“GOD is good,” said the old tramp one icy night as he made his way unsteadily over a narrow bridge.

Ronan Mullen YOU might have thought the ability to drink alcohol and shake hands was essential for the smooth running of the EU, but you’d be wrong.

AS THE sky grew dark over Croke Park on Monday night it all became clear.

CAFÉ MAO is the name of not one, but two, restaurants in Dublin. This column does not review restaurants, however, and I will confine my comments to the strange choice of name.

ARE there questions to be answered about the questions they set?

WHEN you’re in a hole, the old saying goes, you should stop digging. Michael McDowell cited it recently, as he elegantly side-stepped public odium by allowing Nigerian student Kunle Elukanlo back into the country.

THE former British minister for Europe, Denis MacShane, tells a good story from one of those negotiating sessions in Brussels where European leaders advanced, bit by bit, the creation of the new Europe.

THE Clintons - they haven’t gone away, you know. This week, Bill made yet another visit to Ireland. Last Friday he was in the Vatican, reporting on his work to promote international solidarity with victims of the tsunami.

HARDLY a week goes by but there are new stories which illustrate the fragility of human life at the extremes of conception and death.

CARDINAL INNITZER of Vienna thought he could do a deal with Hitler. He supported the Anschluss, the 1938 unification of Austria and Germany. He even offered a ‘Heil Hitler’ when the Nazis marched into Vienna.