Fintan O'Toole, member of the Royal Irish Academy, is a columnist with The Irish Times and advising editor of the New York Review of Books. His many books on Irish history, politics, society and culture include We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland. He has been awarded the European Press Prize, the Orwell Prize for Journalism, and the Robert Silvers Prize for Journalism.

Sam McBride is the Northern Ireland Editor of the Belfast Telegraph and the Sunday Independent newspapers. He also writes on Northern Ireland for The Economist. He is a former Political Editor of the Belfast News Letter and has made a BBC film about the Northern Bank robbery. He is author of The Sunday Times bestseller Burned: The Inside Story of the 'Cash-for-Ash' Scandal and Northern Ireland's Secretive New Elite and is a regular broadcaster.