Granny Murphy was supposed to be my guest at the Cork Person of the Year awards only two weeks ago. She had her hair done especially, the good outfit picked out.

I am writing this from the Metropole Hotel in Cork, where I was invited to be their writer-in-residence for January, writes Louise O'Neill.

With ink in his veins and who once famously described himself as “a chemist by training, a shovel engineer by vocation, and a manager by desperation” is the first person in the history of the Cork Person of the Year Awards to be inducted into a Hall of Fame.

Dance superstar Michael Flatley got a Rebel passport and found a new dance partner after meeting one of his biggest fans yesterday.