This is Easter Monday and Christians will celebrate core, unchanging beliefs: The ideas of redemption and rebirth encapsulated in yesterday’s resurrection rejoicing.

It’s hard to believe it’s nearly Easter, as it felt like we just celebrated Christmas a few weeks ago. While most of us take part in chocolate egg hunts, are reunited with friends and family and sit down to a roast, a lot of us are also financially unprepared for Easter.

Peter Creedon and his Laois management set-up have decided not to seek reappointment for the 2018 season.

Public holidays are the busiest times for self-harm emergencies, with St Patrick’s Day the worst of all, according to the first study of its type in Ireland.

A woman burned in an acid attack at a nightclub has told how she felt like her face was on fire.

The final school term is in sight and the sun is almost shining. Shake off the harried routine of school runs and use the final week of the Easter hols to schedule some fun activities that memories are made of, says Ciara McDonnell.

It is safe to say that, even allowing for 265 years of inflation, the prize fund of €500,000 for this year’s Irish Grand National is somewhat more than the value of the hogshead or cask of wine that two Corkmen competed for in the world’s first steeplechase.

Dawn Masses and Easter fires are being held at a number of ancient Christian graveyards and sites in Co Kerry tomorrow, in commemoration of St Luke’s account of the finding of the empty tomb of Jesus “at early dawn”.

Trainer Ross O’Sullivan expects his star mare Baie Des Iles to give another good account of herself in the At The Races Bobbyjo Chase at Fairyhouse today.

2016 has been a year to remember and not for all the right reasons. Political editor Daniel McConnell looks back on some key events.

Prize money for the Boylesports Irish Grand National has been almost doubled, with €500,000 up for grabs in the 2017 renewal.

Here’s a briefing on some of the stories and issues highlighted on irishexaminer.com today

I think if I tore up the proclamation 30 years ago I could have wound up getting shot.”

Tom Vaughan-Lawlor and Aoibhinn McGinnity –better known as Nidge and Trish – are reuniting for a very different production: a 1916 drama. Rowena Walsh chats to the actress about life after Love/Hate.

After her fun-filled turn in Catastrophe, Cork actress Eileen Walsh returns home in the Abbey’s production of a Sean O’Casey classic, writes Padraic Killeen

The mother of a child who was knocked down and killed by a man who drank a litre of vodka and took 2g of cocaine has given a victim impact statement.

A small printing press in the home of Joseph Plunkett was responsible for one of the most controversial documents in Irish history.

People who traditionally start their seasonal recreational visits to the country’s woods today, Easter Monday, are being reminded about the risk of forest fires and the need for care.

Commemorations might be about the past, but many of the people attending the 1916 Rising parade were thinking of the future and of their children’s futures.

Siptu will host a programme of cultural events to commemorate the 1916 Rising and the role that its headquarters Liberty Hall played in it.

SIPTU president Jack O’Connor has offered to re-engage with management to settle the Luas dispute, but said that inadequacies in the current offer to workers would have to be addressed.

As three grades of Luas staff today enter talks at the Workplace Relations Commission on potential pay increases, driver colleagues are preparing for seven days of strikes within the next seven weeks.

The director of the Workplace Relations Commission has urged both sides of the ongoing Luas dispute to “step down their rhetoric” ahead of proposed strike action next week.

Kerry Lee will be praying for a rainy Easter as she contemplates running Russe Blanc in the BoyleSports Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse on March 28.

Easter Monday 2016. Somewhere in County Meath. The traffic all the way up to Fairyhouse is brutal. It’s not surprising really.

The father of a toddler who died in a hit-and-run accident gave evidence as the inquest into her death opened on what should have been her second birthday.

 

The event which enveloped O’Connell St on Easter Monday was a crass tribute to the realities of Dublin and Ireland in 1915, when poverty and war was everywhere, writes Emer O’Kelly            

Willie Mullins has raised the possibility of running two of his stable stars in the Doom Bar Aintree Hurdle on Thursday week.

An Easter Monday assignment in Cork is next on the agenda for David Marnane’s much-travelled stable star Jamesie and a successful outing could spell a trip to Singapore for the KrisFlyer Sprint.

Eala Beag seems to be improving with practically every run.

Tributes have poured in for comedian and actor Rik Mayall who died yesterday morning at the age of 56.

A syndicate of factory workers in Dublin have picked up a cheque for €250,000 after winning the lottery.

Yesterday’s bank holiday race meeting in Fairyhouse was a real turn-up for the books — or should that be for the bookies?

The weights for Easter Monday’s Boylesports Irish Grand National are set to rise by 3lb after Fairyhouse manager Peter Roe confirmed yesterday that the Paul Webber-trainedCantlow was a definite traveller.

Thats The Dream makes the long journey from Robert Tyner’s Kinsale base to Co Meath today and can be rewarded by landing the Follow Fairyhouse On Facebook Handicap Hurdle.

Paddy Power is betting on success in Cork after spending just short of €1m on five outlets from betting chain Jameson Racing.

A bomb found in Derry on Sunday night was left outside the family home of a serving police officer, the PSNI has said.