A new play revisits the story of Ireland’s 18th-century German refugees, whose experience of prejudice and exclusion resonates with today’s debates over immigration

In the early 18th century, a few thousand Germans fled religious persecution and near starvation in their homeland and ended up in remote rural Irish villages. The Irish Palatines, as they were known, were poor, conservative homesteaders who couldn’t speak the language and were the object of suspicion and violence – precursors to the displaced Syrians or Afghans of the past decade.

Their story is told in Refuge, a co-production between Staatstheater Mainz and the Irish company Fishamble. Part love story, part social commentary, it is performed by a mixed cast, mainly in English but with some German interludes.

The former Republic of Ireland international on growing up in a community still reeling from the Troubles and the controversy that scarred his career

“The perception of me is that, basically, I am a madman,” James McClean says calmly. “I’m outspoken. I’m a loudmouth. I’m very opinionated and I hate all things British. That’s from people who don’t know me. The reality is quite the opposite. I’m pretty boring. I go training, go home and switch off. A lot of my days are quite bland, quite basic.”

McClean sounds as sane as he looks gaunt on a bleak Monday in Derry. He spent 14 years in English football and the fact that he is now at war with his own club, Derry City, can’t obscure the fact that he is the fifth-most-capped Republic of Ireland international, having played 103 times. “People define success in different ways,” he says, “but I’m the only footballer from the north of Ireland to win over 100 caps for Ireland. I played 150 Premier League games over five seasons, 800 professional games and won a lot of individual accolades. I count that as success and don’t look back with regrets.”

Donaldson was found guilty in June of 18 counts of sexual abuse including one rape between 1985 and 2008

Jeffrey Donaldson has been sentenced to 15 years for sexual offences against two women who were children when he abused them, completing what was described as a “catastrophic descent into disgrace”.

The sentence at Newry crown court on Thursday sealed the downfall of a former Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader who once dominated unionism in Northern Ireland.

The popularity of Hand’s book Not the Perfect Victim is the latest twist in a story that puts the spotlight on how society responds to sexual assault allegations

Nikita Hand had a compelling reason to not pursue a civil rape case against Conor McGregor. She was, in her own view, an imperfect victim.

The day of the assault, she had been partying with alcohol and cocaine before contacting McGregor, who took her to a Dublin hotel.

Report finds ‘window of opportunity’ for formal process involving loyalist and republican groups

The British and Irish governments should engage with paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland to negotiate their disbandment, according to a report.

A “window of opportunity” exists to establish a formal transition mechanism for loyalist and republican groups, provided certain conditions are met, it said.

He argued there was no evidence to suggest the result of the Brexit vote had been swayed as a result of the effort

• Andy Burnham promises ‘serious dialogue’ over UK’s relationship with EU

Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson, has said he does not agree with his colleague Suella Braverman’s assertion that black people cannot be English.

Asked about her views in an interview on Sky News, Yusuf said:

In my view Ashley Cole is the best English fullback in history, and I won’t take any other position. So in my view, Ashley Cole is English. I think the argument that he’s not English doesn’t hold water with me.

Nasser Hussain, who I grew up watching when I went to the cricket, the idea that those people aren’t English is an alien concept to me.

I would respectfully disagree with people, who make the opposite argument.

To say I’m English is to take a ‘laissez-faire, anything-goes’ attitude to ethnicity, citizenship and identity. It also denies me my Asian heritage. The liberals (many of them in today’s Conservative party) take this cosmopolitan approach to Englishness. They’re terrified of being called racist so they say that anyone, as long as they’re born here, can be English.

I take the conservative approach. Englishness is an ethnicity. There have been English people for centuries and we need to recognise this more if we are to start taking a more muscular approach to citizenship and nationality. And no, it’s not racist to say this.

Eamon Ryan is shown to be principled, likable and hard working in a glowing portrait, filmed while serving in the country’s coalition government

This fly-on-the-wall documentary about the former Irish Green party leader and cabinet minister Eamon Ryan reminded me of the political satire The Thick of It – but without the cynical gags and hapless self-serving politicians. Even after you factor in the skewing effect of it being a favourable portrait, showing him in the best possible light, Ryan comes across as one of the good guys: principled, likable and extremely hard working. The film follows his final 18 months serving in Ireland’s coalition government as minister for the environment and transport before stepping down in 2025.

The title is something that Ryan’s 25-year-old son Tommy repeats over and over. “Forever … forever … forever.” Tommy is autistic and requires full-time care. When Ryan resigns from government, one of his reasons is to spend more time with Tommy. We see the pair of them at the allotment picking raspberries and walking the dog. But other than a quick glimpse of his wife, Victoria, the rest of Ryan’s family life is kept firmly behind closed doors.

Gibney, 77, will face justice for abusing athletes in the 1970s and 80s after decades of effort to track and extradite him

More than half a century after he started sexually abusing children, and enjoyed prestige as Ireland’s Olympic swimming coach before fleeing to the United States, George Gibney is to face justice.

The 77-year-old will be sentenced at the central criminal court in Dublin on Monday for abusing four young female athletes in the 1970s and 1980s.

Prospect of contentious Orange Order march through Garvaghy Road in Portadown has led to a nearly two-week standoff

The Northern Ireland secretary of state has banned the Drumcree parade after a 13-day impasse between the Orange Order and nationalists.

Chris Bryant announced on Friday night that it was “not in the public interest” for Orangemen to march the contested route through Garvaghy Road in Portadown, which Catholic residents had blocked.

A musical about a drama group’s pilgrimage and reflections on activist art join an intriguing show about lost languages

In a Dublin theatre festival programme tackling heavy themes of racism, conflict and prejudice, Lourdes! The Musical (★★★★☆) promises something effervescent. Xnthony Ltd, the creators of Oliver Cromwell Is Really Very Sorry, have turned their lightly quizzical gaze to the French pilgrimage town – “a holy Blackpool, a divine Las Vegas” and a site of hope or desperation for five unlikely travelling companions.

Back in his home village in “Countryland”, in 2008, following a diagnosis of HIV that punctures his dreams of Los Angeles, singer-songwriter Matthew (Riain Cash) lends his star power to a parish drama group taking a musical about Saint Bernadette to Lourdes. Interweaving this show-within-a-show and the pilgrimage strands, Xnthony’s lyrics and Matthew Floyd Jones’s score blend pop, club beats and soulful ballads. Directed by Sarah Meadows, the supercharged ensemble joining Cash as, variously, a droll priest (Iestyn Arwel), a terminally ill mother and her transgender daughter (Nichola MacEvilly and Danielle James) and an eager tour manager (Molly Lynch) carry the music’s tonal shifts effortlessly.

Hundred-and-fifty-year-old Wych elm in Newcastle, Co Down has grown sideways owing to strong winds

The “astonishing and bizarre” Bendy Tree in Northern Ireland has been crowned the winner of this year’s tree of the year competition.

The wych elm tree, located in Newcastle, County Down, owes its name to its near horizontal trunk, which has grown sideways owing to the strong seaside winds coming off the Irish Sea.

Actors and musicians sign open letter urging government to protect residents amid impasse over Orange Order parade

Dozens of artists, actors and musicians including Susan Sarandon and Noel Gallagher have expressed support for Garvaghy Road residents in the impasse over the Drumcree parade in Northern Ireland.

In an open letter to the secretary of state, Chris Bryant, they urged the government to protect residents and to appoint an international mediator to resolve the dispute between the Catholic residents and the Orange Order in County Armagh.

• Allegation of an incident in or near tunnel at half-time

• Israeli FA denies anyone ‘spat towards the coach’

Uefa has launched an investigation into claims a member of the Republic of Ireland coaching staff was spat at during the heated Nations League encounter with Israel on Sunday.

The European governing body has confirmed that post-match reports submitted by match officials “contained an allegation of an incident in or around the tunnel at half-time” and that it will be the subject of a disciplinary investigation “regarding potential misconducts from player(s)”.

Monica Dolan is superb as the amateur historian who uncovered the horror of mass graves at a mother and baby home in this Liam Neeson produced drama

The children were never lost; if a baby goes missing, the police get called, social services become involved. The babies born at the mother and baby home run by nuns in the town of Tuam in County Galway were discarded: up to 796 tiny bodies thrown away, some in an old sewage tank. The amateur historian who uncovered the horror of the mass graves at the St Mary’s mother and baby home is Catherine Corless, superbly played here by Monica Dolan. Produced by Liam Neeson, and based on a 2017 New York Times article, The Lost Children of Tuam is a painful, devastating film. It feels scraped clean of anything unnecessary that might trivialise, fiction-ise or movie-ise what happened at St Mary’s, home to thousands of unmarried women and children between 1925 and 1961.

“It gets me out of the house,” Corless says when she starts a course in local history. She turns detective after becoming interested in the children from St Mary’s, and what she uncovers is that babies died at a rate of nearly one a fortnight at the home – from whooping cough, measles, malnutrition and other childhood illnesses. Eventually, she obtains nearly 800 death certificates, but cannot find burial records for the babies. There are no graves.

This game concluded with mutual irritation and a touch of chaos. It is an indicator of Northern Ireland’s progress that scoreless parity led to wincing from players, management and fans alike. Isaac Price’s 84th-minute missed opportunity from the penalty spot added to the sense of annoyance.

Michael O’Neill’s team are atop B2 after a window which, going by the players’s physical condition in the dying stages, has been exhausting. Northern Ireland and their youthful setup are a fascinating international story. They are a team on an upward curve, with standards elevated accordingly. O’Neill bemoaned “immaturity” in the second half, saying: “The disappointing thing is we have eight points instead of 10.”

The Republic of Ireland manager, Heimir Hallgrímsson, has called on Uefa to keep his side away from Israel in future draws after a pair of fixtures he said “has been tough on us all”. Ireland were pegged back to a draw in another tetchy encounter on Sunday, played without fans at TSC Arena in Backa Topola, Serbia.

Hallgrímsson did not want to comment on a half-time confrontation, after which a member of his backroom staff alleged he was spat at by an Israeli player. The Icelandic manager said that was better left to a disciplinary committee.

• Ireland manager Hallgrímsson calls for ‘cool heads’

• Says Uefa must consider whether nations meet again

The Republic of Ireland’s press conference on the eve of their second Nations League match against Israel in Serbia was cut short as the head coach, Heimir Hallgrímsson, fielded questions from Israeli journalists.

Ireland beat Israel 3-0 in Hungary in their first match on Tuesday after a turbulent buildup in which the Irish squad voted to fulfil the fixture despite unease among the team over the war in Gaza.

• League A: France 1-1 Italy, Belgium 3-0 Turkey

• Northern Ireland boost promotion bid with 3-0 win

Zinedine Zidane’s first home game in charge of France ended with a 1-1 draw against Italy in the Nations League on Friday. Visiting keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma produced a string of saves to frustrate fans at Stade de France, while the hosts ended the game with 10 men after Dayot Upamecano’s late dismissal.

Michael Olise put France ahead in the 55th minute with a curling shot that went in off the crossbar, following a short free-kick taken by Rayan Cherki. But poor defending midway through the second half allowed Italy defender Alessandro Bastoni to run through and clip a low shot inside the right post.

As members of Orange Lodge No 1 gather and residents occupy Garvaghy Road, each side speaks of grievances that go back decades and centuries

Half a mile of countryside separates Drumcree parish church and Garvaghy Road. You can walk it in 15 minutes, listening to birdsong. The protesters gathered at each end, however, speak of grievances that go back decades and centuries to explain why a dispute once thought settled has returned to torment Northern Ireland.

Up on the hill at Drumcree this week, Paul, a 64-year-old Orangeman who declined to give his surname, said for too long he and his brethren had been denied the right to parade along a traditional route that would honour Protestant forefathers who fell at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and the Somme in 1916.

Dispute over march will go to legal appeal on Monday after talks hosted by Northern Ireland secretary end

Talks aimed at resolving the Drumcree parade dispute have broken up without agreement, with the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Bryant, describing the situation as being between a “rock and a hard place”.

Speaking on Thursday night after the latest talks with the Orange Order and residents of Garvaghy Road broke up, Bryant said: “I think this is the end of these conversations. We haven’t come to a settled agreement, and it’s a shame, but my door remains open.”