Formerly a Dublin correspondent for The Irish News and a contributor to BBC Northern Ireland, the Downpatrick-born writer Niall Stanage went on to be a contributor to Hot Press, covering music, books and politics, before taking up his current job as editor of Magill, Ireland's leading current affairs magazine. In celebration of this most recent appointment, and also because, in a word, we at the hotpress.com desk are huge fans of his, Niall is our Featured Writer Of The Month. Here are some of our - and Niall's own - favourite pieces of his, for varying reasons:

::interview, Brian Feeney, one of several author/compilers of Lost Lives, the 1999 book that documented the stories of every single man, woman and child whose lives were stolen from them as a result of the Troubles;

::...and on that topic, Niall Stanage's own self-document: a life lived as a series of near-misses;

::tribute, to the late Uaneen Fitsimons;

::and lastly, a feature, Friday Night Fever: a snapshot of Temple Bar at its templebarriest, complete with rickshaws, clacking high-heeled vomiters and staggering stag parties (ah yes. We remember it well)