Arigo Sacchi, the great Italian football coach, once said football is the “most important of the least important things in life”.

As the newly elected President of the FAI, Gerry McAnaney has a six-month term of office in which to play his part in taking the Association from what he calls ‘a very dark place’. In this exclusive interview, the former League of Ireland goalkeeper and Army commandant takes us through his colourful life and times in football.

With just two races remaining at the Laser Radial World Championships in Japan this morning, Aoife Hopkins has moved into 41st place overall in the 55-strong Gold fleet finals series.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators opposed to right-wing populism and nationalism took to the streets in different European cities today, ahead of the European Parliament elections.

On the issue of climate change, the Extinction Rebellion exposes much of the Irish left, usually first up on the barricades, as a vanguard for counter-revolution.

Abbey Island can be reached in just a few steps across the beach at Derrynane, Co Kerry.

Once upon a time, everyone assumed that there was a single phenomenon called globalisation, whereby cross-border flows of financial capital drove innovation, industrialisation, development, and trade, writes Harold James.

Mick McCarthy has never had much truck with spin.

A giant photo of Olympic silver medallist Annalise Murphy took centre stage when Irish Sailing unveiled its new High Performance HQ in Dun Laoghaire yesterday - but not the one you would expect.

Eight years ago, a small band of cattle made a valiant bid for freedom.

There’s still a few days to be crossed off the calendar but we’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that the first September in living memory without a pair of All-Ireland men’s senior finals at its core will come and go without the sky falling in and the very fabric of the GAA having been ripped asunder.

“It won’t be long now…”

So much was so different about English football when a 33-year-old Mick McCarthy agreed to step into the breach as player-manager in the wake of Bruce Rioch’s departure from Millwall back in March of 1992, writes Brendan O’Brien.

Comedians tend to worry a lot about the ‘too soon’ moment, that minefield of a border between the darkly funny and the wincingly crass.

Submissions are being invited for a public monument to the Liberator, Daniel O’Connell, in his native Cahersiveen — the first such monument in the south Kerry town centre.

Survivors of the Costa Concordia cruise-liner disaster are flying back to Italy today, after the ship operator failed to accept the findings of UK medical experts.

The chant echoed around the concession stands in the bowels of the Parc Olympique Lyonnais (also nicknamed Stade des Lumières) at half time.

Britain: A London auctioneer says a diamond the size of a tennis ball, that is the largest discovered in more than a century, could sell for more than $70m (€60m).

COLLECTIBLE TOYS

Cork needs to present itself no longer as one of Ireland’s provincial cities but as Ireland’s second city, writes William Brady

Liana Gourdjia has fond memories of her first encounter with Menahem Pressler, founder of the famous Beaux Arts Trio.

In his role as a technical instructor for Uefa, Packie Bonner occasionally bumps into his work colleague Ioan Lupescu on the continent.

Music-loving soccer commentator George Hamilton has made a second career as a presenter of the Hamilton Scores on RTE Lyric FM. And in a way, he regards commentary a bit like a good jazz performance.

Italian Davide Formolo was rewarded for going it alone with victory on stage four of the Giro d’Italia.

A VISIT a few years ago to a pesto maker in Genoa, where the thick sauce originated, showed the wonders of fresh basil grown especially for it. With a fresh, heady bouquet, it was magnificent. 

Ireland must prepare for a World Cup warning shot from Italy in Saturday’s RBS 6 Nations opener in Rome, according to former Azzurri prop Andrea Lo Cicero.

Check out our spoiler-free guide to tonight's TV.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship captain has admitted he was showing off and wanted to ‘kill three birds with one stone” as he gave evidence in court for the first time about the 2012 shipwreck off an Italian island that killed 32 people.

Excuse me while I remove this bit of grit from my eye.

The company dismantling the Costa Concordia cruise ship says workers have discovered human remains believed to be that of the last missing crew member.

The stricken cruise ship is being towed from the island of Gilglio to Genoa.

The shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner is being prepared for its final voyage.

The shipwrecked Costa Concordia has been successfully refloated in preparation for towing it away for scrapping.

You can say it’s a bad day for football when a cup final report has a diagram of street-fighting rather than the tactics of the two teams.

TREASURES OF THE MED CRUISE

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The shipwrecked Costa Concordia will be removed from its watery graveyard off Tuscany in June and taken to a port to be dismantled, the final phase of an unprecedented 600 million-euro (£500m) salvage effort.

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