I've no idea what Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin were trying to achieve at the start of their election campaigns, or even as the seats were being counted.

World Cup demands deprive both Munster and Ospreys of the majority of their top players when they meet in the Guinness PRO14 at Musgrave Park tonight.

Two meetings tomorrow but just one this afternoon, and the opening race at Leopardstown, the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Fillies’ Maiden, is a superb contest.

As a documentary on Eamon de Valera’s time in America airs, historian and author Ryle Dwyer looks at how history is taught here — and explains why he did not take the subject for his Leaving Cert.

The chairman of Kerry GAA, Tim Murphy, has said they have complete confidence in the integrity of the process which has nominated David Gough to referee the All-Ireland SFC final against Dublin.

Graeme McDowell was always going to come home to Portrush this week.

Shane Lowry is on a different wavelength to Pádraig Harrington regarding the date for next year’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open.

With the pressure of securing a starting spot in his hometown Open Championship later this month now lifted, Graeme McDowell is relishing the opportunity to free his mind and concentrate on the task at hand: a good week in the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open.

It’s 21 years ago now, but Clare’s league semi-final performance against Cork in 1998 has long been cast into hurling folklore, as much for what we didn’t do, or were supposed to have done beforehand, than anything to do with the final score.

First-time tournament host Paul McGinley has admitted he feared the worst for this summer’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open when Rory McIlroy decided to skip the €6.25m event but now believes the field for Lahinch is coming together very nicely indeed.

Five simple words summed it up.

The battered champions will be wincing through their pain today at a pearl of wisdom first spoken by an Anglo-Irishman just before he won the world heavyweight title: “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

The colour starts south of the border.

It is more than half a century since our relationship with America reached peak sycophancy. Just months before he was assassinated, John F Kennedy spent four days in Ireland.

Three challenges for Joe Schmidt facing Ireland against Italy today...

A 12-year-old girl has launched High Court proceedings against a body that governs Irish dancing aimed at allowing her participate in a world championship qualifier due to take place next month.

Peter Dowdall says ‘Heavenly Blue’ catches the autumn sunlight like a stage actor hogging the spotlight

The lives of more than 2,000 soldiers and their families in one town over a century have been revealed through research using church and other archives.

The murky ticket-touting scandal that has engulfed the Olympic Council of Ireland was compared to something out of The Godfather.

Esther N McCarthy is all aquiver for crafty quilts and clucking with delight over cool chick art

Ballyliffin has been waiting for the green light to host the 2018 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open for nearly a year and Paul McGinley reckons it will be a “worthy” venue if it gets the nod this week.

“Manchester has been home to the Irish and so many nationalities for centuries and at this terrible time I want to send the people of this great and welcoming city not only our sympathy but our solidarity".

The first comprehensive detailing of 528 people killed in Cork during the War of Independence shines a light beyond the better-known deaths of IRA fighters and British Crown Forces.

The Irish Car of the Year Awards — in association with Continental Tyres — took place last week in Dublin and the new Mercedes E-Class was a worthy winner of the top prize.

David Wachman’s announcement this week that he is to retire from training at the end of the season, after some 20 years, encouraged one to reflect on various aspects of this great game.

Great expectations would have hindered Annalise Murphy as the sailor left for Rio, of that she is now certain.

Gardaí are unable to act on international arrest warrants for an Irishman and two directors of Irish firms over the escalating Irish Olympics ticket touting scandal because Ireland has no extradition agreement with Brazil.

Revolutionary, diplomat, humanitarian, poet, traitor, nationalist, homosexual, rebel — just some of the terms used to describe the complex figure that was Roger Casement.

Irish Olympic boxer Michael Conlan shows us around his Renault Kadjar

Having not competed at the top level since last year, Greg Broderick and MHS Going Global laid down a late marker for Olympic selection yesterday, producing a double clear to help Ireland win the Furusiyya Series nations cup in a rain-soaked St Gallen, Switzerland.

WHEN runner Sergiu Ciobanu landed in Ireland 10 years ago at the age of 22 he didn’t even know what language the people spoke. 

Olivia Mehaffey (Royal Co Down Ladies) confirmed her status as one of the finest amateur lady golfers in the world at gloriously sunny Lahinch yesterday when she withstood an outstanding challenge from fellow Ulster golfer Louise Coffey (Malone) to carry off the Irish Ladies Close Championship.

Family members of nearly 50,000 men and women who took part in the 1916 Rising or War of Independence can access files relating to their service for the first time.

The best young drivers line up to contest the Circuit of Ireland that gets underway today in Antrim.

On Wednesday Griffith College hosted an audience with Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, the creators of the hit Netflix series, Making a Murderer.

The truism that all politics are local is being taken both too far and not far enough in the Irish election debates.