A former soldier was today (Tuesday) jailed for three years for storing explosives, firearms and ammunition linked to east Belfast UVF.
Bryce Pounder (38), of Parker Street off the Newtownards Road in east Belfast, had previously pleaded guilty to possessing explosives in suspicious circumstances and possessing articles for use in terrorism.
The defendant also admitted possessing a firearm and ammunition in suspicious circumstances.
Belfast Crown Court heard that police searched his home under warrant on November 18, 2022.
During a search of his apartment on the lower Newtownards Road, police recovered a “dismantled pipe bomb’’, a handgun, silencer and assorted ammunition.
The items were examined by forensic scientists who described the ‘dismantled pipe bomb’’ as being made up of a copper pipe, with two end caps which contained 11.9 grams of small arms propellant.
The weapon found was an 8mm blank firing pistol designed to resemble a Beretta handgun along with a 8mm magazine and nine blank cartridges.
It was the prosecution case that the blank firing pistol had originally been orange in colour and was subsequently painted black.
Said the prosecution: “It was wrapped in a tea towel and an examination revealed that Pounder’s DNA was found on it.
“Police also recovered a sound moderator, or silencer, inside a sock along with 98 cartridges of various calibres.
“DNA was recovered from the moderator and the sock and the defendant could not be excluded from touching the items.
“The defendant’s fingerprints were found on the exterior of one of the bags containing the ammunition.
“The firearm items were found inside a plastic wrapped in masking tape and the defendant’s fingerprints were also found on the lid of the box.’’
Pounder’s DNA, the court heard, was found on the masking tape on the outside of the box.
The prosecutor said police also recovered “UVF clothing and insignia’’ but Pounder faced no membership charges over the proscribed organisation.
Pounder was not at home at the time of the search and he was detained at another address where detectives believed he was hiding to evade arrest.
During interviews at the serious crime custody suite at Musgrave police station, Pounder accepted that he knew the ammunition was in the plastic box and confirmed he knew about the presence of the “dismantled pipe bomb’’, firearm and silencer.
He said he opened the bags and knew what the handgun was because he was a former rifleman with a regiment in Yorkshire
Pounder told detectives that he had amassed a £1,800 drug debt and had been approached by “menacing individuals’’ and was asked to keep the items. He claimed he was told if he complied the “slate would be wiped clean’’.
He said he stored the items out of “fear for his safety’’ and denied he was a member of east Belfast UVF.
Defence barrister Neil Connor KC revealed Pounder served in the British Army for a period of time before he was medically discharged due to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Mr Connor said Pounder’s involvement stemmed from owing money for cocaine and that he was subsequently “preyed upon’’ and “exploited’’ and “may have come under a degree of pressure to store the items in his home’’.
The defence barrister said his client was a “temporary custodian of these items for other more involved individuals” and that Pounder never intended to use them himself.
Mr Connor added that Pounder was a hard-working industrious father-of-three who has expressed remorse and regret for his involvement.
Passing sentence, Mr Justice Fowler said the moderator or silencer was “capable of facilitating the use of a firearm and therefore potentially became dangerous in conjunction with a suitable weapon’’.
“This would result in a lethal device but there is no evidence that either the moderator or ammunition had been used, instead they were being stored by this defendant on his premises.
“I am satisfied that they were not held for a lawful purpose, rather they were retained on behalf of a loyalist paramilitary organisation and then to be returned to that organisation.’’
He accepted that there was no evidence that the defendant had any allegiance to a loyalist paramilitary organisation.
The senior judge said Pounder’s offending arose from the “situational pressures’’ exerted on him by those who owned the terrorist haul over his drug debt and his subsequent “vulnerability to coercion’’.
Mr Justice Fowler said that since his detection, Pounder has “disengaged with former associates’’ and has stopped consuming drugs.
“I do not find the defendant to be a danger to the public in the future,’’ added Mr Justice Fowler.
Pounder was sentenced under the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021.
Under the legislation, the defendant will have to serve two thirds of his sentence before he is eligible to apply to the Parole Commissioners to be released.
If the Parole Commissioners decide it is not safe to release him back into the community at that point, Pounder will serve a further year in custody before being released on supervised licence for a period of 12 months.
The court ordered the destruction of all material seized.
GERRY ADAMS: A new plan for 1916 battlefield site is the way forward.
HISTORIC: The iconic terraced housing in Moore Street- trade union ICTU has met with campaigners to discuss a way to save the site
Opinion July 07, 2026 by Gerry Adams
THE 1916 Moore Street Battlefield site in the centre of Dublin is a hugely important historical and cultural location whose significance has been ignored by successive Irish governments for over a century. Currently much of the Moore Street terrace and adjoining lanes are under threat of demolition by the London-based developer Hammerson.
The Moore Street Preservation Trust (MSPT), the Relatives of the 1916 Rising Relatives and others groups and individuals have been involved in a long- running campaign to save this iconic site.
Early next year the Moore Street Preservation Trust will be in court to judicially review the Hammerson plan. This is a vital step to preserve this historic area and the Trust is engaged in a campaign to inform, lobby and win support for its efforts.
As part of its campaign the Trust has launched a petition calling on the Irish government to bring Moore Street into public ownership and build a 1916 historical Cultural Quarter.
In addition, representatives of the 1916 Relatives and of the Trust met with the Executive Council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to brief them on the Trust’s Master Plan for the area and to seek their support. The Trust delegation included James Connolly Heron, (great grandson of James Connolly); Honor Ó Brolcháin (Grand Niece of Joseph Plunkett); Christina McLoughlin (related to Seán McLoughlin); and Cllr Micheál MacDonncha, Secretary of the Trust.
In a statement after the meeting, Congress General Secretary Owen Reidy described the Trust’s plan as “credible, and exciting.” He said that “Congress is committing our full support to it.”
In a very welcome declaration of commitment, the General Secretary asserted the determination of the ICTU to be “active stakeholders in this process, and we will be making that case clearly to government and to Dublin City Council. Moore Street deserves a plan equal to its significance, and we believe that the Preservation Trust has provided one.”
Finally, Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD challenged An Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the Dáil on the future development of the GPO and of Moore Street, and his concern at Hammerson’s continued partnership with Allianz, which has been cited in a UN report as an enabler of Israel’s genocide in Palestine.
Martin claimed that “there is some very good work being done on Moore Street by the State.”
Aengus pointed to the fact that “there is no work happening on Moore Street” and accused the Taoiseach of misleading the Dáil.
As the date of the Judicial Review approaches, the debate around the future of the 1916 Moore Street Battlefield site is set to heat up. So well done to ICTU for backing the Trust’s alternative Master Plan. This is the way forward.
Sínigh an achaint/ Sign the petition: www.change.org/p/save- moore-street-buy-the-terrace.
Féile is a salute to the past, the present and the future
I’M looking forward to July 25 when Féile an Phobail begins its longest and biggest ever summer extravaganza as the largest community festival on the island of Ireland.
The programme was launched last week and is an amazing mix of music, sport, Gaeilge, arts exhibitions, literary events, discussions and debates, comedy, film, tours and walks and much more. Over 500 events with something for everyone. An anticipated 120,000 tourists from outside of West Belfast will come along to join in the celebrations. The programme is available online at feilebelfast.com.
When we launched Féile in 1988 it was a much smaller event, taking place against the backdrop of an ongoing conflict. Only a few months earlier in December 1987 Ulster Resistance, the UDA and UVF had successfully imported hundreds of weapons with the help of British intelligence. This saw a significant rise in killings of republicans and nationalists as a result of state collusion with loyalist death squads. West Belfast was under military occupation. Heavily armed British army patrols, along with the RUC, were a constant presence and military forts were everywhere. West Belfast was a censored community with community groups frequently denied funding as a result of political vetting. There was no state funding for Irish medium education and discrimination permeated all aspects of life. There were also hundreds of political prisoners.
Back then West Belfast was deeply invested in a culture of resistance. But the killings in Gibraltar of three outstanding West Belfast citizens, Volunteers Mairead Farrell, Seán Savage and Dan McCann, the attacks on their funerals, the deaths of Thomas McErlean, John Murray and IRA Volunteer Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh, and two British soldiers, became a catalyst for transforming and accelerating that culture of resistance to a culture of change.
Féile an Phobail was one consequence of this. It was our alternative. It was us embracing hope and creativity and positivity. To reclaim our space. To create space for others. To enjoy ourselves. To say this is who we are. Not a terrorist community. But a patriotic, resourceful, intelligent, cheerful, confident, caring and hopeful community of people looking to the future. Enjoy Féile 2026. I will.
Taoiseach isolated
I WANT to begin by commending the SDLP for organising last week’s conference – “The Future of these Islands: Preparing for Change’. It was a well- attended day-long event, held in Belfast, on the issue of Irish Unity. Among those who contributed to the series of discussions was Dublin Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Sinn Féin’s Conor Murphy and others, including leading figures in the SDLP including the party leader Claire Hanna.
Add this to Fine Gael’s announcement that it is planning to publish a blueprint on Irish unity at its Ard Fheis in November and next Tuesday’s Dáil debate on Sinn Féin’s legislative proposal-Planning for Constitutional Change Bill 2026′ and it is clear that there is increasing unanimity in the unity movement that planning for unity is now a priority.
These are significant developments. Sinn Féin has long argued that the cause of unity is bigger than any one party. It requires the greatest number of citizens, political parties, community and lobby organisations all moving together in the same broad direction and planning for unity.
In July 2024 the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, produced a landmark report which concluded that “there are no insurmountable barriers to Irish reunification.” The report called for a whole-of- government approach to examine the implications of constitutional change and to begin the process of planning for Irish unity.
So, despite Micheál Martin’s opposition to planning for unity it is obvious that many others are ready to engage in that process. Political unionism continues its no-engagement- on-unity stance, but elements of civic unionism have no such inhibitions. Ian Marshall and Joel Keyes made very pertinent remarks from an anti-unity position. Other former civic unionists bring a special perspective to planning for the future. Fair play to them.
Minister Jim O’Callaghan clearly understands the imperative of planning for the future. He told the conference: “It is responsible for an Irish government to set out what it is would happen, or what it is an Irish government would be prepared to recommend to its citizens if we were going to have a reunification referendum.” He is right.
A tribute to Máire
THE conference room in the Sinn Féin Falls office was dedicated last Friday to former Sinn Féin Vice- President Máire Drumm by the current Vice-President of the party, Michelle O’Neill. Máire was assassinated in the Mater Hospital in October 1976.
She was a passionate, gifted and articulate advocate for Ireland and republicanism who frequently faced down armed British soldiers and RUC officers. The image of Máire leading a river of women into the Falls in the summer of 1970 to break the British army-imposed curfew, or her protests with women carrying hurling sticks, are iconic moments in the struggle for freedom.
The threats, the arrests, the periods of imprisonment never deterred Máire. Never broke her spirit or her determination to achieve an end to partition and a united Ireland.
Courageous people do not surrender hope- they embrace it.
Before There Was Rugby… Before There Was Football… There Was Hurling
Long before packed stadiums and All-Ireland finals, the sound of ash striking sliotar echoed across the hills of Ireland.
Hurling is believed to be over 3,000 years old, making it one of the oldest field games still played anywhere in the world.
But this was never just a game.
It was the sport of warriors.
Legends tell us that the mighty Cú Chulainn was a master hurler long before he became Ireland’s greatest hero. As a boy, he is said to have single-handedly defeated the youth of Emain Macha with nothing more than his hurl, his sliotar, and extraordinary skill.
In ancient Ireland, hurling was used to build speed, strength, courage and battle instincts. Young men honed the very skills they would one day need to defend their clan and their homeland.
The game became so fierce that medieval kings occasionally tried to ban it because entire villages would abandon work to play… and the matches sometimes ended in broken bones, black eyes, and the odd family feud!
Yet nothing could stop it.
Even through centuries of hardship, when so much of Irish culture came under pressure, hurling survived in fields, villages and parishes across the country.
Then, in 1884, the newly formed Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) helped revive and protect Ireland’s native games. Hurling became more than a sport—it became a symbol of Irish identity, pride, and resilience.
Today, every swing of a hurley carries thousands of years of history.
Every match honours the generations who refused to let one of Ireland’s oldest traditions disappear.
Because when you watch a game of hurling, you’re not just watching sport…
You’re witnessing a living piece of Ireland’s soul.
Have you ever played hurling—or watched a match that you’ll never forget? Which county will always have your heart? Tell us below!
By Shane Greer on 4 July 2026I don’t know what caused me to fall in love with America: Old Glory, the bunting, the cowboy hats or the country music sung by Mel Tarner. But I do know where and when it was: early 90s, aged eight or nine, at a working men’s club in East Belfast. Cigarette smoke filled the air, and women ate prawn cocktails served in wine glasses. Every day, people dressed like extras in a spaghetti western. Men with six-shooters on their hips, their wives looking like they just stepped off a wagon on the Oregon Trail. An ever-changing group is square dancing the night away in front of the stage. Then my mum bundling me into the car while my dad, Mel, stayed behind to pack up the equipment.In 2009, I married an American. In 2013, I immigrated to America. In 2021, I took the oath and became a citizen. Five years on, writing this essay from Capitol Hill as we prepare to celebrate our 250th anniversary, I’m reflecting on how far the reality of America in 2026 has fallen short of the one I fell in love with. In many ways, it’s a place that has more in common with the Northern Ireland I left than the place I ran toward. It is a country of political tribes whose symbols project every bit as much contempt for their rivals as a flag flying from a lamppost in Northern Ireland. Our discourse is shaped by the legions of voices that make Northern Ireland’s loudest seem measured. Political violence has become unremarkable.But I had it backwards. I didn’t fall in love with a description of America: I fell in love with the destination. We are a nation whose founders declared all men to be created equal while enslaving Black people. But we have taken enormous strides since then, on the shoulders of marchers, Freedom Riders, lunch-counter sitters, and so many more. They weren’t protesting the promise. They were collecting on it. The people in that working men’s club understood this before I did. They weren’t pretending to be American any more than they believed Mel Tarner was from Nashville. They were embracing an idea of America and understood inherently what it took me thirty plus years to figure out: the dream was never about the facts.This July 4th, the streets around my home will fill with flags and bunting, and I will notice, as I do every year, that I have traded one flag-heavy July for another. But there the similarity ends. Because what we are about to celebrate is strange: a 250th anniversary not of arrival but of travel. The founders didn’t describe what America was. They declared what it must become. Every immigrant understands this in their bones, because emigration is the same act: choosing a destination you haven’t reached and setting out anyway. Which means I didn’t become American in 2021, when I raised my right hand and took the oath. I became American in that club in East Belfast, the moment I started facing toward a place I had never seen.My father sang toward America. I moved toward it. My daughter was born a citizen. She will grow up without an imagined America to lose, but already she’s starting to see gaps between the country and its promise. That’s what it is to be American. That is the machine working. My hope for her is not that the gap closes. It is that she keeps wanting it to. That she stands in whatever America exists in 2076 and still measures it against the one in a working men’s club she’s never seen. Until then, we do what my father did at the end of the night, after the hats came off and the lights came up: pack up the equipment, go home, and come back to do it all again.
Before There Was Rugby… Before There Was Football… There Was Hurling 
Have you ever played hurling—or watched a match that you’ll never forget? Which county will always have your heart? Tell us below! 
By Shane Greer on 4 July 2026I don’t know what caused me to fall in love with America: Old Glory, the bunting, the cowboy hats or the country music sung by Mel Tarner. But I do know where and when it was: early 90s, aged eight or nine, at a working men’s club in East Belfast. Cigarette smoke filled the air, and women ate prawn cocktails served in wine glasses. Every day, people dressed like extras in a spaghetti western. Men with six-shooters on their hips, their wives looking like they just stepped off a wagon on the Oregon Trail. An ever-changing group is square dancing the night away in front of the stage. Then my mum bundling me into the car while my dad, Mel, stayed behind to pack up the equipment.In 2009, I married an American. In 2013, I immigrated to America. In 2021, I took the oath and became a citizen. Five years on, writing this essay from Capitol Hill as we prepare to celebrate our 250th anniversary, I’m reflecting on how far the reality of America in 2026 has fallen short of the one I fell in love with. In many ways, it’s a place that has more in common with the Northern Ireland I left than the place I ran toward. It is a country of political tribes whose symbols project every bit as much contempt for their rivals as a flag flying from a lamppost in Northern Ireland. Our discourse is shaped by the legions of voices that make Northern Ireland’s loudest seem measured. Political violence has become unremarkable.But I had it backwards. I didn’t fall in love with a description of America: I fell in love with the destination. We are a nation whose founders declared all men to be created equal while enslaving Black people. But we have taken enormous strides since then, on the shoulders of marchers, Freedom Riders, lunch-counter sitters, and so many more. They weren’t protesting the promise. They were collecting on it. The people in that working men’s club understood this before I did. They weren’t pretending to be American any more than they believed Mel Tarner was from Nashville. They were embracing an idea of America and understood inherently what it took me thirty plus years to figure out: the dream was never about the facts.This July 4th, the streets around my home will fill with flags and bunting, and I will notice, as I do every year, that I have traded one flag-heavy July for another. But there the similarity ends. Because what we are about to celebrate is strange: a 250th anniversary not of arrival but of travel. The founders didn’t describe what America was. They declared what it must become. Every immigrant understands this in their bones, because emigration is the same act: choosing a destination you haven’t reached and setting out anyway. Which means I didn’t become American in 2021, when I raised my right hand and took the oath. I became American in that club in East Belfast, the moment I started facing toward a place I had never seen.My father sang toward America. I moved toward it. My daughter was born a citizen. She will grow up without an imagined America to lose, but already she’s starting to see gaps between the country and its promise. That’s what it is to be American. That is the machine working. My hope for her is not that the gap closes. It is that she keeps wanting it to. That she stands in whatever America exists in 2076 and still measures it against the one in a working men’s club she’s never seen. Until then, we do what my father did at the end of the night, after the hats came off and the lights came up: pack up the equipment, go home, and come back to do it all again.