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The past is never past, not when the internet is around to remind us of it. And it makes our present more dangerous than we might like to imagine

Gary Walsh: the Laois GAA star found himself in hot water last week after calling for the plaintiff in the Belfast rugby rape trial to be named Pic: INPHO

I want the right to forget my old self, but I can’t: it follows me around.

It’s there in my old photographs on the internet. It’s there in silly comments indelibly recorded in my Facebook history. It’s there on my Myspace page. I’ve forgotten my password to access that dinosaur and I can’t be bothered to figure out how to get back in – because it links to a Hotmail account I’ve since ...