WE have just had the most spectacular, groundbreaking election in modern Irish history.

THE contrast between Ireland and Libya could not have been greater yesterday.

CREDIT unions can be some of the very best examples of a community or a group of workers uniting to help themselves.

JUST as there is no such thing as a relationship that will not end there is no such thing as a date that will not arrive.

THE instability in North Africa was bound to have an impact on oil prices and underline again how utterly dependent we are on imported energy.

WITH good news as rare as hen’s teeth nowadays, it is heartening to learn that the latest export figures show our export industry is burgeoning.

TOMORROW is one of the most important days in Irish politics since the foundation of the state.

AS we enter the final hours of what has been a peculiar, low-energy and fairly constrained election campaign it might just be time to look beyond the weekend’s anticipated excitements to try to separate what can be achieved from the unattainable.

YESTERDAY’S admission by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin that the Catholic Church in Ireland is on the verge of collapse and must accept that it may become a minority culture is a realistic assessment but it is nevertheless a sea change almost beyond comprehension.

THOUGH replacing one profoundly conservative, middle of the road, Christian democrat, pro-business political party with another, as we will this week, may represent a shift of the tectonic plates in terms of domestic politics it hardly even registers as change when compared with the great upheavals around the world.