What I Read This Week: Irish life laid bare in Letterkenny court and civil war in Sudan

Hello from the newsroom, where I work as a general news reporter, meaning I cover a wide variety of topics on any given day. This week, I’ve been working on a housing feature, sifting through and sending some Freedom of Information requests, attending a press conference on the war in Sudan, and organising interviews with humanitarian workers.
As my “beat” can be so diverse, I try to make sure my reading is as wide-ranging as possible too. So, outside of the main headlines, here is a selection of some of the writing and listening that caught my eye this week.
1. This feature from Letterkenny District Court really stuck with me. Hearings resumed last Monday after the August break, and our Legal Affairs Correspondent Mary Carolan spent a day there, reporting on the cases that came up. It’s known that poorer socio-economic groups are over-represented in the criminal justice system, both in Ireland and beyond, and more-so when combined with other factors, such as addiction or poor mental health. This was laid bare here, as the court heard about cases including a homeless man with drug addiction issues who broke into a cafe and “gorged” on cake because he had not eaten in three or four days. The man had not sought bail on the charges because he had “nowhere to live and no means of support”.
2. Hannah McCarthy’s report on a peace camp which aims to “keep Israeli and Palestinian teens talking” was an interesting read. In trying to create a dialogue between these young people in communities in conflict, educators don’t shy away from the difficult topics. Israeli teenagers are shown presentations about military occupation of the West Bank, the siege of the Gaza Strip, and settler violence against Palestinians, while Palestinian teenagers are taught about the history of the Holocaust and the extent to which military service is now a cornerstone of Jewish-Israeli identity.
3. As tensions about migration rise across Europe, Derek Scally had the news about Germany beginning to impose border checks on all of its national frontiers in an effort to stunt “irregular migration”. Following this move in what has been the heart of the EU’s open-border Schengen area, Jack Power has the wider EU analysis in his Europe Letter, touching on how the extreme right’s gains in some elections are forcing other EU states to consider a hardened policy on immigration.
4. Against the background of that increasingly hostile atmosphere towards migrants and asylum seekers, Sorcha Pollak has a more uplifting feature about community groups in Ireland which have been set up to offer volunteer services to new arrivals. The solidarity and goodwill between them is quite moving, but they are also critical of the State’s over-reliance on volunteers, and call on the State to be more “proactive”.
I liked this super short and to the point quip made in a Letter to the Editor from Robert Gogan about the cost of policing protests outside Leinster House: “Sir, – I note that the cost of policing the various protests outside Leinster House has topped €1 million this year. That’s around the cost of three bicycle sheds. Not bad value for money!”
This episode of the Inside Politics podcast, on how the Government has responded to the scoping report into sexual abuse at religious-run schools, and Sinn Féin’s long-awaited housing plan, provided the backdrop to my working day on Wednesday.
This long-read in The Financial Times, also published in The Irish Times, about the countries jockeying for influence in Sudan’s devastating civil war is essential reading.
Also on Sudan, a multi-publication investigation by Lighthouse Reports, Sky News, Le Monde and The Washington Post, is sombre reading, but excellent journalism. For the first time, visual evidence proves that Rapid Support Forces paramilitaries are involved in the extrajudicial killings of unarmed civilians.
Finally, in the 24-hour news cycle, it’s impossible to catch up with everything, but The Great Read by The New York Times is a section I recommend becoming a regular reader of. Every weekday, it highlights one piece of exceptional writing. This week, you can read about how all-you-can-eat shrimp brings out the worst in people, and the inner workings of the mortuary of choice for New York’s power brokers and celebrities.