Stephen Glover on The Press

In Britain we are invited to believe that the troubles in Northern Ireland are dead and buried. How could they not be if Dr Paisley, a bigoted loyalist, and Martin McGuinness, a former member of the Provisional IRA, are colleagues in the same Northern Irish administration?

What some British people may not understand is that the troubles have another dimension in the Irish Republic. In some quarters Sinn Fein (the political wing of the Provisional IRA) continues to be as hated and feared as it has been in Northern Ireland.

The hatred spills over into journalism. From time to time the Dublin-based Sunday Independent (owned by Sir Anthony O'Reilly's Independent News and Media, as is this newspaper) has had a go at an investigative reporter called Frank Connolly, who writes for the Irish Mail on Sunday. The two papers are in some measure rivals, and some people have suggested that the Sunday Independent is partly driven by a wish to discredit its new, quite recently launched competitor.

There is little doubt, though, that Mr Connolly is sympathetic to Sinn Fein. Some would go further. In December 2005 the then Irish justice minister Michael McDowell controversially accused Mr Connolly of being connected with an IRA plot to provide FARC terrorists in Colombia with expertise in the use of explosives. He also claimed that Mr Connolly travelled to Colombia in April 2001 on a false passport, along with his brother Niall and a convicted IRA bomb maker called Padraig Wilson.

Frank Connolly strenuously denied these allegations. However, he chose not to sue Mr McDowell or the Sunday Independent, which had been writing about his alleged Colombian connections since 2003.

No proof exists that Frank Connolly has ever been a member of the IRA. That he comes from a family with IRA sympathies can hardly be denied. His brother Niall was convicted by Colombian authorities for training FARC guerrillas and sentenced to 17 years before skipping bail. Frank was arrested and questioned by Irish police in 1981 in connection with the non-fatal shooting of a British businessman in Dublin, and released. In 1982 he was given a two-year suspended sentence for riotous behaviour in an IRA-led violent demonstration outside the British Embassy in Dublin the previous year.

Hatreds bubbled up again between the Sunday Independent and Frank Connolly during last month's election campaign in the Irish Republic. Mr Connolly wrote a series of stories damaging to Bertie Ahern. On 20 May the Irish Mail on Sunday carried a splash, written by Mr Connolly, which alleged that over a period of eight years Mr Ahern had paid €180,000 to a woman called Miss Larkin, the last occasion being in May 2006. There was a suggestion that these payments should have attracted tax.

Over the years Mr Ahern has attracted a number of allegations of financial irregularity. I am in no position to judge the veracity of this story. Mr Connolly's critics on the Sunday Independent and elsewhere say that during the election he was driven by a secret agenda - namely to damage Mr Ahern and his Fianna Fail party, and to advance the cause of Sinn Fein. They also point out that whatever little tricks Mr Ahern may have got up to over the years, they pale into insignificance when set alongside the alleged criminal activities of Sinn Fein, which do not attract Mr Connolly's notice.

If it was his intention to promote the cause of Sinn Fein, he did not make a very good job of it. Gerry Adams, the President of Sinn Fein, predicted that his party would double its number of seats in the Irish Republic from five to 10. In the event it got four. Mr Ahern has formed a coalition government for the third time.

The question remains as to why the Irish Mail on Sunday should be using the services of a man who at the very least is friendly towards Sinn Fein. There can be little doubt that the paper's senior executives are aware of his political leanings, though it is possible, even probable, that they are unknown at the headquarters of Associated Newspapers in London.

One explanation may be that Mr Connolly is a very able investigative journalist, and his qualities are thought by his bosses to outweigh his political sympathies. Another is that the Irish Mail on Sunday is aware of the anti-republican reputation which the Mail Group has in Ireland, and by employing Mr Connolly hopes to signal to republicans that the Irish version of the paper is cut from a different cloth.

And I suppose the Irish Mail on Sunday could reasonably argue that if Ian Paisley can, figuratively speaking, get into bed with Martin McGuinness, it is no great scandal for it to employ someone who may have a weak spot for the IRA. Perhaps this is right. The world has changed. No doubt we must all move on. Yet I still can't help thinking that the whole business is rather rum.

Leave the parties to diarists

I was disturbed to learn that at least three editors attended a farewell party in honour of Lord Levy at Lancaster House last Tuesday. His Lordship, who was Tony Blair's chief fundraiser, remains on police bail, and still faces possible charges in the so-called "cash for honours" inquiry. The party was paid for out of the public purse, and is said to have cost £6,000.

Lord Levy may, of course, be as innocent as the day is long. But until that is established, editors should steer clear of him. The three in question were Will Lewis of the The Daily Telegraph, Matthew D'Ancona of The Spectator, and Patience Wheatcroft of The Sunday Telegraph. Are any of them close friends of Lord Levy's? I doubt it. They were asked as prominent editors. Their attendance inevitably bestowed a degree of benediction on his Lordship, which is presumably why they were invited. The police and the prosecuting authorities may have got the message that Lord Levy has powerful editors on his side.

I don't complain that several lobby journalists were at the party, since it was an event of some news significance. Nor am I going to get worked up by the presence of former editors. Tony Blair's attendance may even do him some credit, since he is standing by his old friend, though it would have done him more credit if he had footed the bill rather than making the taxpayer do so.

But existing editors should not have gone. They should be more careful with the good name of their publications. They are not private individuals who can behave as they want. Incidentally, I was surprised that Londoner's Diary in The Evening Standard carried no account. I hope the newspaper's coyness had nothing to do with the presence of one of its own senior editorial executives at the party.

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