The critically acclaimed ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ has put confidence tricks back in the spotlight. Robert Hume looks back at some of the most famous scams.

The Beast from the East brought an unexpected gift; a brambling turned up in the mist net in my back-garden.

A UCC student has secured a temporary High Court order freezing the monies of his assailant awarded in another court case.

Vaxxed, the controversial movie on the conspiracies surrounding the MMR vaccine, lacks credibility, says Michael Clifford.

THE cuckoo’s evocative call announces the arrival of summer but it’s no longer heard where I live, writes Richard Collins. 

Fiann Ó Nualláin looks back at the life of Anne Elizabeth Ball, a botanist whose work is illuminating our future.

Robert Hume is intrigued by the life and habits of William Thompson, the eccentric ’Red Republican’ from Carhoogarriff in West Cork

WE take the road across from the pier, between the Marine Hotel and the house opposite it.

Yes Tom, the 14/1 outsider of five runners, continued Stuart Crawford’s rich vein of form when landing the Daily Mirror Chase in Down Royal yesterday.

THE month began with reports of a tornado in Galway. Or was it extra-strong wind? Within 24 hours, a restaurant owner had admitted that the striking image of the ‘tornado’ was a Photoshop fake.

There was some competitive fare on offer at yesterday’s Westmeath Foxhounds point-to-point fixture at Castletown-Geoghegan and in-form handler David Christie’s Slippers Percy indicated that he could well by challenging for top honours this season by destroying the opposition in the open lightweight.

IF you feed the birds in your garden you’ve probably noticed this is an exciting time of year because new species start turning up.

A second print run of a collection of West Cork folktales offers the chance to snap up a piece of history.

THERE is a suggestion cropping up in ornithological conversation that the next bird species to be the subject of a re-introduction programme in this country should be the black grouse and that the site of the programme would be on upland blanket bog in Co Mayo.

THERE are not as many books about birds in Ireland as there are about birds in Britain.

IT was burned and rebuilt, dug up and revamped.

A MISSING foetus that was cut and removed from its murdered mother’s womb could still be alive, police in the US said.

US President George W Bush today met the North’s political leaders in Washington.

More then 300 gynaecology patients are to have their cases reviewed amid concerns over the work of a health professional, a hospital confirmed today.

A conference aimed at securing American investment in the North will today end with top US business executives exploring what opportunities exist for them.

A US investment creating jobs in the North will be announced today just as more than 100 American corporate chiefs arrive for an investment conference.

A multi-million pound US investment in the North is expected to be announced later today in New York.

IRELAND has a new gannet colony; the first to be established since 1988.

The SDLP tonight chose Assembly Member Eugene McMenamin as its candidate for the British General Election in West Tyrone.

Sinn Fein has protested to Downing Street over transcripts of alleged bugged telephone conversations involving Martin McGuinness and senior figures in British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Government, the Mid-Ulster MP revealed today.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party tonight signalled its determination to hold on to two of its Stormont Assembly seats in the constituency of West Tyrone.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party tonight signalled its determination to hold on to two of its Stormont Assembly seats in the constituency of West Tyrone.

THE September 11 terror attacks cost New York up to €100 billion in lost buildings, revenues and workers’ lives, a report said yesterday.

Republicans were tonight accused of orchestrating a massive vote fraud and threatening nationalist voters as a new cheating row marked the election campaign in Northern Ireland.

Mr Adams said his party was not prepared to ‘‘settle for anything less than the new beginning to policing promised in the Good Friday Agreement’’.

The SDLP's Deputy Leader Seamus Mallon is predicting that the party will emerge as the largest in the North following the June 7th election.

The Reverend Ian Paisley today urged anti-Agreement Ulster Unionist MPs to break their silence or risk being regarded as supporters of David Trimble.

The Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble is insisting all the UUP candidates in the General Election are standing fully behind the party election manifesto.

Westminster MPs today issued an appeal to Orangemen in a bid to draw them into the decision-making process over parades and avert another summer of civil disturbances in Northern Ireland.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble has threatened to step up his sanctions against Sinn Fein if the IRA fails to decommission its weapons.