Category Archives: Ireland

Boeing 737 Max ordered by Ryanair undergoes name change

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Decision fuels speculation that troubled plane will be rebranded once it is given all clear to fly

A Boeing 737 Max due to be delivered to Ryanair has had the name Max dropped from the livery, further fuelling speculation that the manufacturer and airlines will seek to rebrand the troubled plane once it is given the all clear to fly again.

Photos have emerged of a 737 Max in Ryanair colours outside Boeing’s manufacturing hub, with the designation 737-8200 – instead of 737 Max – on the nose. The 737-8200 is a type name for the aircraft that is used by aviation agencies.

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Ursula von der Leyen signals she will not reopen Brexit talks

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Nominee to lead European commission also says ‘precious’ backstop must be defended

Ursula von der Leyen, the nominee to lead the European commission, has signalled she will not reopen Brexit talks with the next British prime minister and stressed the “precious” Irish backstop must be defended.

She said she still hoped the UK would remain in the European Union, while indicating she had no intention to renegotiate the withdrawal deal agreed by Theresa May and EU leaders.

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The wrong kind of trees: Ireland’s afforestation meets resistance

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Residents and campaigners say fast-growing Sitka spruces are spoiling the landscape

Ireland is ramping up its response to the climate crisis by planting forests – lots of forests. East, west, north, south, the plan is to plant forests, the more the better.

With enough trees, goes the hope, Ireland can compensate for many of the cows, vehicles and fossil-burning power plants that make it one of Europe’s worst climate offenders.

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How Ifrah Ahmed, the girl from Mogadishu, took her FGM story to the world

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As a Somali girl she underwent the horrific practice. Now a new film tells how she risked her life to end it

Ifrah Ahmed refuses to let the horrific female genital mutilation she suffered at the age of eight define her. “I don’t want to be a victim. I want to be a voice,” says the 32-year-old campaigner.

She is one of the first women to publicly speak out about female genital mutilation (FGM) in Somalia – a country where it is estimated that 98% of women have undergone the ritual – and now her journey from powerless victim to powerful role model has been dramatised in a film. A Girl from Mogadishu has just had its UK premiere at the Edinburgh film festival and will be released across the UK in cinemas later this year.

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Ireland to charge suspect for murder of British spy in IRA

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Prosecutors obtain warrant to arrest man over Denis Donaldson shooting in 2006

Irish authorities are preparing to charge a man for the murder of Denis Donaldson, a British spy within the IRA who was shot dead in 2006.

The news emerged on Wednesday when an Irish police officer told an inquest in Letterkenny, County Donegal, that prosecutors had obtained a warrant to arrest and charge the suspect with murder.

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Dublin disappoints: what happened to city cycling’s great hope?

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In 2013 the Irish capital was ranked among the world’s top 20 bike-friendly cities, but only a small part of the promised cycle network was ever built

One sunny May afternoon in Dublin, as the Spice Girls prepared to kick off their Spice World 2019 tour at Croke Park stadium, the coaches bringing their fans unwittingly sparked another reunion – the city’s cycle activists.

It had been two years since the direct action group I Bike Dublin had mobilised to protect cycle tracks from car parking – uniting around twice a week under the hashtag #freethecyclelane – but as police officers directed coach drivers to park in the bike lane by Dublin Bay, blocking the track, the protesters were back.

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Brexit: alternative to Irish backstop ‘feasible in three years’

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Report on keeping border open, backed by Nicky Morgan and Greg Hands, suggests special economic zones

Alternative arrangements for keeping the Irish border open in the event of a no-deal Brexit or the collapse of future trade talks with the EU could be up and running within three years, a report concludes.

The interim report by a non-government organisation calling itself the Alternative Arrangements Commission will be unveiled at a special conference on the Irish border in London on Monday.

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‘I can change it for others’: the woman who exposed Irish smear tests scandal

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If a test in 2011 had been accurate, Vicky Phelan might have avoided cancer. Now she is trying to give some hope to terminal patients

When Vicky Phelan was told in January 2018 to get her affairs in order because she had less than a year to live, she crumpled. “The legs went from under me,” she recalled.

Emerging from the doctor’s office she avoided the gazes of her daughter and mother waiting outside and sought refuge in a bathroom. “I was in there for about 20 minutes. I bawled my eyes out.”

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Ireland left horrified by Ana Kriégel’s murder in a derelict farmhouse

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After two 14-year-olds were convicted of killing a vulnerable teenage girl who had been bullied online, the fallout from a harrowing case continues to haunt the country

On a spring afternoon last year, a 13-year-old boy called at the home of Ana Kriégel, a 14-year-old girl living in the Dublin suburb of Lucan.

He had exciting news: his friend, whom she had a crush on, wanted to meet her. Ana was delighted. She grabbed her hoodie and followed him through a park to a derelict farmhouse where his friend, also aged 13, was waiting. It was a trap.

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Two boys, 14, convicted of classmate’s murder in Ireland

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Victim Ana Kriégel was lured from her home, beaten and sexually assaulted in May 2018

Two 14-year-old boys have been found guilty of murdering a female classmate who was lured to an abandoned house, savagely beaten and sexually assaulted in a case that has shaken Ireland.

The battered and partially clothed body of Ana Kriégel was found in a derelict farmhouse in Lucan, a Dublin suburb, on 17 May 2018, three days after she went missing.

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Varadkar: removing Irish backstop would be as bad as no-deal Brexit

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Taoiseach wants to keep a guarantee there will be no return to hard borders

Leo Varadkar has said that removing the border backstop would be as bad for Ireland as a no-deal Brexit.

Some contenders to replace Theresa May as prime minister, including frontrunner Boris Johnson, have proposed changes to the policy.

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Trump visit avoids major pitfalls despite usual blunders

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US president’s behaviour seemed tame in comparison with disastrous visit last year

He insulted London’s mayor, abused an American actor on Twitter at 1.20am, turned Brexit into a threat to the National Health Service, described Meghan Markle as nasty, and behaved as if he was a kingmaker offering audiences to aspirants from the 51st state, and yet to Whitehall’s diplomats Donald Trump’s state visit was by no means the worst in living memory.

It may be that the bar had been set vertiginously low, or that Trump, as a repeat visitor, has lost some of his capacity for shock and awe. Somehow, it seemed tame and normalised in comparison with his previous disastrous visit a year ago. Even the protests felt familiar, and like Trump’s insults aimed at Sadiq Khan, heartfelt but formulaic.

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Trump compares post-Brexit Irish border issue to plans for US-Mexico wall – video

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Donald Trump has started his visit to Ireland by comparing the country's post-Brexit border with Northern Ireland to the US border with Mexico, along which the US president wants to build a permanent wall. The Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who looked visibly uncomfortable at the joint press conference, responded by saying that 'the main thing we want to avoid, of course, is a wall or a border' 

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Doonbeg: why one Irish village won’t join the Trump protests

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Trumpland’s Irish outpost in the village of Doonbeg in County Clare is an economic lifeline for locals

Protests and controversy await Donald Trump when he flies into Ireland on Wednesday, but there is at least one corner of the country preparing a heartfelt welcome.

The village of Doonbeg in County Clare has erected US flags and plans to give a mighty cheer if the presidential cavalcade swooshes past.

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Briton convicted of 1996 murder of French film-maker in Ireland

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Ian Bailey, who lives in Ireland, convicted in his absence of killing Sophie Toscan du Plantier

A court in France has found Ian Bailey, a British former journalist, guilty of murdering Sophie Toscan du Plantier, a French film-maker who was battered to death in Ireland.

The cour d’assises in Paris on Friday sentenced Bailey to 25 years for the brutal murder in west Cork in 1996, an infamous cold case that has confounded Irish authorities and divided public opinion over Bailey’s guilt or innocence.

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‘They’re going to bonfire me’: French trial for Briton over film-maker’s death

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Death of Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork in 1996 and protracted, bungled investigation has gripped Ireland

After 23 years of trying to clear his name, Ian Bailey is bracing for the appellation he has always dreaded: convicted murderer.

A court in Paris is due to try the English former journalist this week for the 1996 murder of the French film-maker Sophie Toscan du Plantier in west Cork, a bucolic Atlantic region known as the Irish riviera.

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Real IRA founder who plotted bombing while Prince Charles was in Ireland dies in prison

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Seamus McGrane died from a suspected heart attack while serving an 11½-year sentence for directing terrorism

One of the founders of the Real IRA, who planned a bomb attack during Prince Charles’s visit to Ireland in 2015, has died in prison.

Seamus McGrane died from a suspected heart attack while serving an 11½-year sentence for directing terrorism, the Irish Times has reported.

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At least four more die on Everest amid overcrowding concerns

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Latest deaths, including an Irish climber, come as others report ‘insane’ delays at the peak

Four more deaths have been reported on Everest as concerns grow about the risks posed by the severe overcrowding on the world’s highest mountain this year.

Kevin Hynes, 56, from Ireland, died in his tent at 7,000 metres early on Friday, having turned back before reaching the summit. The father of two was part of a group from the UK-based 360 Expeditions.

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Google faces Irish inquiry over possible breach of privacy laws

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Technology firm’s Ad Exchange processing of users’ personal data being investigated

The Irish data protection commission has opened an investigation into Google over suspected infringements of European Union privacy rules.

The statutory inquiry will probe whether Google’s online Ad Exchange violated general data protection regulations (GDPR) covering the sharing of personal data of internet users, the watchdog said in a statement on Wednesday.

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