In The News

Taoiseach Micheál Martin wraps up his four-day visit to Japan today with a visit to Hiroshima where he will lay a wreath at the cenotaph commemorating those who died after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city in 1945.

It’s been a hectic few days with an itinerary that included the opening of Ireland House in Tokyo, which at more than €20 million is the largest capital project overseas since the foundation of the State, as well as a visit to Osaka to visit the Irish pavilion at Expo 2025, an international exposition that is ex...

George Gibney was arrested on Tuesday in Florida after a Garda request was made to the US State Department to extradite him to Ireland to face charges relating to alleged historical child sex abuse.

The 77-year-old former swim coach, who avoided trial on sexual abuse charges in 1994 after successfully challenging his prosecution in the High Court, is now accused of 78 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape relating to four girls; and the alleged attempted rape of one of the girls.

All four were minors, aged between eight and 15, and...

Last month, a 22-year-old man named Evan Fitzgerald walked into the busy Fairgreen shopping centre in Carlow and opened fire. He then turned his weapon on himself and ended his own life.

Following the incident, details quickly emerged about the young man’s fascination with guns and his previous run-in with gardaí.

And this week, it emerged Fitzgerald had possession of more weapons than previously reported.

The shooting, and gardaí’s interaction with Fitzgerald before the Carlow incident, have become the subject of much debate and discussion in recent weeks. 

On June 30th 1922, a massive explosion ripped through Dublin’s Four Courts, after the Irish Free state national army opened fire on anti-treaty republicans occupying the building.

Inside the building, the old, dry files housed in the Public Record Office quickly caught fire. The blast sent a dramatic pillar of black smoke hundreds of metres into the air and flung files, books and scrolls high in the sky above the Liffey. Paper scraps and fragments fell across the city with some even landing in Howth, 10km away.

The explosion destroyed nearly seven hundred ye...

Two court cases this month will have signalled to those supplying so-called ‘dodgy boxes’ that there is a high penalty to be paid.

A man who appeared before Trim District Court charged with selling the boxes was jailed for 3½ years, while in the High Court Sky Ireland alleged that another man may have earned up to €450,000 a year from operating a different dodgy service.

These cases occur periodically as the law catches up with those selling the means to illegally watch content that broadcasters and streamers services charge for.

But could p...

Renters and landlords alike are confused about exactly how the forthcoming changes to rules governing tenancies will affect them. In what circumstances can rent be raised? In what circumstances can a landlord legally ask a tenant to move out? Consumer Affairs Correspondent Conor Pope sets out to answer their questions, as submitted to The Irish Times.

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A new chapter in the fractious relationship between Iran and the US began this week with America’s bombing of three Iranian nuclear-development sites; Iran’s retaliatory strike on a US military base in Qatar, and the tentative ceasefire in the Israel-Iran war announced by President Donald Trump.

The two countries have history: Key dates include 1953 when a CIA-orchestrated a coup, with British support, overthrew Iran’s democratically elected government and installed the monarch in exile, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi – the Shah of Iran; 1979 when Iranians, rebelling against his autocratic rule and fuelled by anti-American sentiment ousted the Shah...

Last weekend, former Ireland international and premier league star Damien Duff sent shock waves through Irish football when he announced he was resigning as manager of Shelbourne FC.

In a statement, the Tolka Park club said it was “regretfully” announcing Duff’s departure.

“While all at Shelbourne FC are deeply saddened by Damien’s decision, we fully respect that he feels this is the right choice for him at this time,” it said in a statement.

“His impact on Shelbourne FC was transformational ... we are eternally grateful for the indelible mark he has le...

In the early hours of March 15th 2024, a woman walked into a hospital in the city of Boston and reported she had been raped.

The following day, Dublin firefighter Terrence Crosbie (38) was arrested at Boston Logan International Airport when he was boarding a plane to fly back to Ireland.

Last week, after a six-day trial and more than 22 hours of jury deliberations, a Boston judge declared a mistrial after the jury failed to make a unanimous decision.

Mr Crosbie, who has spent 15 months in jail, has been sent back to...

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

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 relationships and impacted on their mental health.

Award...

At least 184 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, according to Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-profit organisation that advocates for press freedom and the rights of journalists. Of these, 176 were Palestinian.

For nearly 19 months, Israel has blocked the foreign press from entering Gaza to report on the war, leaving a small number of local Palestinian journalists to cover the conflict.

Israel’s ongoing refusal to grant foreign journalists access to the strip is “without precedent in modern times”, a recent letter from the world’s media warned.

Since Israel launched air strikes on Iran last Friday, the two states have traded missiles with mounting casualties on both sides.

Iranian military leaders have been killed as have some of its nuclear scientists but the country’s citizens have borne the brunt of the air attacks.

Israel has said its rationale for the middle-of-the-night attack that sparked the war was its need to ensure, for its own protection, that Iran’s nuclear programme is halted.

How close Iran is to actually having a nuclear bomb is unclear but for Isra...

Someone in Ireland has just won €250 million. It's the biggest ever lottery win in Europe and it means the winner's life will never be the same again. But history shows that suddenly coming into vast wealth is not always a good thing. Conor Pope talks to Bernice Harrison about the pitfalls of winning the Euromillions - and what you should do in the extremely unlikely event you find yourself in that position.

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On Monday, preparatory works began at the former site of the mother and baby institution in Tuam, Co Galway in advance of the long-awaited excavation to identify the remains of nearly 800 infants.

The excavation, which is due to start in mid-July, takes place 11 years after research by local historian Catherine Corless found 796 children had died at the institution run by the Bon Secours religious order between 1925-1961.

How long will the excavation take, what does it expect to find and what will happen to the remains of the infants uncovered at the former...

On Sunday night, 57-year-old Vance Boelter was arrested and charged with murder following the largest manhunt in the history of the US state of Minnesota.

Mr Boelter is suspected of shooting and killing a Democratic politician and her husband and of shooting and wounding a Democratic senator and his wife on Saturday.

That same day, Donald Trump celebrated his birthday by holding a carefully choreographed military parade in Washington DC, while across the country, millions of protesters took part in ‘No Kings’ demonstrations.

What do we know about the Minnesota atta...

On her last gruelling day on the stand in the murder trial that has gripped Australia, Erin Patterson faced three succinct questions from the prosecutor.

She put it to Patterson that she had deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2023, deliberately included them in the beef Wellington she served her former in-laws; and did so intending to kill them.

Patterson uttered three words: Disagree. Disagree. Disagree.

She is accused of killing her former husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt, Heather Wilkinson. They took seriously ill after eating th...

Israel has launched widescale strikes against Iran, saying it targeted nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders, raising the potential for an all-out war between the two bitter Middle East adversaries. Iran's leadership has called the attacks "a declaration of war" and promises reprisals. Mark Weiss reports on why the Israeli government has chosen now to launch "a war that’s been planned for a decade" and what might happen next.

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Valerie French Kilroy was the mother of three very young boys, an occupational therapist and a much-loved sister and friend.

In June 2019 she was murdered by her husband James Kilroy. She was 41. That he killed her was never in doubt – he admitted it – but the defence put forward at his trial in 2024 was that he was insane when he beat, stabbed and strangled his wife to death.That defence was rejected by the jury and he was convicted of her murder.

For her siblings, including her brother David, Kilroy had committed child harm in t...

The election for the next President of Ireland must take place before November 11th. It’s June, so where is the list of Áras hopefuls?

As of now two independents have declared their intention to run, MMA fighter Conor McGregor and former candidate and businessman Peter Casey. They have yet to get local authority approval.

When can we expect the race to get going and what qualities make for an ideal president?

Harry McGee from the Irish Times political team, explains.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suz...

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris had much to show the media at an event at Garda HQ on Monday.

New riot gear, a massive water canon, smart body-worn cameras, hand-held computers and more secure vehicles, part of the force’s fleet, the largest ever.

Questions why one piece of useful equipment – a cadaver dog – was not on the list of new acquisitions were eagerly asked by the media, and easily answered by Harris.

The new kit got the attention but central to the event was the launch of a new report, Transf...

The Government will bring its latest housing fix to Cabinet today when it presents new rules on rent levels for approval.

Aimed at boosting supply – by encouraging large institutional investors to build and small landlords to stay in the market – the plan primarily concerns rules around Rent Pressure Zones (RPZ).

These were established in 2016 – the number of such zones grew over the years – to curb rent rises. Landlords could only raise rents annually, first by 4 per cent and in a subsequent change to the rules, by 2 per cent.

Now landlords of new b...

On Sunday, April 7th, 2024 there was a fatal road traffic crash in Churchtown, a suburb in south dublin. It happened early in the morning when a pensioner driving an old red van hit a tree.

Unusually, the name of the dead man was not released though The Irish Times was able to report, through confidential information received at the time, that the dead man had been due in court the following day.

He had been charged with more than 100 counts of sex abuse offences involving young boys dating back to the 1980s and 90...

Sonia ‘Sunny’ Jacobs was 76 when she died on Tuesday morning in a house fire in Connemara.

Her tragic death made headlines far beyond Galway and Ireland because Jacobs had led a truly remarkable life. It included a death row sentence for the murder of two policemen in Florida in 1976.

She spent 17 years in a US jail, five in solitary confinement, before a deal with prosecutors saw her released in 1995.

Another person died in the fire in the remote cottage, her carer a young man called Kevin Kelly from Moycullen.

Children operated on when there was no need; industrial springs being used instead of approved medical devices; a doctor diverting children to his own private clinic leading to them facing dangerous treatment delays; and a poisonous work culture on the wards – these are some of the issues that have emerged in our children’s hospitals.

And that’s before the not so little matter of the massive budgetary and time overruns that plague the unfinished national children’s hospital.

The body tasked with overseeing the healthcare of the nation’s children is Children’s Health Ire...

In the early hours of May 8th, two masked men in a stolen Audi staged a drive-by shooting, firing nine shots indiscriminately at houses on Limerick's Hyde Road, including at April Collins’s home. More shots were fired at a Collins-owned home on the Hyde Road in November 2024, and in two separate attacks in January 2025. Since then, there have been a dozen violent incidents, including pipe and petrol bomb attacks. The Garda Emergency Response Unit now conducts nightly armed checkpoints in flashpoint areas. The gangs appear undeterred.

Between February and April, the Cork-based bomb disposal unit wa...

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...

From the moment he reported her missing in 2017, Richard Satchwell stuck to his story that his wife Tina had run off.

His many media appeals begged her to come home. But as the jury heard during his five-week trial in the Central Criminal Court for her murder, she was indeed home and she had been all along.

Richard had killed her in 2017, dug a hole under the stairs of their terraced Youghal home and buried her.

The Garda did look for her – as a missing person – but “red flags” emerged soon aft...

Shane O’Farrell was 23 when he was the victim of a hit-and-run near his home in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan. A law graduate, he had just submitted his master’s thesis and was enjoying a carefree cycle on that August evening in 2011.

Questions around how the crash happened soon turned to who was behind the wheel. It was Lithuanian Zigimantas Gridziuska, a man known to the Garda and the courts.

On the day he killed Shane and drove off, he had more than 40 convictions, including some in Northern Ireland.

So how was...

Nearly thirty years ago, in August 1996, 25-year-old Fiona Pender disappeared and was never seen again. Detectives have always believed Ms Pender, who was seven months pregnant when she vanished, was murdered on the day she was last seen alive. However, her remains have never been found.

Earlier this week, gardaí announced the case had formally been upgraded to a murder investigation and began a search and excavation operation at Graigue near Killeigh village in Co Offaly.

Gardaí are now carrying out a second search operation in Co Laois.

What does th...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has published its latest projections for the 2030 climate targets and it’s bad news for Ireland.

The Irish State has the worst emissions per capita in Europe – projections show our greenhouse gas emissions will fall by just 23 per cent by 2030, compared to our original national target of 51 per cent, according to EPA data published on Wednesday.

The latest figures indicate none of the State’s biggest emitting sectors – transport, agriculture and electricity – will meet their climate commitments. In most sectors, emissions continue to rise or are going down only margi...

Five years ago, and three months into the 2020 global pandemic, the Leaving Cert was cancelled.

The Department of Education announced in May 2020 that students due to sit their final school exams would instead receive predicted or ‘calculated’ grades from their teachers.

These much more generous results led to grade inflation which has seen tens of thousands of students receive bumper Leaving Cert results in recent years. The rise in grades also forced universities to use lotteries for entry to some high points courts, especially highly competitive courses such as medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and othe...

Butter is becoming a luxury item. Rents have reached an all time high – just two examples of prices that seem to be constantly on the move upwards. 

Good news for the hard-pressed consumer is in short supply – even as inflation has reduced to around 2 per cent. 

And to add to the uncertainty, US president Donald Trump on Friday said he will impose a 50 per cent tariff on goods from the EU starting on June 1st. 

In previous years, the government has sought to help households with a range of one-off payments a...

Former US president Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer paused the avalanche of damning stories about his mental acuity and cognitive fitness for office during his presidency.

The leaks and pre-publicity around a new book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper have been going on for weeks.

The authors contend that Biden’s decline was obvious during his tenure as president and accelerated while he was campai...

A new investigation drawing on thousands of internal emails and documents reveals the activities of Pravfond, a Russian organisation established in 2012 with the stated goal of protecting the rights of Russians living abroad, primarily by offering assistance in legal matters.

However, the EU and European intelligence agencies say that in some countries Pravfond acts as a safety net for Russian intelligence assets – agents or spies – who get into legal trouble. In some countries, it also provides cover stories for these spies.

Two lawyers operating in Ireland, Elizaveta Donnery and Olga Shajaku, are mentioned in t...

The trial of Richard Satchwell, who has pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Tina at their home in Youghal, Co Cork in March 2017, has now entered its fourth week.

The first three weeks of this high-profile trial featured testimony from gardaí, crime scene managers, the family doctor, a forensic archaeologist and friends regarding the disappearance of Tina Satchwell in 2017 and the discovery of her body six years later.

On Tuesday, the Central Criminal Court heard a cause of death for Tina Satchwell, whose skeletal remains were found buried under her Co Cork h...

On Monday morning, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu posted a video on his Telegram account pledging to take control of all of Gaza.

“We are going to take control of all areas of the Strip, that’s what we’re going to do,” said Mr Netanyahu in the video.

He also addressed Israel’s humanitarian aid blockade into the besieged area, saying “minimal” food aid would be allowed into the strip, “just enough to prevent hunger”.

Preventing famine among Palestinians is necessary both from “a practical and a diplomatic standpoint”, said the...

Kerry farmer Michael Gaine disappeared in March. In April Gardaí upgraded the search to a murder inquiry, despite not finding a body. Now, following a macabre discovery, a man has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Irish Times southern correspondent Barry Roche explains what we know.

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Ten years ago this week, on May 23rd, 2015, the people of Ireland voted to legalise same-sex marriage.

Writing in The Irish Times the day after the referendum, columnist Fintan O’Toole noted the overwhelming victory for the Yes side “looks extraordinary” but was actually “about the ordinary”.

“Ireland has redefined what it means to be an ordinary human being,” wrote O’Toole.

“Everybody gains from equality – even those who didn’t think they wanted it. Over time, those who are in a minority on this issue will come to appreciate the value of living in...

From the end of June, the people of Ireland will no longer be able to pick up the phone and talk to Joe.

Last week, Joe Duffy announced he was leaving his role as presenter of the RTÉ radio phone-in show after 27 years in the hot seat.

The 69-year-old broadcaster, whose contract was due to expire this summer, said he was “deeply privileged and eternally grateful” to have worked for so long presenting the programme. He also said he hoped Liveline had “made people feel heard”. 

Over nearly three decades, Duffy pres...

Mark Paul on why UK prime minister Keir Starmer evoked the arguments for Brexit - which he had opposed - when announcing a new crackdown on migration into the UK.

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