At the age of 17, Brian Prendergast followed a long family tradition of finding a career in music through the army. He’s now the Cork-based conductor of one of the defence forces’ best bands, writes Richard Fitzpatrick.

Justin Keating was Minister for Industry and Commerce in the early 1970s and a man of strong convictions, never afraid to voice his opinions. Ryle Dwyer reads between the lines of his collection of writings. 

The expressions of indignation and condemnation from some in government at the heckling of President Michael D Higgins by anti-water charge protesters in Dublin smacks of double standards. (Water charges protest - Attack on President crossed a line, Editorial January 29).

Gerard Howlin says Michael D Higgins’s comments on the Savita Halappanavar case were inappropriate for his office

President Michael D Higgins has admitted he must be “extremely careful” about choosing his words after several of his remarks in public sparked controversy.

AS THEY say in political backrooms: you campaign in poetry and govern in prose.

MUCH of the public debate in this presidential campaign has focused on the limitations of the office and to how the President is, for all intents and purposes, a political slave of the Government.

DO children matter in Ireland? The obvious answer and the one that would be given by anyone asked such an obvious question is yes, of course they do.

The possible entry of Gay Byrne into the race for the presidency has generated a considerable amount of attention, especially in the light of recent reports that the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has promised Mr Byrne the backing of his party, which has essentially been behind the successful candidacy of all but one of our eight presidents.

RITA CHILDERS, the wife of former president Erskine Childers, who herself came close to being Ireland’s first female president, has died peacefully at the age of 95.

BY any standards, the contribution to political life in Ireland over many decades by the late Dr Conor Cruise O’Brien has been both enormous and controversial.

FORMER minister Conor Cruise O’Brien’s forthright style saw him accused of many things during his long and distinguished career but few would have blamed him of facilitating communist infiltration in RTÉ.

There is the salary of the president and her staff, the cost of the upkeep of the Áras and its staff, providing the president with a car, a driver, and a police escort car, as well as extravagant pensions for former presidents, and ultimately the cost of their state funerals.

BY 1990, there was a general consensus that the office of president was worthy but dull, and there was no sign of debate or discussion in the 1980s about the possibilities of expanding the role of the president or a sense that its profile could or should be increased.

Newly released State papers shed little light on the famous ‘thundering disgrace’ row writes Caroline O’Doherty.

DURING the removal of Charles Haughey’s remains on June 15, an RTÉ commentator had occasion to pronounce — or brutally mispronounce — some words in Irish.

IN the Supreme Court on December 21, 1972, my granduncle, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, delivered judgement on the legality of the compulsory purchase by the state of a site below the 400 feet contour lines on Tara.

HAVING written full-length biographies of both Charlie Haughey and Jack Lynch, I was particularly interested in Frank Dunlop’s book, Yes, Taoiseach.

THE Labour Party likes to spin a tale about how it single-handedly ‘transformed’ the office of the President.

YOU would think that the current crop of political party yahoos would have got their act together a bit more.

ON July 7, 1970, protesters picketed outside the home of Peter Berry, Secretary of the Department of Justice.