The BelTel
by Belfast Telegraph
Latest episode
Irish unity: Have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael been forced to take it…
Irish unity: Have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael been forced to take it…
About this podcast
The BelTel brings you some of Northern Ireland's top journalists, Allison Morris, Sam McBride and Suzanne Breen to name but a few, giving you the inside stories behind what is in the news. Presented by Ciarán Dunbar, the Bel Tel investigates, debates and informs every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 893 episodes
- Irish unity: Have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael been forced to take it seriously? · 40 minMore people in Northern Ireland want the union and the United Kingdom than want a united Ireland. But the gap is closing, more younger people favour Irish unity than not, and…
- Sinn Féin surge post-Drumcree, unionists divided, and united Ireland gap closing · 35 minSinn Féin has seen a post-Drumcree surge in support, according to the latest Belfast Telegraph LucidTalk polling. The DUP, on the other hand, has seen its support fall to a…
- Hit-and-run driver Martin Olali Junior sentenced for Fleadh bust-up · 18 minWest Belfast hit-and-run driver Martin Olali Junior has been sentenced to another three months behind bars after a bust up at the Fleadh in August. The court heard that he had…
- Bizarre details of juror's behaviour at Noah Donohoe Inquest revealed · 24 minReporting restrictions in the Noah Donohoe Inquest have been lifted. Courts use reporting restrictions to limit press coverage of legal proceedings to ensure the proceedings are…
- Chloe Mitchell murder trial: Jury hears 'Jack the ripper fascinated' accused 'dismembered body' · 15 minThe prosecution in the Chloe Mitchell murder trial has laid out their case. 21-year-old Chloe was found dead in Ballymena days after going missing in June 2023. 30-year-old…
- US voters punish Trump but is MAGA finished? · 30 minThe Democrats have stormed back into power, seizing control of both the House and Senate and delivering a political blow to Donald Trump. But while the mid-terms may be over…
- Carla Lockhart finally quits: What’s next for the Upper Bann MP and the DUP? · 40 minAfter weeks of hints and speculation Carla Lockhart has finally quit the DUP. In a letter penned entitled ‘A renewed vision for unionism’, the Upper Bann MP said she wanted to…
- Richard Moore: Forgiving the British Army officer who took his sight · 27 minWhen Richard Moore was 10 years old a British Army captain shot him in the face with a rubber bullet. The Derry School boy lost his sight completely in an instant but twenty…
- Revisited: The witch trials of Islandmagee · 22 minIslandmagee is a quiet civil parish on the east coast of Northern Ireland. But in 1711, a newcomer to the area begins to have fits, regurgitates pins and buttons, and suddenly…
- The murder of two Belfast Telegraph delivery drivers, 50 years on · 25 minOn the 30th of October 30, 1976, two Belfast Telegraph delivery men Charles Corbett and John Maguire were shot dead in north Belfast. John Maguire's ten-year-old son witnessed…
- DUP: Lockhart set to walk as Robinson fudges forcing O'Neill out · 11 minDUP leader Gavin Robinson says Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly will quit joint engagements with First Minister Michelle O’Neill - but he won’t be pulling her out of…
- How torture videos are escalating drug debt intimidation in Ireland · 25 minIncidents of violent drug-debt intimidation are rising in Ireland – and the methods are becoming more concerning and elaborate. Brutal enforcers are now using 'disappearing'…
- Judge dismisses Orange Order challenge but warns against "joy in the outcome" · 23 minA judge has dismissed an Orange Order against the Secretary of State’s decision to ban the Drumcree parade from going down the Garvaghy Road. But Mr Justice Scoffield said those…
- Is Carla Lockhart going to leave the DUP? · 28 minThe Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart has been to the forefront of Northern Ireland's politics ever since the re-emergence of the Drumcree Parade issue. The DUP-woman has stridently…
- Jeffrey Donaldson: Dark questions over ex-DUP leader’s curious African shadow career · 41 minJeffrey Donaldson was doing paid work for the ministry of defence in Africa even as acute political turmoil was engulfing his party at home in Northern Ireland. Why was the then…
- Jeffrey Donaldson: Former MP being investigated over alleged Westminster rape · 22 minThe Metropolitan Police in London are investigating Jeffrey Donaldson over a rape allegation It is alleged to have happened in the former MP's Westminster office. Donaldson is…
- Portadown District’s offers to secure Drumcree parade deal revealed in court · 28 minOffers made by Portadown District to allow Orangemen to walk the Garvaghy Road have been revealed in court – including a 4AM march, accompanied by a residents’ protest. The court…
- Give My Head Peace: Comedies axed as BBC makes deep cuts · 27 minPerforated Ulster, Give My Head Peace, and The Long and the Short of it, all produced by the Hole in the Wall gang are being axed by the BBC. The Blame Game has also been culled…
- Ammi Burke: Solicitor's legal showdown with her former employer · 22 minThe Burkes are back, but this time it's not Enoch grabbing the headlines, it's his sister Ammi. In 2019, Ammi Burke was dismissed from her role at one of Ireland’s most…
- Jeffrey Donaldson’s victims in their own words · 37 minThe PSNI has released the audio statements of Jeffrey Donaldson’s victims, Victim A and Victim B. Their voices have been artificially generated to protect the victims’ identity…
- Jeffrey Donaldson given 15 years - but will be out in seven · 17 minJeffrey Donaldson received a 15 year sentence in prison for his crimes. He was given 11 years for rape against Victim B and four years for all offences against Victim A, to be…
- Missing for 34 years: Patsy O’Sullivan and the secret family no one knew about · 29 minIt was in April 1992 when Patrick 'Patsy' O'Sullivan called into his brother Jerry's home like it was any other day, but it’s a day that will forever remain etched in Jerry’s…
- Drumcree: Garvaghy Residents’ challenge dismissed, dispute rumbles on despite parade ban · 23 minThe parading crisis in Portadown seems over on the ground, but it is very much alive in the courts, on the airwaves, and in politics. The Northern Ireland Secretary of State…
- The St Andrews Agreement 20 years on: Paisley signs up to power-sharing · 30 minThe St Andrews Agreement was signed twenty years ago on 13 October 2006. Officially. it just amended the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement, but it did bring about some profound…
- BONUS: From green fields to factory farms: How ‘catastrophic’ industrial agriculture policy is trashing environment · 40 minNorthern Ireland’s Agriculture and Environment Minister Andrew Muir interviewed by Belfast Telegraph Northern Ireland Editor Sam McBride, discussing how what he says has been a…
- Encrochat: Spy hack on gangster phones still decimating NI drug dealers’ ranks · 31 minIn recent weeks, the 2020 French hack into the secret gangster phone network Encrochat has continued to see Northern Ireland drug dealers sent to Maghaberry. Multiple prison…
- Drumcree: Suzanne Breen on how the impact Garvaghy dispute is having on politics · 36 minThe stand-off between the Drumcree Orange men and the Garvaghy residents continues. In Belfast on Monday – a court reserved judgment on the residents’ renewed application to stop…
- Donaldson still in Maghaberry hospital as old home goes up for sale · 22 minHe was once known as the Right Honourable Sir Jeffrey Donaldson but is now known as inmate number E5032. Donaldson once proudly walked the corridors of Westminster, ate in fancy…
- ‘They’ve got Marty’: the unsolved murder of Sunday World journalist Martin O’Hagan · 23 minA fearless investigative reporter who exposed the criminal underworld behind Northern Ireland’s paramilitaries, O’Hagan had made dangerous enemies on both sides, but no one has…
- Drumcree: No deal over Garvaghy march, £3m spent so far, O'Neill defiant · 31 minThe standoff between the Orangemen on Drumcree and the residents of the Garvaghy Road continues in Portadown. Negotiations involving the Secretary of State Chris Bryant, the…
- The mistake that left ‘Slab' Murphy with a big bill and a massive problem · 30 minIn 1990, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy lost his seminal libel case against the Sunday Times. But formerly secret files reveal the south Armagh republican was actually expected to win it…
- Drumcree: nationalist and unionist camps completely divided over Garvaghy march · 41 minThere is a stalemate in Portadown and deep division in Stormont. On the Orange side, the issue is the rights of a small number of people to march their traditional route – backed…
- Siobhán Fenton: Former insider on Sinn Féin' ideological conundrums · 48 minWhen journalist Siobhan Fenton was headhunted by Sinn Féin in 2020 she was an outsider. Entering the party press office in Dublin, she was from Belfast, and didn’t support IRA…
- Drumcree: Orange Order to march Garvaghy road again after 28 years · 27 minThe Parades Commission has given go ahead for Drumcree Orange march down the Garvaghy Road - but with stringent conditions. Permission has been granted for no more than 35…
- 'Donaldson should get 10 years', court hears · 11 minThe former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson should serve at least 10 years in prison, a court in Newry has heard. The remarks were made during a submission hearing for disgraced…
- Manhunt continues as Derry murderer remains on the run · 23 minGary Anderson is a dangerous murderer –and he’s on the run. The Derry man had been granted compassionate leave for his father's funeral, even though his brother Sean, guilty of…
- ‘We’ll forget her soon enough’ - Earl Spencer’s explosive claims about Princess Diana and King Charles · 27 min“We’ll forget her soon enough.” That is the extraordinary comment Charles Spencer, Princess Diana's brother, claims King Charles made in the days following her death. Now…
- Johnny ‘Mad dog’ Adair: “He created the mad dog persona” · 33 minJohnny Adair, commonly referred to as ‘Mad dog Adair’, was one the most well-known terror bosses of the Troubles. He said his war was aimed at the IRA, but innocent Catholics…
- ‘Beast of Kincora’ William McGrath manifesto cassette emerges after 55 years · 40 minWilliam McGrath, was an influential loyalist, founder of the paramilitary group Tara, and a hardline evangelical Protestant. He was also a notorious predatory paedophile who…
- The Belfast Telegraph Bomb: The day the IRA attacked the newsroom · 27 minOn September the 15th, 1976, the Belfast Telegraph offices in Belfast centre was bombed by the Provisional IRA. Journalists were clattering at their typewriters when the second…
- Noah Donohoe: Fiona Donohoe says PSNI and DfI "sought to blame Noah", as jury finds police didn’t contribute to teen’s death · 26 minThe jury in the inquest into the death of Noah Donohoe has found that the teenager died on the night of his disappearance, meaning that the PSNI’s response to his disappearance…
- Seán Quinn's podcast: How is his version of the story going down? · 24 minOnce Ireland's richest man, Seán Quinn has returned to tell his story once again, this time through his new podcast, The Quinn Files. Fionnán Sheahan is joined by Sunday…
- The ‘Hen House Boy’: 70 years on from the story of neglect which shocked NI · 24 minIn September 1956 a Crossgar schoolboy made a shocking discovery after peering into a hen house and locking eyes with a child. The eyes belonged to seven-year-old Kevin Halfpenny…
- Kew Files: Who was the senior DUP member who supported violence just weeks before the Good Friday Agreement? · 33 minA senior DUP member set out their explicit support for violence - just weeks before the Good Friday Agreement. Files released in the National Archives in Kew have revealed the…
- Holy Cross: Clerics Fr Troy and Rev Hamilton on the protest and resolving it · 43 minWhen many people hear the words ‘Holy Cross’ - short for Holy Cross Girls Primary School – the words take them back to a dark time. Holy Cross is a Catholic School in a loyalist…
- Holy Cross 25-years-on: Allison Morris on what she saw, and the loyalist point of view · 37 minThe Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, but certain areas of Belfast felt little effect of peace. In September 2001, the Holy Cross dispute became one of the most…
- David Sullivan: The mystery of the headless alleged paedophile’s murder · 19 minIn September 2000 a body was found in a bog in Fermanagh. This was not a so called ‘bog-body’, sacrificed long ago - the body turned out to belong to local bus driver David…
- God, Religion, the Troubles, and Christian Peacebuilding · 35 minFor much of the world, the Troubles in Northern Ireland were about Catholics and Protestants fighting each other. With those labels being used as shorthand to this day to…
- “Everything that I was told was a lie”: Lauren Bradford-Clarke, Colin Howell’s daughter · 48 minLauren Bradford-Clarke grew up believing her mother Lesley had taken her own life before finding out the truth – her father was a murderer. She was told her mum Lesley took her…
- The IRA’s infamous escape from Belfast’s prison ship, the HMS Maidstone · 26 minHMS Maidstone, an ex-Royal Navy Ship, was used in the early 1970s to hold internees. In January 1972, a group of IRA prisoners swam 270 meters through an ice-cold Belfast Lough…
