The events sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife outside a Sarajevo delicatessen 100 years ago this morning have had a greater impact on our lives than any other event in the last century — even the one we will mark in 2016.

Suicide is one of the great tragedies of our time. Any family touched by it faces a huge, lasting and almost incomprehensible challenge. Its impact, and the layers of complexity and often unjustified guilt, it provokes, can be life defining.

There is a scene towards the end of Oliver Stone’s movie JFK where Kevin Costner, playing the role of District Attorney Jim Garrison, walks, defeated, out of the courthouse, telling his son that he will have to wait at least 30 years before finding out if his theory about the pPresident’s assassination was correct.

The revelations that the famous English DJ and broadcaster Jimmy Savile abused 60 people at Leeds General Infirmary, including at least 33 patients aged from five to 75, is as horrifying as it is shocking.

The agreement between striking air traffic controllers and the French Government last night to park their dispute over resources is a welcome relief to thousands of frustrated travellers and intending holiday-makers.

Amid the recent positive news of rising house prices and the economy picking up, there are some very disturbing indications about which everybody should be conscious.

A two-day EU summit begins in Brussels tomorrow and the stage is set for a fraught, divisive meeting of the 28 national leaders. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s trenchant opposition to the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as head of the European Commission, despite his endorsement by Germany, is the issue.

As an expression of powerlessness it was, well, pretty powerful. The exclusion from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party of solo-run MEP Brian Crowley seems a pretty limp censure of someone who has given the most public two fingers to those who voted for him, his party leadership, and their authority.

Long, long before alcohol was named as a factor in the appalling case at Longford Circuit Criminal Court yesterday morning, where a 47 year-old mother was sentenced to 14 years in jail for the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of her pre-teen daughter, we all knew that our national relationship with drink is not always a healthy one.

Last month Fianna Fáil’s Brian Crowley topped the poll in Ireland South with an incredible 180,000 votes.