Just nine days after Ballyhale Shamrocks’ All-Ireland club final win last March, Adrian Mullen was handed his Kilkenny senior debut in a challenge against Cork.

Kiskeam moved into second place in the Rochestown Park Hotel Division 1 FL as they enjoyed an impressive win away to Nemo Rangers.

So that’s Friday nearly wrapped up. Here’s some of the stories we published on irishexaminer.com today which we hope will help you make sense of it all this evening.

A special bucket collection for a special Cork GAA talent takes place outside Pairc Ui Chaoimh on Sunday. It is worth your support. Now read on....

There was drama aplenty in Castlemartyr yesterday evening as Aghada saw off the challenge of their neighbours from Cloyne in a gripping first round encounter of the Cork PIHC.

Tonight on RTÉ you can see the first episode of GAA Eile, a series on Gaelic games that your columnist — full disclosure — worked on.

The infamous FAI hearing at the sport and transport committee of April 2019, since known as the Morning of the Long Pause, marked a turning point in the fortunes of many of the participants, though no-one realised that at the time.

It was a case of bringing it all back home — again.

The Tory zealots, the European Research Group, may not maintain a wine cellar, but if it did, it is unlikely that the faction’s sommelier would have been busy serving champagne after Saturday’s Grand National.

The annual cost of preventive dental healthcare packages to all children under the age of 16 years could be as high as €41.1m according to the ESRI, while similar preventive dental healthcare packages for adults could cost even more.

So, why has there been such an outpouring of generosity and kindness towards Kieran O’Connor and his family over the past few weeks?

Fitzgibbon Cup champions UCC got their Cork SHC (Colleges/Divisions section) off to an impressive start in Páirc Uí Rinn last night. Played before the Cork/Kilkenny benefit game for former Cork footballer Kieran O’Connor, they now move on to a second-round tie against Muskerry next week.

So that’s nearly Wednesday wrapped up.

The warmest round of applause on Leeside ever for a Kilkenny team? Considering the context, the sincerity of the welcome was no surprise.

The senior hurlers of Cork and Kilkenny form part of an inviting double-header Wednesday evening at Páirc Uí Rinn in aid of the Friends of Kieran O’Connor fundraising drive.

Details of the Cork County Board’s fundraising match for Kieran O’Connor were confirmed today — Cork hurlers will face Kilkenny in Páirc uí Rinn on Wednesday, March 27th at 7.30pm, with tickets priced at €10 (adults) and €5 (concessions).

Thousands of people who attended a walk for former GAA footballer Kieran O’Connor have been told that the All Ireland winner will “come out the other side of the long battle ahead”.

When he emerged from the Aghada GAA clubhouse yesterday afternoon, Kieran O’Connor was immediately swamped by well-wishers.

The day starts well. (Spoiler alert: it will not continue in this vein.)

For sports columnists in search of topics to write about, there’s always a swivelling quality — swivelling, I said — to the days running up to deadline.

Responding to client demand, more and more dental clinics are adding Botox and fillers to their list of offerings, writes Helen O’Callaghan

A throbbing ankle? What former Cork defender Kieran O'Connor presumed was a legacy from chasing fast corner-forwards turned into a nightmare he's battling every day.

Proposal 15 in the Hurling 2020 committee report released almost three years ago called for the introduction of squad numbers prior to the start of the All-Ireland championship.

Tony Browne, the 1998 hurler of the year, believes that this year’s All-Ireland final will be won with a sweeper.

A member of an Eastern European gang that robbed high-end fashion wear and thousands of euro worth of expensive perfumes in night- time raids in Munster was yesterday jailed for five and a half years.

A look ahead to all the weekend’s action around Cork...

An umpire was struck a number of times with a hurley “in the white heat of battle”, at a Division 2 match in Co Kerry, a court was told yesterday .

Scoil Phobail Sliabh Luachra 2-12 Coláíste Chríost Rí 0-8: The Munster and All-Ireland champions comfortably defeated on the opening afternoon, and now the scalp taken of Cork’s most successful football nursery.

St. Finbarr’s 0-11 Aghada 0-8: Measured against their greater potential in the first half when they were limited by some poor finishing, it was no surprise to see St. Finbarr’s emerge victorious from this second round Cork SFC game in the wind and rain in Carrigtwohill on Saturday evening.

2013 All Stars 10-7 2014 All Stars 5-5

Kerry GAA authorities are treating "with the utmost gravity" claims that a hurling umpire was attacked by a player and left requiring hospital treatment following the vicious assault at a match in Kilmoyley on Sunday.

Two Cork hospitals are ahead of the international curve in administrating clot-busting treatment to patients within the vital three hours post-stroke.

New York 0-08 Mayo 4-18

To start with, two pieces of good news.

CORK is a city of storytellers. From Frank O’Connor and Seán Ó Faolain to Conal Creedon and Madeleine D’Arcy, our stories of the city and its people have amused and enthralled generations.

Tony Mansfield, whose death took place in Cork on Sunday at the age of 73, was a leading figure in Waterford GAA, a member of the squad which contested the All-Ireland hurling final of 1963 against Kilkenny and going on to manage the 1992 U21 team which won the county’s only national title in the grade.

Just as he did so many times for Munster and Ireland, John Hayes again stepped into the breach at the national ploughing championships.

Career paths for trainee pilots left stranded after their flight course collapsed have taken off again with special offers of courses in Ireland to help them finish training.

From the island of saints and scholars to this: Ireland now ranks as one of the world’s least religious countries.

A Trevor O’Keeffe goal 10 minutes into the second-half proved decisive in this entertaining third round Cork SFC clash at Cobh on Saturday night.

A major medical unit has been opened in Cork City to tackle strokes which, despite being preventable, kill more people every year than lung, bowel, and breast cancer combined.

Having spent 37 years with dairy group Glanbia in Kilkenny, Kieran O’Connor has decided to set up his own communications business.