Best known as one half of D’Unbelievables, Kenny also starred in Father Ted and The Banshees of Inisherin
The Irish prime minister has led tributes to the comedian and actor Jon Kenny, who has died at the age of 66.
Kenny died on Friday evening in Galway Clinic, his wife, Margie, told the Limerick Leader on Saturday.
Continue reading...Yantar intelligence ship was seen operating drones in an area containing subsea energy and internet infrastructure
A Russian spy ship has been escorted out of the Irish Sea after it entered Irish-controlled waters and patrolled an area containing critical energy and internet submarine pipelines and cables.
It was spotted on Thursday east of Dublin and south-west of the Isle of Man but Norwegian, US, French and British navy and air defence services initially observed it accompanying a Russian warship, the Admiral Golovko, through the English channel last weekend.
Continue reading...Matthew Pennycook says Tory position now unclear on cap on tax rises that was in place when Kemi Badenoch was local government minister
A minister has criticised her Tory shadow for talking about “joy” in the health sector about the funding it received.
Karin Smyth, a health minister, said it was a strange word to use given the state of NHS finances left by the last government.
Many in the health sector would have been pleased to hear the announcement of the extra funding going into the NHS [in the budget], only for the joy to be struck down by the realisation of a broken manifesto promise not to raise national insurance contributions.
This was only compounded further on the discovery that a raft of frontline care providers – care homes, hospices, care charities, pharmacies, GPS, to name but a few – found themselves not exempt from the NI rises, leaving them with crippling staff bills and the threat of closure and redundancies.
He talks about joy. There was no joy when we inherited the mess that they left back in July.
The chancellor took into account the impact of changes to national insurance when she allocated an extra £26bn to the Department of Health and Social Care.
There are well established processes for agreeing funding allocations across the system, we are going through those processes now with this issue in mind.
The British government needs to start now indicating for them what they believe is the tipping point at which they believe a referendum would be called.
Continue reading...Regulator issues online safety ruling after finding weak processes leave networks ‘exposed to terrorist content’
Elon Musk’s X, TikTok and Meta’s Instagram have been ordered by Irish media regulators to take “necessary measures” to prevent terrorist content being platformed in order to comply with sweeping new online safety legislation.
The Irish media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, said it issued the ruling after its investigations determined that the social media networks were “exposed to terrorist content” due to weak processes.
Continue reading...Competition to resemble Normal People star is markedly lower-stakes than chaotic Timothée Chalamet event in New York last month
Two weeks ago, a mobbed competition to find a Timothée Chalamet lookalike in New York led to one arrest, a $500 fine for an “unpermitted costume contest” and a surprise appearance by the real-life Chalamet, fuelling further chaos.
But a similar event in Dublin on Thursday, this time to find a doppelganger for Paul Mescal, the star of Normal People and the upcoming Gladiator II, unfolded rather more sedately.
Continue reading...Saltburn actor tells Louis Theroux podcast about his difficult childhood and decision to keep his child offline
Oscar nominee Barry Keoghan has hit back at “disgusting” online trolls who he claimed use his relationship with his son as “ammunition” against him.
The 32-year-old Irish actor, who is dating US singer-songwriter Sabrina Carpenter, has a two-year-old son, Brando, with his former partner.
Continue reading...Election watchers in Europe, Asia and elsewhere will be tuning in – and some have a particular interest in the result
From Brazil to Ireland and Germany to the Caribbean, this year’s knife-edge – and more than usually momentous – US presidential vote will be watched at a multitude of election-night events, some with a particular interest in the outcome.
In St Ann Parish, Jamaica – and most particularly in Browns Town, where Harris’s father Donald was born and the Democratic candidate spent many happy childhood holidays – her supporters plan watch parties, drink-ups and other social gatherings.
Continue reading...Thousands lined streets of Irish capital waiting for falsely advertised Mácnas parade after website’s ‘human error’
A Pakistan-based company has issued an embarrassed apology to Dubliners after a “human error” on its events website led to thousands of people turning up on the Irish capital’s main thoroughfare for a nonexistent Halloween parade.
Footage on Thursday night showed throngs of people lining both sides of O’Connell Street waiting for a supposed procession of giant Halloween puppets made by one of Ireland’s best known theatre groups, the Galway performance company Mácnas.
Continue reading...Former pupils of Catholic schools say corporal punishment was ‘hourly occurence’ in 60s and 70s
The Irish government has been urged to extend the scope of a statutory inquiry into historical child abuse in schools to include corporal punishment, including a practice known as “leathering”.
Survivors of physical assault in Catholic schools have complained they were told there was no scope to include corporal punishment in an investigation into sexual abuse, announced in September.
Continue reading...Actor ran last part of course pushing friend Emma Fogarty who has genetic condition known as butterfly skin
Colin Farrell has raised €774,000 (£644,000) for a charity supporting people with a rare skin condition by running the Dublin marathon while pushing one of the oldest survivors of the disease in Ireland around part of the course in her wheelchair.
The actor, who was born in the Irish capital, raised the money for Debra Ireland, an organisation that supports people with the incurable genetic condition epidermolysis bullosa (EB), or “butterfly skin”, which causes people to have very fragile and blistering skin.
Continue reading...Rise in VAT, inflation and people working from home has led small business owners to demand government support
Blazing Salads, Dillingers, Assassination Custard and Brasserie Sixty Six in Dublin, Church Lane and Sage in County Cork, and Barnacles in Galway.
These are just some of the most recent additions to the list of more than 600 restaurants that have been forced to close in Ireland in the last year in what is being seen as a growing crisis for the country’s high street and tourist offering.
Continue reading...Ward’s body was found at her home and Ahmed Abdirahman was arrested in Dublin
A man has appeared in a Dublin court charged with the murder of Mary Ward in Belfast.
The 22-year-old was found dead at her home on 1 October with neck wounds. Her body was found after police officers went to her house, but she was last seen alive on 25 September, according to police.
Continue reading...Comment follows claim Kremlin recruited member of parliament to damage UK-Irish relations during Brexit talks
Ireland is a “playground” for Russian intelligence, a former deputy chief of an Irish army unit has said following claims that a member of parliament was recruited by the Kremlin to undermine Anglo-Irish relations during Brexit talks.
Cathal Berry, now a Teachta Dála (TD, member of the Irish parliament), said he had not been surprised by a report at the weekend that the unnamed politician had been recruited “as an agent of influence” in a honeytrap operation.
Continue reading...Study uncovers vivid and poignant accounts of reefs as high as houses off countries including UK, France and Ireland
Only a handful of natural oyster reefs measuring at most a few square metres cling on precariously along European coasts after being wiped out by overfishing, dredging and pollution.
A study led by British scientists has discovered how extensive they once were, with reefs as high as a house covering at least 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) from Norway to the Mediterranean, an area larger than Northern Ireland.
Continue reading...Jack Chambers says money will be used on infrastructure, not giveaways, as he reveals government budget
The Irish finance minister has hailed the €14bn tax windfall from Apple as “transformational” just weeks after the government lost a case in the European court of justice arguing the tech company should keep its money.
Unveiling the country’s budget on Tuesday, Jack Chambers said the money would be used on infrastructure and not splurged on giveaways before the general election, which is expected in November.
Continue reading...Policy devised under Conservatives will be reviewed after warnings of chaos for producers and suppliers
Government plans to force food manufacturers to put “not for EU” labels on all meat and dairy products sold across Britain next month have been indefinitely postponed after warnings that the scheme could cause “chaos” for producers and suppliers.
The government will instead review the policy, which was devised under the Conservative administration. Legislation to implement the changes has yet to be brought in.
Continue reading...Irish building materials firm was identified by Grenfell inquiry as behaving with ‘persistent dishonesty’
A second professional golfer, Leona Maguire, is under pressure to end her sponsorship deal with the Irish company Kingspan after the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower disaster found it behaved with “persistent dishonesty” in selling combustible foam insulation.
Grenfell United (GU), the bereaved and survivors group, is calling on the 29-year-old to drop the firm and stop wearing its logo on her golf shirts after the Ryder Cup player Shane Lowry announced he was doing so earlier this week.
Continue reading...Starmer to hold talks with Irish counterpart on first official visit of a British PM to country for five years
Keir Starmer has said he believes there can be a “deep” reset of relations with Ireland after arriving in Dublin for his first official visit, with Northern Ireland, Brexit and joint international interests on the agenda.
It is the first official visit of a British prime minister since Boris Johnson visited in 2019 to try to salvage a Brexit deal after years of strained relations.
Continue reading...Ireland’s deputy PM welcomes warmer relations as Keir Starmer arrives for official visit – but cautions UK cannot ‘cherrypick’ issues
The UK cannot have an “à la carte” reset of the Brexit agreement, Ireland’s deputy prime minister has said, just hours before Keir Starmer headed to Dublin for his first official visit to Ireland.
The tánaiste said the EU wanted an improved EU-UK relationship but that the UK could not “cherrypick”.
Continue reading...Inquiry to follow preliminary investigation unearthing 2,400 allegations of historic abuse
The Irish government is to set up a statutory commission of inquiry into sexual abuse at schools run by Catholic religious orders after a preliminary investigation found almost 2,400 allegations of historic abuse.
The investigation, led by a leading barrister, Mary O’Toole, documented 844 alleged abusers in 308 schools run by 42 religious orders across the Republic of Ireland.
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