy satellites, Adams criticising the IRA, and inspections in dark...

Ever since the IRA’s historic decommissioning of weapons, the process which saw arms destroyed has been clothed in ac...

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19 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Informant was paid equivalent of £55k for info which saw ‘notorious IRA gang’ arrested

The largest single payment to an informant in Northern Ireland during the first 13 years of the Troubles was £15,000 ...

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20 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

SF lobbied for return of on the run IRA man later killed by his former comrades

Sinn Féin pressed to get on the run Provo Kevin McGuigan back into Northern Ireland in 2000 — 15 years before the IRA...

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22 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Tony Blair’s Government wanted an amnesty only for terrorists, with soldiers and police excluded,...

Long before the government legislated to give an amnesty for all Troubles crimes, its own files show it had been warn...

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22 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Sinn Féin’s track record on housing in Northern Ireland is nothing to write home about

Parties seeking power make extravagant promises. When voters consider a party that has never previously been in a cou...

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24 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Despite Sinn Féin now denouncing Troubles amnesty, it secretly pressed for an amnesty...but just ...

For years, Sinn Féin has been at the forefront of the campaign against the Government’s Troubles amnesty.

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25 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Jeffrey Donaldson privately vowed to stand ‘shoulder to shoulder’ with David Trimble — even if th...

Despite his hardline public stance, Jeffrey Donaldson privately said if the IRA allowed its arms dumps to be inspecte...

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26 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Peter Robinson ‘well aware’ DUP was handing seat to Sinn Féin by splitting unionist vote in 2001

Peter Robinson was “well aware” that DUP support for an independent unionist candidate in the 2001 General Election w...

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26 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Government’s ‘private understanding with Sinn Féin’ revealed – and NIO won’t say if it remains in...

The Government had a “private understanding with Sinn Féin” – and recorded it in written form – that it would set up ...

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27 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

South Armagh watchtowers had function so secretive that security agencies wouldn’t even tell America

The south Armagh watchtowers had a function which was so secretive that British security agencies did not even tell A...

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28 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Tony Blair worked behind scenes to thwart Pat Finucane public inquiry after discussion with MI5 boss

Tony Blair worked behind the scenes to avoid a full public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane after a conversati...

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