Panic buying in Australia, the United States and Britain saw leaders appeal for calm over the virus that has infected over 138,000 people globally and killed more than 5,000.

Hollywood actor George Clooney has revealed he and his wife, Amal, spent Easter Sunday with U2’s frontman Bono at his home in Dublin.

Irish people spent €208.2 million during Easter week as the grocery market saw record spending, according to new data.

The move prevents Muslim women from veiling their faces.

Sri Lankan soldiers have exchanged gunfire with suspects after attempting to raid a building in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province as part of the ongoing investigation into the Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks.

Sri Lanka’s burgeoning reputation for Irish honeymooners and well-off holidaymakers will take a hit that will be difficult to recover from in the short term after the terror attacks on Easter Sunday.

Happy Easter to you all! What extraordinary weather we’re having as we spring into Summer and back into Winter again.

Eggs have been symbols of fertility and rebirth since pagan times and have also been used as an emblem of Easter.

Des O'Driscoll shares the latest from the entertainment world

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald said the treatment of the woman at the heart of the Belfast rape trial was “pretty appalling and unfortunate”.

Irish residents spent €1.2bn on overseas business trips or holidays in the first three months of this year.

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.

Simon Coveney has warned of a potential bitter split within Fine Gael when the leadership contest begins.

Ireland’s national flag will fly over Government Buildings at all times in future under plans to mark the Easter 1916 commemorations as last year’s events have brought a “new respect” for the Tricolour.

IN a world often too glum, in a world where scepticism is increasingly a plausible reaction to nearly any suggestion, we use escapism as a refuge. We use it as a safety valve so we might not, as Col Brandon threatened in Sense and Sensibility, run mad. 

More than €7.5m was spent by the government on events commemorating the 1916 Rising.

While the Naval Service may have stolen the limelight for its migrant rescue operations, it was one of the busiest years on record for the rest of the Defence Forces, both at home and abroad.

Let’s hope the coming year brings better tidings than those received from the one we’re leaving. Twas a year to remember and a year to forget.

The Taoiseach's department spent more than €12,000 on photography in the first half of the year, it has been revealed.

The President has rejected the idea that celebrating the centenary of the Easter Rising could cause unrest.

WELL, Lent is almost over and if you are one of those virtuous souls who have been abstaining for the past seven weeks now is the time to feast and savour the rewards of your fasting. 

The Easter Bunny has paid a visit to Smyths Toys and children are invited to stores nationwide to complete the free Easter Egg Hunt and claim their chocolatey treat from 10am to 4pm tomorrow; www.smythstoys.com 

Ireland’s artisan or speciality food sector is worth in excess of €615 million, with some 350 producers employing more than 3,000 people.

Austin Stack was blamed by many for the disaster that befell the German guns plan in Kerry, but he played a key role later in the first Dáil, writes Ryle Dwyer

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.

ALREADY?! Shrove Tuesday has snuck up on us. Usually around now, time slows. There’s no bank holiday to look forward to. It feels like St Patrick’s Day and New Year’s Day are a year apart. New Year’s Day is a complete waste of a bank holiday, anyway.

Journalist and historian, Kevin O’Brien, suggests that almost a hundred years after his death, Thomas Kent is making us look into our past in new ways as the nation prepares to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the event which sparked the birth of the Irish Republic.

In Dublin last week Whyte’s sale grossed just over €1 million, the best result since 2008. 

Pope Francis has prayed for an end to the persecution of Christians in his Easter Sunday address, commemorating the students massacred by Islamist militants at Garissa University in Kenya.

EASTER is early this year so the milk-fed spring lamb will be even more juicy and succulent. 

Pope Francis entered the final busy days of Holy Week by acknowledging the exhaustion that priests like himself can feel — but made no mention of doctors’ warnings that he needs to mind his health by eating less pasta.

Harry Fry is set to be double-handed in the Irish Stallions Farms EBF Mares Novice Hurdle Championship Final at Fairyhouse this weekend after confirming both Bitofapuzzle and Desert Queen for the Easter Sunday Grade One.

With a saddlebag full of chocolate and a straw bonnet on the bould Neidín, The Menu is taking to the highways and byways once more.

Easter holidays give families the perfect opportunity to get outdoors and take part in some of the many events being run around the country, from egg-hunting to face-painting, says Ed Power.

Our efforts to understand the 1916 Rising and its leaders should focus on their expectations of what would happen and not just what transpired, according to one of the country’s leading historians.

Tony Clayton-Lea offers a list of holiday destinations at home and away.

Finding A Voice

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Pope Francis prayed for peace in Ukraine and Syria and for an end to the terrorist attacks in Nigeria as he celebrated Easter Sunday in Rome.