Fishermen found 17-year-old girl and 23-year-old cousin 17 miles from Galway Bay

Two paddle boarders who vanished off the west coast of Ireland survived a night of rain, wind and thunder by clinging to a lobster pot buoy.

Two fishermen found the 17-year-old girl and 23-year-old woman on Thursday two miles south of the Aran islands, about 17 miles from Galway Bay, where they were last seen on Wednesday night.

Ireland eased restrictions this week and drinkers have been getting used to the new normal

They had had to book a table, restrict their group to four people, sanitise their hands, shun the bar, not sing, and leave after 105 minutes, but Johnny Knox and Tommy Flannery were not complaining.

After three months of lockdown, Ireland eased restrictions this week and the pair were back in the pub, sinking pints and talking up a storm. “The first pint? Absolutely brilliant,” said Knox, 64, working his way through another Tuborg.

Gardaí received intelligence about planned Offaly murder and put men under surveillance

It sounds like a scene from a Latin American gangster movie: police intercept four young Brazilian men with a submachine gun and a sawn-off shotgun – an alleged hit squad en route to assassinate a gang member over a drug debt.

But the checkpoint and arrests on Wednesday happened not in Rio de Janeiro but in Clara, a town in County Offaly in the midlands of Ireland.

Salvage experts say owner of MV Alta, which ran aground in February, may never be found

The ghost ship that washed on to Ireland’s coast earlier this year remains something of a mystery: its owner has not been found, which could potentially leave the Irish state with a bill of millions for its removal.

Authorities are still trying to trace those who own and are responsible for the MV Alta, a 77-metre cargo vessel that ran aground near Ballycotton, a fishing village in County Cork overlooking the Celtic Sea, in February.