In The News

Gardaí searching for a child who went missing when he was three years old have found human remains at a site in Donabate, north Dublin.

Confirming that skeletal remains had been discovered, Garda HQ also named the boy as Daniel Aruebose.

It is the first time he has been named since his disappearance and assumed death was placed under investigation three weeks ago.

Conor Lally reports from the scene on what is known and is yet to be uncovered about the tragic case.

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On Tuesday, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns returned to the helm of her political party for a think-in dominated by the controversy over TD Eoin Hayes.

The previous night, Mr Hayes issued an apology for wearing brown make-up on his face and hands while dressed up as former US president Barack Obama, at a party 16 years ago.

Mr Hayes was previously suspended from the Social Democrats last December after it emerged he had issued misleading information about when he sold his shares in Palantir, a company he worked with which has been linked...

Last week, Brazil made history when its supreme court convicted the country’s former far right president Jair Bolsonaro, and seven other defendants, of attempting a coup after his failed re-election bid in 2022. Bolsonaro was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison.

The verdict brings an end to Brazil’s historical leniency in dealing with military men who have tried to overthrow democratically elected governments.

Thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to celebrate the sentencing, while the leaders of neighbouring countries like Chile and Colombia paid tribute to the country’s democratic instit...

As Pope Leo XIV turns 70 we look back at his first months in office, the messages he has been giving to his flock of 1.4 billion Catholics and what they reveal about the direction of his papacy.

Since May the Pope has used his Wednesday audience to condemn the actions of Isreal in Gaza and to call for peace in Ukraine. What he has chosen to wear and where to live has signalled a return to tradition – but as Irish Times Europe correspondent Naomi O’Leary explains he’s also spoken about the dangers and the promise of AI...

In June 2024 French President Emmanuel Macron took a political gamble – and lost heavily.

Hoping to strengthen his centrist alliance he dissolved the National Assembly triggering an election. The result has been chaos – a legislature with no dominant political bloc in power and leading this week to France naming its fourth prime minister in 12 months and riots on the streets of Paris.

At the centre of the political chaos is the threat of austerity budgets. France is deep in debt and a succession of Macron-appointment prime ministers have proposed budgets with tax hikes and deep...

At just 18 committed Christian and college drop out Charlie Kirk established Turning Point USA, an organisation with a mission to spread conservative ideals at liberal-leaning US universities.

On Wednesday, now aged 31 and a father of two young children, Kirk was once again at a university campus to debate and spread his socially conservative viewpoint.

A roof-top sniper shot him dead in what is being viewed as a politically motivated assassination.

In those 13 years, the young man had become one of the most influential voices in US politics and well-known media personality.<...

An escalating series of threats made to Tánaiste Simon Harris in recent weeks went from an online threat to kidnap his children to co-ordinated bomb warnings on his Wicklow home.

Politicians say online trolling and verbal abuse now goes with the territory; dealing with it is part of the job.

Some have also had to face threats to their families with those against Harris being the latest.

It has prompted a debate about the growing security risks faced by our politicians.

But what can the Garda d...

Earlier this year, US president Donald Trump sent shock waves across America’s medical and scientific community by appointing Robert F Kennedy jnr, one of America’s most prominent vaccine-sceptics, as secretary of health and human services.

Since then, the controversial health secretary has caused large upheaval within America’s public health system, making appointments and changing vaccine policies which impact the lives of millions of Americans.

RFK Jnr has also been widely criticised for firing Susan Monarez, the director of the Centre for Disease Control, the federal agency in charge of protecting the he...

Tom Phillips, a fugitive father who spent four years hiding in New Zealand’s remote wilderness with his three children was shot dead on Monday by police probing an armed burglary. The children were found unharmed. But why did Phillips disappear in the first place, and how did he manage to evade capture for so long? New Zealand journalist Tony Wall tells the story to Bernice Harrison. 

Produced by Andrew McNair. 

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Could new technology help to finally reveal who killed Sophie Toscan du Plantier? 

After prime suspect Ian Bailey’s death last year, Sophie's uncle Jean-Pierre Gazeau said their family would never get the truth. 

But now a Garda cold case team has used new technology, called M-Vac, to harvest DNA from items recovered at the West Cork crime scene.

We talk to Jared Bradley, the man behind M-Vac, about how it has helped US investigators to crack decades-old cases. 

But first, Southern correspondent Barry Roche sh...

Nearly half of everyone watching Irish TV on Sunday evening tuned in for the scheming, lying and game-playing on The Traitors Ireland. It’s a hit.

RTÉ has joined more than 30 broadcasters worldwide in making a version of the Dutch format which sees players strategising, “killing”, banishing and lying – all to win a cash prize.

It is hosted brilliantly with more than hint of theatricality by Cork actor Siobhán McSweeney, who changes her elaborate costumes more often than the contestants change their minds about each other.

Just three episodes in and fav...

Gardaí are attempting to unravel several conflicting witness accounts of what happened to a boy who went missing four years ago and is feared dead.

Searches for the child’s remains in an area of ground in north Dublin are expected to continue for several more days.

The boy spent about a year in state care before returning to his family in 2020, with Tusla confirming it had no contact with the child between 2020 and last week.

The case comes one year after it emerged another boy, Kyran Durnin, had not been...

This week, Britain’s Labour Party returned to Westminster from a summer recess defined by anti-migrant protests, and during which, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK dominated the news agenda.

British prime minister Keir Starmer resumed business in parliament by announcing a small reshuffle of his Downing Street team. However, the Labour leader is still facing an array of domestic and foreign policy conundrums, most notably Farage’s rapidly rising popularity.

His right-wing Reform UK party has led Labour in about 90 successive opinion polls, while recent polls show 71 per cent of British voters believe the pr...

Kathleen Folbigg was convicted over the deaths of her four babies in 2003 in a case that shocked Australia.

In 2023 a judicial review found that the babies may have died of a genetic condition and having served nearly two decades in prison she was freed.

Her case is now regarded as one of Australia’s greatest miscarriages of justice.

In the second episode on the Katheleen Follbig case, McDermot explains how a scientific breakthrough eventually exonerated the mother of four.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan. 

Kathleen Folbigg was convicted over the deaths of her four babies in 2003 in a case that shocked Australia.

The first three were treated as cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) but when Laura died, the authorities looked to Meadow’s Law and arrested the grieving mother.

That controversial theory held that “one sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder until proved otherwise”.

She always maintained her innocence.

In 2023 a judicial review found that the babies may have died of a geneti...

Brazilian couple Gil Rudge (39) and Natalia Bonadia (36) rented a room in a shared apartment from Eduardo Gonzaga’s company, Leevin Ireland.

All was fine until their landlord advised them that unless they accepted a third person to share their bedroom their rent would have to double.

Janiedson da Silva dos Santos was sharing a house with eight others – students rented a bed, not a room – until Leevin Ireland abruptly issued him with a month’s notice. While he was away for a few days, he returned to his rental to find it in disarray...

Despite all the talk over the summer, the names that came and went, the speculation and supposition – there is still only one name confirmed for the presidential race.

Catherine Connolly, who launched her candidacy early with the support of Labour, the Soc Dems and others will be on the ballot paper.

She will be joined by other presidential hopefuls – that much is certain – but who?

Today in The Irish Times Pat Leahy reports that Fianna Fáil may have found its candidate.

On today's podcast political correspondent Ellen C...

This podcast was first published in June 2025.

The use of so-called 'dodgy box' technology to illegally stream television is widespread. Last week Mary Hannigan reported on the impact dodgy boxes are having on Irish sports broadcasters like Clubber, LOITV and GAA+.

“I said it before, it’s no different to going in to your local shop, picking up a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk and just walking out the door without paying,” said Jimmy Doyle, the founder of Clubber, the subscription platform that streams GAA club games. “It’s theft, at the end o...

In the space of a few short years, generative AI has exploded into our daily lives, impacting the way we learn, work and understand the world around us.

Open AI, the American artificial intelligence company cofounded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in 2015 which runs ChatGPT, claims its non-profit “mission” is to ensure these systems “benefit all of humanity”.

And while the launch of ChatGPT has undoubtedly lightened the workload of many, engineer, journalist and AI expert Karen Hao says the AI race for world domination carries a huge human and environmental cost.

For years the Irish Republican Brotherhood – the IRB – was remembered annually in a curious ceremony at Dublin’s Mansion House when its self-styled president Billy McGuire conducted a ritual that involved turning a golden harp to reaffirm the sovereignty of Ireland.

The existence of an IRB will come as a surprise to historians who consider that the secret-oath-bound society of the same name was disbanded more than 100 years ago.

But in recent years, a new cohort has taken over the IRB name, turning it into a growing organisation steeped in the pseudo-legal language of the so...

The arrest of more than 500 people at a Palestine Action rally in London on August 9th did more than raise the profile of the little-known anti-war action group: it raised questions about the fundamental right of British people to engage in peaceful protest, and exactly what constitutes a terrorist organisation in the eyes of the government.

The arrests were on foot of a ban in July under UK terrorism legislation which put the group in the same proscribed category as Islamic State, al-Qaeda, the IRA, the UVF and a long list of banned terror groups.

This episode was originally published in June 2025.

Tattle Life is a gossip site that many will have never heard of until a landmark defamation trial in Belfast in June 2025.

Donna and Neil Sands bought a defamation case against the site – and won. They were each awarded £150,000 (€176,000) in damages, with the court saying their costs should also be covered.

The married couple who live in Northern Ireland said that cruel, untrue and hateful anonymous postings over several years on the site left them fearing for their safety, their businesses and their relat...

In the 12 months leading up to April 2024, 30,000 Irish citizens who had been living abroad returned to Ireland. A similar number of Irish emigrants returned to Irish shores the previous year, in the 12 months leading up to April 2023.

Who are these people, why are they coming home and what do they think of the Ireland they've returned to?

Today, on the In the News podcast, we speak to three Irish people who recently returned to Ireland after years of building a life overseas. Are Irish infrastructure and healthcare as bad as we believe when...

The Rose of Tralee is one of the biggest events in Ireland’s cultural calendar.

It pumps millions of euro into the local economy and pulls in well over half a million viewers; no mean feat in an age of dwindling linear TV viewership.

Almost 30 years of being lampooned as a ‘Lovely Girls’ competition thanks to that Father Ted episode has seen its popularity undimmed.

Albeit only relatively recently, it has evolved to permit married and transgender women enter the contest.

However 29 is still the cut-off age, meanin...

In 2021, GP Paddy Davern returned to Ireland after eight years working as a doctor in Qatar. Four years on, the Tipperary man is still struggling to come to terms with the time he spent working with the Special Operations Service (SOS), a specialist medical team treating the country’s royals and other VIPs.

In today’s episode, Irish Times health correspondent Shauna Bowers shares Dr Davern's traumatic experience in Qatar and explains why he is now speaking out about the working conditions and ethical dilemmas he faced during his time there.

Presented by Sorc...

Some might say Oasis have finally reunited to cash in at a time when one of its members is going through an expensive divorce. And tens of thousands of fans couldn't stop crying their heart out at the hefty €440 they had to pay last year when tickets went on sale for this weekend's Croke Park gigs. But there's no looking back in anger now, as Noel and Liam get ready to take to the stage in Ireland for the first time since 2009. Irish millennials and Gen Xers are gearing up for one of the most eagerly anticipated reunions in ro...

The prescription of pain medication among Irish patients, including highly addictive opioids, is rapidly rising, according to new research.

The use of opioids has increased by 25 per cent in Ireland, while the prescription of paracetamol rose 50 per cent between 2014-2022, according to a study published last week in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

The prescription of even stronger medication, like codeine and opioids including tapentadol and oxycodone, is rising even higher.

This sharp increase in pain medication prescriptions by doctors in Ireland contrasts starkly with the approach in England...

Last week, in the early hours of Tuesday, August 5th, Martha Nolan-O’Slattara was found unconscious on a boat at an exclusive yacht club in the Hamptons. She was later pronounced dead by first responders.

The 33-year-old entrepreneur from Co Carlow had been living in the United States for nearly a decade where she had set a series of pop-up clothes boutiques and lived in Manhattan’s upper east side.

US police are now trying to piece together the events that led up to the death of this young Irish woman after the resu...

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has continued to defend his government’s plan to escalate the war in Gaza, despite widespread international condemnation and outrage.

The Israeli leader claims his security cabinet’s decision to capture Gaza City, which could mean months, possibly years, of combat ahead, is “the best way to end the war, and the best way to end it speedily”.

The plan has resulted in protests across Israel with calls for a total end to the war and the release of hostages. Israeli military leaders have also opposed the plan.

In the heart of Limerick city sits a newly-built six storey landmark, offered as a gift by JP McManus to Limerick City and County Council. The billionaire businessman had a vision for an iconic tourist attraction in the southwest, offering a boost to the area and honouring Ireland's proud rugby tradition. The International Rugby Experience opened to great fanfare in May 2023, but was shuttered just 19 months later amid a bitter row between McManus and the local authority. The city's directly-elected mayor refused to take the gift. Now the red-bricked white elephant has become a metaphor for intractable local politics...

Seven years ago, in September 2018, the Government approached a company called Brimwood Ltd asking for help to secure extra accommodation in hotels and B & Bs for asylum seekers.

While the number of international protection applicants arriving in Ireland was significantly lower at that time when compared with today – nearly 6,000 in 2018 compared with almost 33,000 in 2025 – the State’s direct provision system had reached full capacity and needed temporary additional beds.

Brimwood Ltd, which is now unlimited and so does not have to publish financial accounts where it might show the profits it makes, is run by...

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Irish woman Gena Heraty was kidnapped from the orphanage where she works in southern Haiti. She was taken by an armed gang along with seven other staff members and a three-year-old child. Contact has been made with the gang holding Ms. Heraty, her colleagues and the child; the leader of which is ominously nicknamed 'Jimmy Barbecue' because of his violent reputation. Interlocutors have told The Irish Times the militia has made unrealistic ransom demands. But why would the gang abduct a woman with a three decades-long history of caring for the stricken...

British socialite Constance Marten, 38, and her partner convicted rapist Mark Gordon, 51, prompted a 53-day police manhunt when they went on the run with their newborn daughter in the depths of winter two years ago.

That hunt ended in tragedy after the decomposed body of their baby, Victoria, was discovered in a shopping bag buried under rubbish in Brighton; the couple were camping nearby.

While no definitive cause of the baby’s death could be established, they were found guilty in July of her manslaughter by gross negligence.

The scenes in th...

British socialite Constance Marten, 38, and her partner convicted rapist Mark Gordon, 51, prompted a 53-day police manhunt when they went on the run with their newborn daughter in the depths of winter two years ago.

That hunt ended in tragedy after the decomposed body of their baby, Victoria, was discovered in a shopping bag buried under rubbish in Brighton; the couple were camping nearby.

While no definitive cause of the baby’s death could be established, they were found guilty in July of her manslaughter by gross negligence.

The scenes in th...

Kerry farmer Michael Gaine’s disappearance on March 20th was first treated as a missing person’s case.

Soon though, it was upgraded to a murder investigation as the Garda searched for his body and explored multiple lines of inquiry.

Then the farmer’s body was found – in the most grisly of circumstances. He had been dismembered with his body parts deposited into the silage pit on his farm.

One such line of inquiry involved Michael Kelley, an American who lived and worked on Gaine’s 1,000-acre farm for the past three year...

Sports memorabilia is big business in the United States.  

Exceptional athletes can attain God-like status very quickly there, and everybody wants a piece.  

The baseball that Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers hit for his 50th home run last season, recently sold for $4.3 million. 

And if you are into buying sports memorabilia, chances are at some point you logged on to a website called Mister Man Cave, which boasts one of the largest football, baseball and basketball autograph inventories on the web. 

That’s what it looked l...

Last week, hundreds of Ukrainians took to the streets across the country protesting a government move to slash the independence of two anti-corruption agencies.

Volodomyr Zelenskiy faced the first street protests against his presidency since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 after he signed a controversial law that would curb the independence of Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau and Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office.

Two days later, Mr Zelensky backtracked on the controversial changes after European officials warned the bill threatened to undermine Ukraine’s ongoing bid to join the union. Mr Zelensky also sai...

On Tuesday, after weeks of warnings, and growing reports of young children dying from malnutrition and starvation, a famine alert was issued for Gaza.

UN-backed hunger experts announced that the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip”.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative (IPC) said the latest evidence of widespread starvation, malnutrition and disease indicated famine thresholds had been reached for food consumption in most of the Gaza Strip.

The UN’s world Food Programme also warned the disaster unfolding in Gaza was reminiscent of the fa...

On Sunday, shortly after playing a round of golf at his luxury Turnberry resort in Scotland, US president Donald Trump agreed to a trade deal with the EU commission president.

It followed months of tension and shifting deadlines over a threatened 30 per cent tariff and all-out trade war, which would have been devastating for the Irish economy.

And while 15 per cent avoids the worst case scenario, business leaders here like IBEC chief executive Danny McCoy claim “Europe has capitulated” by accepting the deal.

Sow how exactly will these tariffs affect Iris...

The attack on an Indian man on a suburban street in south Dublin two weeks ago by a gang of teenagers was fuelled by racism and online misinformation.

The married father of one, who had left his wife and child in India to take up a job in Dublin just weeks before, was brutally assaulted, robbed and stripped of some of his clothes.

It is understood the group had falsely accused the man of acting inappropriately around children. These claims were later spread online, including by prominent far-right and anti-immigrant accounts.

...