Category Archives: Ireland

Pakistani firm apologises for directing Dubliners to nonexistent Halloween event

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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.

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Irish school abuse inquiry should cover ‘leathering’, survivors say

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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.

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Colin Farrell’s Dublin marathon run raises €774,000 for charity

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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.

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‘It’s desperation’: Ireland’s restaurant industry facing crisis with daily closures

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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.

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Man appears in court charged with Belfast murder of Mary Ward

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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.

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Ireland is a ‘playground’ for Russian intelligence, says former army chief

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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.

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Europe’s exhausted oyster reefs ‘once covered area size of Northern Ireland’

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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.

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Irish finance minister calls €14bn tax windfall from Apple ‘transformational’

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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.

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UK’s ‘not for EU’ meat and dairy labelling plan postponed indefinitely

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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.

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Grenfell survivors urge golfer Leona Maguire to axe Kingspan sponsorship

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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.

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Keir Starmer optimistic for ‘deep’ reset of relations with Ireland

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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.

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‘À la carte’ new Brexit deal with EU not on table, Micheál Martin warns

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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”.

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Ireland to set up inquiry into sexual abuse at schools run by religious orders

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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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Irish prime minister says €336,000 cost for bike shelter is ‘inexcusable’

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Minister requests review of building project for bike shelter at Leinster House in Dublin

Ireland’s prime minister, Simon Harris, has said he is “angry and annoyed” at the “inexcusable” €336,000 cost for a bike shelter at Leinster House in Dublin, the seat of the Irish parliament.

The taoiseach told a news conference that “people can see the benefit of having somewhere to park a bike at a workplace” but what they don’t get is “the extraordinary sum of money” the shelter cost, and neither does he.

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The US is a lucky charm – and reliable partner – for Irish businesses

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With just 5 million people, Ireland ranks sixth globally for foreign direct investment in US, above Italy and Mexico

More than 80 years since helping develop the nuclear bomb, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the mountains of eastern Tennessee remains a critical piece of the US government’s research-and-development infrastructure.

Inside its walls lie the world’s fastest supercomputer; fusion, fission and neutron research projects; and thousands of expert scientists and researchers.

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Irish police investigate whether stabbing of army chaplain terror-related

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Gardaí believe boy had been radicalised online and bore grudge about Irish peacekeepers in Middle East

Irish police suspect a possible terror motive in a stabbing attack outside an army barracks in Galway that inflicted serious injuries on a military chaplain.

Police have detained a 16-year-old boy who was reportedly radicalised online and had a grievance about Irish peacekeepers in the Middle East.

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Tommy Robinson’s passport may be invalid, say Irish parliamentarians

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Dáil members call for investigation after far-right leader gave false country of birth to Canada’s immigration officers

Irish parliamentarians have called on their government to investigate how an Irish passport was obtained by Tommy Robinson, who has been accused of inciting riots from abroad.

The Luton-born far-right leader travels on an Irish passport in his real name – Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – and was believed to have qualified for it via his mother, an Irish immigrant to Britain.

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Far-right call to arms over Southport has echoes of Dublin stabbings aftermath

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Misinformation and disinformation played major part in riots after stabbings involving children

Anyone in Ireland sitting in front of their television screen or checking their mobile phone about events unfolding in Southport this week could not help but be struck by the similarities to what happened in Dublin in November last year.

On both occasions young children were repeatedly stabbed.

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