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

888 Articles
2 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Puberty blockers unlikely to be banned in NI — which could be back door for drugs going to Britain

Stormont’s Department of Health has said that puberty blockers for children will remain lawful in Northern Ireland un...

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5 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Former Sinn Féin press officer makes hefty payment to ex-PSNI man he defamed online

A former Sinn Féin press officer has paid substantial damages to an ex-police officer after making untrue allegations...

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6 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Stormont is full of drawn-out unpredictable games so it’s perfect for first Test cricket match in...

I can still remember the frequency: 198 kHz longwave. Lying in bed late at night, Radio 4’s crackly signal came from ...

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7 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Secret memos told PM ‘quality intelligence' on IRA was 'rarely obtainable’ – contrary to what’s n...

Twelve days after Sir Patrick Mayhew’s appointment as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, he sent a ‘secret and ...

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14 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

The evidence that Belfast schoolgirl Julie Livingstone was hit by baton round fired at a forbidde...

Julie Livingstone should be alive today. She might have now been a mother or a grandmother, spoiling her grandchildre...

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19 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Starmer's bland answers were designed to tell us little – but he hinted at one significant NI policy

Sir Keir Starmer's six-minute press conference was frustratingly banal – yet this may be what we're getting used to f...

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19 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

After talking tough in Opposition, new PM Keir Starmer is now coy about united Ireland referendum

New Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has declined to state clearly whether he might call a border poll – while the SDL...

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20 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Swagger, hubris and greed of Paisley led to biblical fall and end of family’s political dynasty

When Ian Paisley Jr was eight, he declared: “What this country needs is a dictator, and I’m the man to do it.” For th...

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21 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

As the DUP’s once-lofty citadels fall, it pushes for a unionist unity which would be disastrous

What unfolded in the early hours of yesterday morning reinforces what is an insoluble problem for unionism. Many unio...

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23 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

What it’s like to be at an election count in Northern Ireland

This is an extract from Uncovered with Sam McBride, a subscriber-only weekly newsletter from the Belfast Telegraph’s ...

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24 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Isolated Naomi Long abandons appeal plan over sex offences ruling after other Executive parties c...

Naomi Long has abandoned her plan to appeal a judgment overturning a law criminalising those who named Jimmy Savile a...

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25 days ago
belfasttelegraph.co.uk

There’s more in common between Liz Truss and People Before Profit’s communist manifesto than is f...

People Before Profit’s manifesto doesn’t use the word communism, but what it proposes is at least communism lite.

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