In The News

Stephen McCullagh (36) thought he had created a cast iron alibi for himself when he planned the murder of his pregnant girlfriend Natalie McNally (32) in December 2022.

An avid gamer he was, he claimed, at home playing a video game live at the time she was killed. But as the PSNI was able to prove, he had in fact pre-recorded hours of himself playing the game. Police found that when he hit “play”, he set off to his girlfriend's house in Armagh where he savagely murdered her.

The case against McCullagh was built on circumstantial evidence, so for Natalie’s devastated family, conviction was not certain.

Seanín Graham is Northern Correspondent of The Irish Times and she was in court in Belfast for the trial.

She tells In the News she has never before witnessed such emotional scenes in court as when the guilty verdict was handed down on Monday.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon and Suzanne Brennan.
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A new investigation has shown the supply chain link between Russian missiles – ones used to deadly effect in Ukraine – and a factory in Limerick.

Aughinish Alumina was built near the Shannon Estuary in the 1980s to make alumina using raw bauxite from Guinea and Brazil.

A major employer in the area, it changed hands in 2006 when it was bought by a company called Rusal which at the time was controlled by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaskaa.

It has become one of the Europe’s biggest sources of the vital raw material. Alumina is a key part of the car and aircraft industry. It is also the bedrock of much of the weapons industry.

As part of an in-depth investigation, Irish Times crime and security editor Conor Gallagher traced the exports from the Limerick factory and explains why when the EU looked to sanction any industry which might be helpful to the Russian war machine, Aughinish Alumina was given a pass.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon and Andrew McNair.
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The newly-formed Women’s Coalition on Immigration is calling on the Government to publish crime statistics broken down by country of origin and ethnicity.

It argues – without supporting evidence – that there is a link between the increase in reported incidents of sexual violence against women in Ireland and immigration.

The coalition was established in December by The Countess, a campaigning group led by barrister Laoise de Brún.

It was initially set up in 2020 to campaign against “gender identity politics”.

But why has it pivoted from trans issues to immigration? What data has it put forward to support its claims? And who are the political representatives giving this small anti-immigration group their support? Irish Times political correspondent Ellen Coyne explains.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Aideen Finnegan.
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Three victims of the IRA’s bombing campaign in Britain have spent the past four years building a legal case in an attempt to prove that Gerry Adams was a leading member of the IRA during the Troubles.

The former Sinn Féin leader spent two days in the witness box in London, maintaining he was never a member of the republican paramilitary organisation responsible for the injuries of John Clark in the Old Bailey explosion in 1973, Jonathan Ganesh at Canary Wharf in 1996 and Barry Laycock a few months later in Manchester.

The 77-year-old appeared, according to Irish Times Ireland and Britain editor Mark Hennessy, frail but he was robust in his denial of the claims.

So what happens next? Why might the judge rule that the case should never have been brought? And why did Adams wear a bulletproof vest on the first day of the hearing?

As the court prepares to sit for its final day, Hennessy explains the background to the case and the evidence presented.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon and John Casey.
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When Michael and Rose Murray were refused planning permission for a substantial dormer bungalow in 2006 on land they owned in Co Meath, they went ahead with more ambitious plans anyway. They built a detached house that was twice the size of the one denied permission at scenic Faughan Hill. Shortly after they moved in, a complaint to Meath Co Council kick-started an epic legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court as the couple sought, to no avail over two decades, to be granted retrospective planning permission for their house. The process culminated this week with the council seizing the property. Irish Times science correspondent Caroline O’Doherty, who has been following the case over the decades, gives the background; while Irish Times legal affairs correspondent Mary Carolan explains what happened in court this week – and why it might not be the last the courts have seen of this saga.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Aideen Finnegan
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