Amid the torrent of news gushing out from Britain’s barely functioning government, the worldwide community of prime ministers and presidents, and students of political linguistics, might not have had their attention drawn to an exchange between Ms May and the chairman of a House of Commons select committee.

What for Ireland, after Brexit, will dominate the political horizon?

The Oval Office has rarely if ever been occupied by men without blemishes of one kind or another on their character.

If there is a more compelling sportsperson out there right now than Ruby Walsh, then they’ve yet to go mainstream, writes Brendan O’Brien

Donald Trump’s yearning for authoritarian rule is clear for all to see, writes James Q Whitman.

I am very familiar with Charlottesville having lived there for almost a year in the early 1980s. 

A combative President Donald Trump has again insisted "there is blame on both sides" for the deadly weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In President Donald Trump, they have a surrogate. It is unclear how far they may go, writes Gerard Howlin

The separation of Church and State is easier to advocate than practise, as the National Maternity Hospital controversy shows, says TP O’Mahony

Should the final say on what the Constitution does or does not mean rest exclusively with seven unelected people? TP O’Mahony weighs up the evidence and looks at the judicial activism of the Irish Supreme Court.

Sexual allegations are not new in US presidential politics, but Ryle Dwyer notes that Donald Trump has plumbed a new low.

Britain: When a cheating spouse upsets the sparrow love nest, it is the children who suffer, scientists have discovered.

In Ireland, in the early 70s, farmhouse cheese production had all but vanished. 

ENGLAND: A seaside resort has axed a Punch and Judy show over fears it trivialises domestic violence.

The so-called terrible beauty that WB Yeats said was born in 1916 was nothing of the sort. What materialised, in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising, was a Catholic state and the transfer of dominion from an imperial power to an ecclesiastical one, an outcome that Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen of 1798 would have abhorred.

The American colonies had been at war with Great Britain, in the American Revolutionary War, for over a year before they issued their Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Kanye West announced his intention to run for the White House at this week’s VMA awards,

Alexander von Humboldt was one of the scientists who defined our world. Dick Warner on a book that may help restore his well- deserved reputation as the father of environmentalism.

Where the Dead Men Go

ONE of the biggest wine scandals of the past few decades reached its final chapter in a New York court on August 7 last when Rudy Kurniawan was sentenced to 10 years in prison for selling fake wine.

In the opinion section on your paper on August 8, Gerard Howlin writes about Pat Rabbitte’s difficulty coping with being dropped from government. Paudy McMahon wrote a letter rebuffing Gay Byrne who expressed fears about the role of the EU in our lives and Tom Duffy stressed how our government is ramming through its wind energy programme with no regard to the health impact on residents.

Sitting in Paris as the US’s first ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson reflected on how the new US government could avoid the errors of European “despots” who kept their people subjugated through war and debt.

1. The Peak of Chic

The US wants to sell wine in Europe bearing a ‘château’ or ‘clos’ label. The French are not happy, writes Raf Casert

After watching the debate on the Moore Street motion on my computer, and hearing references to American historic sites and our historic preservation efforts, I felt I had to write to encourage Ireland to preserve the important battleground of her nationhood, Moore Street.

Simon Cowell and Dannii’s fling was no casting couch moment. But there are plenty of examples of men who do abuse power, says Suzanne Harrington

Viva La Revolution!

Paper Promises: Money Debt and the new World Order

TRIBUTES poured in yesterday for journalist and atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens, who died aged 62.

HOW wise was the American patriot Thomas Jefferson when he said “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies”.

AROUND 1820, Thomas Jefferson, a highly intelligent and honest US president, said: “I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of taking care of them”.

IN the Belgian general election held this week, the New Flemish Alliance party won. This has raised the question whether a new country – Flanders – is to be created.

GETTING the country’s finances in order is obviously the Government’s first priority to kick-start the economy and reduce the dole queues.

BARACK OBAMA’S first test as president came as he was being sworn in. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, got the presidential oath wrong.

LAST Tuesday I just happened to put on a recording of Joan Baez singing “We Shall Overcome,” and suddenly I thought of the poignancy of the day.

TWO period dramas set 200 years apart in American history — Mad Men and John Adams — claimed a place in the Emmy record books as US television’s highest honours were presented in a ceremony rife with political undertones.

PULLING Professor John Crown, the consultant oncologist, from the Late Late Show on Friday night raises the most serious questions, not only in relation to what is happening within our health service, but also in relation to the issue of news management.

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama said he would stand up for the American family and reclaim the American dream if he took office.

A Christmas Day letter penned by the author of A Christmas Carol is up for sale at a US auction house.

IT was an occasion when the politicians left the plinth of parliament to plod the ploughing fields of Carlow on the second day of the national and world ploughing championships in Grangeford, Tullow, yesterday.

CHARLES J HAUGHEY was the sixth of our retired leaders since the foundation of the State to die, and the real debate on his legacy is likely to begin today.

The report that Allied Irish Banks has employed the British-based organisation Public Concern at Work to protect whistleblowing employees is an indictment of the Government’s failure to protect Irish people.