paradise after low pressure system stirs up huge waves Professional surfers have flocked to the Atlantic coastlines of France, Cornwall, Ireland and Portugal to ride waves up to 18 metres high caused by a low pressure system dubbed "the black swell". South African big wave rider Grant "Twiggy" Baker was joined on Tuesday by Portuguese, French and American surfers at the Belharra break off the coast...
s supreme court. No court hearing has been set, and sources familiar with the case believe it could take up to six months before a date is arranged. Busby is also facing potential extradition to the US, where prosecutors have charged him with 35 counts of fraud, international extortion and making hoax bomb threats against the University of Pittsburgh in late March and April 2012. A grand jury indictment...
one of the best books about mental health', goes on to compete for overall prize Review: Life after Life by Kate Atkinson Review: The Pike by Lucy Hughes-Hallett Review: Goth Girl by Chris Riddell Nathan Filer still does the odd Sunday shift as a registered mental health nurse, although they may well become less frequent after his debut novel – originally the subject of an 11-publisher bidding war...
s merely a recent and specific piece of purely local difficulty. In reality, there have always been cracks in the fabric, and not just north of the border. Many of the Victorian and Edwardian activists who campaigned for Irish home rule , for instance, also wanted what they called "home rule all round": separate parliaments not simply for Ireland, but also for the Scots and the Welsh – and for the...
s transport minister, and Brendan Howlin, minister for public expenditure, said there should be sanctions to target poor performance by government officials. In an official paper to be released later this year Howlin hopes to establish clearer lines of accountability . Varadkar called for mechanisms to be introduced to make it easier to sack under-performing civil servants . He said the next stage...
on Friday show. But the Provisional IRA's detonation of a bomb at the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative party conference on 12 October 1984 nearly derailed the diplomatic rapprochement between Dublin and London. The long process of overcoming mutual suspicions can be traced through the exchange of position papers, secret talks and hastily relocated summits throughout 1984. A memorandum...
s satirical Digested read columns have become a Guardian institution, reducing the most newsworthy books of the year to an essential 600 words. Here he returns to Dublin with Roddy Doyle, who brings back the soul music fixer Jimmy Rabbitte in The Guts, 26 years after his first appearance in The Commitments. The Guardian's culture editor Caspar Llewellyn Smith and long-term Doyle enthusiast Hannah Freeman...
We couldn't find it at first. I don't know how, because when we looked over a gate we saw this massive crater in the ground, like a UFO had crash-landed' I grew up on a farm in Ireland, with my mum and dad and three sisters. Like a lot of the farmers there, Dad farmed a mixture of stuff. He grew spuds and had cattle. He had a field and shoved some turnips in. He had a pig, which I think he won...
Authorities warn of difficult conditions in many areas only days after Christmas Eve storm ...
s national archives . British diplomats warned their Irish counterparts that the prime minister would not be able to visit Ireland if supported the proposal. Ireland, one of the non-permanent members of the UN security council during the Falklands war in 1982, voted with Britain, one of five permanent members, to support resolution 502 condemning Argentina's invasion of the islands. They both also...
After a brief Christmas hiatus, we return. In this picture jockey Ruby Walsh's head is down, urging Clondaw Court on to a win at the Leopardstown Christmas Festival ...
s Industrial Development Agency has created thousands of hi-tech posts by attracting more technology-driven corporations to the country At a time when many politicians still like to denigrate everything about the public sector, it is worth looking across the Irish Sea to observe a state institution that plays a key role in a mixed economy. Even during the last few terrible years of post-crash bailout...
t get me wrong, it's great that people are proud of their heritage, but accent-uating your origins isn't everything Someone once described my accent as "mid-Atlantic", as if I grew up on a marooned island in the middle of the ocean. In reality, my upbringing was a little less exotic: I was born in the states, grew up in Ireland and am such a terrible swimmer that island holidays hold no interest for...
s hands before the signing of the Good Friday agreement a year later. McGinn was captured by an SAS unit which raided a farmhouse in South Armagh three months after the Restorick murder. He was arrested along with a number of other key members of the Provisonal IRA's South Armagh brigade during the security operation. After his arrest McGinn confessed to his role in the IRA's bombing campaign in England...
Marie Fleming argued that husband should be able to help her die in landmark supreme court case in Dublin A woman with multiple sclerosis who fought her right-to-die battle all the way to Ireland's supreme court has died, it has been announced. Marie Fleming lost a landmark case in the highest court in the Republic in April which would have allowed her husband to take her life without him being prosecuted....
s magnificent, unflinching history of the fight for Irish independence holds out the prospect for truth and reconciliation Wars of national liberation inspire history in a bardic register. The self-sacrificing heroism of a people in arms tends to drown out unwelcome noises off: dissidence, recalcitrance, apathy and cagey self-interest. By the same token, the humdrum – but important – underpinnings...
s district court and are due to appear again in March Three former Irish bank executives, including the ex-chief executive of one of the country's largest lenders, have been charged with conspiracy to defraud in the run-up to the country's banking crisis, a court heard on Wednesday. Former chief executive of Irish Life and Permanent, Denis Casey, the lender's former finance director Peter Fitzpatrick,...
s collapse, which also damaged cars in a nearby car park. Around 15,000 homes in central and western Ireland were without electrcity after the storms brought down power lines. The high winds of up to 100mph also forced the closure of the scenic Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare, which are among the most iconic tourist destinations in the west of Ireland. In Northern Ireland the Met Office has issued a severe...
s observations that the UK was not part of the euro and was able to manage its own crisis independently of the eurozone. I would love to see some acknowledgment of the role that the City of London played in Ireland...
last kind of romantic relationship I had, which was never consummated' He ordered flowers; she sent orchids. She'd had seven husbands – one of them twice; he was known for dating some of Hollywood's most famous women. Both had been feted as among the most beautiful film stars of their generation. Neither of them could sleep at night. The two-year relationship between Elizabeth Taylor – twice married...