A campaign is gathering momentum across Louth over the closure of a respite centre that has been operating in Dundalk for 23 years.

A former Anglo Irish Bank executive said he planned to “get a bit of drink” into a Credit Suisse banker at an upcoming dinner and say to him: “I'd like about five billion before the 30th”.

Irene Halpin Long meets a class of book lovers in Cork, and also chats to established authors about what they read as children.

This afternoon's National Hunt meeting at Leopardstown has passed a course inspection and goes ahead as planned.

Hibernian fought from two goals behind to grab a 2-2 draw in a pulsating Ladbrokes Premiership encounter with leaders Celtic at Easter Road.

At 73, and with more than 100 books and millions of sales under his belt, Michael Morpurgo is as enthusiastic as ever about the importance of ‘rattling good yarns’, writes Marjorie Brennan.

Scientists at Trinity College Dublin have discovered how the body fights infection, and this may pave the way for potential new means of battling common illnesses, such as flu.

The global business elite, each coughing up over €20,000 each, are gathering for their annual shindig at the up-market Swiss resort of Davos.

Ospreys 29 Connacht 7: Connacht’s hopes of qualifying for the Champions Cup quarter-finals were hit when out-half Jack Carty added to their growing injury list in a 29-7 defeat to the Ospreys.

USA: Police say a central Pennsylvania man beat his friend for refusing to eat ramen noodles.

Doctors must warn patients with pacemakers that their devices may be disrupted by anti-theft devices used in shops, experts have said.

A British peer and former 10 Downing St adviser to Gordon Brown, Wilf Stevenson, has just bought the West Cork home of former AIB chief executive David Duffy, Glebe House, for close to €2.5m.

Ulster head coach Les Kiss believes Saracens are the greatest threat to Toulon’s reign as European champions.

Church of Ireland Bishop Paul Colton was so moved by the experience of a survivor of the Westbank orphanage that he has called for all Protestant homes to be included in the Mother and Baby Home investigation.

Crossmaglen Rgrs 2-22 Armagh Harps 0-10: There is simply no stopping Crossmaglen Rangers. 

Given the noses in the southwest which were put out of joint last Friday by Conor McCarthy’s piece in these pages, should we start with off-field competition?

Orange Order leaders have expressed both relief and disappointment at the decision of President Michael D Higgins not to attend the Republic’s only Orange march, in Donegal, next week.

Ulster signalled its serious intent for tonight’s Guinness Pro12 semi-final at Glasgow Warriors by naming its strongest possible side.

Glasgow 32 Ulster 10

Celtic 2 Partick 0:Celtic retained their seven-point lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership with an easy 2-0 win over 10-man Partick at Parkhead last night.

Newport Gwent Dragons 26, Ulster 22: Ulster suffered a blow in their charge for the Guinness Pro12 play-offs after strugglers Newport Gwent Dragons claimed a 26-22 victory at Rodney Parade yesterday.

Guiness Pro12

Ulster 26 Leicester 7: European Champions Cup Pool 3: Darren Cave helped clip the Tigers’ claws in an attritional Champions Cup clash at the Kingspan Stadium on Saturday when Ulster had their bonus point on the board by the 50th minute before a brickwall defence proved almost impenetrable.

European Champions Cup Pool 3

I KNOW one of them fell off a train on his way home from school and two people have told me his shoe-laces were tied together. I know he never came back to school, and no-one ever mentioned him again, recalls Victoria White.

GUINNESS PRO12:

Leicester put indifferent domestic form behind them as they made a strong start to their European Rugby Champions Cup Group Three campaign by sinking Ulster at Welford Road.

Ulster’s big Springbok lock Franco van der Merwe knows the score. With second-row partners dropping like flies, he knows he will have to step up to the plate in what will be his first taste of European rugby when Neil Doak’s men head to Welford Road to face the Leicester Tigers.

Ulster 29 Glasgow Warriors 9

Ulster 30 Edinburgh 0

GUINNESS PRO12:

Scarlets 32 Ulster 32

President Michael D Higgins is holding back from an immediate response to a public invitation to attend the only Orange Order parade in the Republic next year.

Scottish Premiership play-off final: Hibernian 0 Hamilton 2 (aggregate 2-2, Hamilton win 4-3 on penalties)

Ulster 58 Connact 12

Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Britain’s biggest government-owned lender, has hired Ewen Stevenson from Credit Suisse Group as chief financial officer.

Ulster 26 Scarlets 13

Ulster 38 Newport-Gwent Dragons 8

To historian Brenda Stevenson, a scholar on American slavery, 12 Years a Slave is a masterful cinematic work that achieves more than any other film on slavery, so worthy that she plans to screen it in classes at her university, UCLA.

Benetton Treviso 12 Ulster 14

Ullster lock Lewis Stevenson is wary of a Leinster backlash in tomorrow’s RaboDirect Pro12 clash at the RDS.

Tony Bellew has lost his bid to take the WBC light-heavyweight title from Canada’s Adonis Stevenson in Quebec City.

Ulster 32 Treviso 13

A US couple plan to have their dying toddler serve as the groom’s best man when they wed this weekend.