THE OLD pagan festival of Bealtaine, marking the coming of summer and the season of fertility, is still celebrated at an ancient stone fort at the foot of the Paps mountains, writes Donal Hickey

Meet the May Day miracle foal who has defied the odds to become one of Ireland’s smallest horses.

Thousands gathered in central London to celebrate workers’ achievements at a May Day rally where Jeremy Corbyn condemned anti-Semitism.

The man who changed the way basketball was played died on January 30, aged 95.

Three topless women from the Femen activist group, making Nazi salutes, disrupted a May Day speech by French far-right leader Marine Le Pen attacking her political rivals.

An east Cork parish has compiled its entire history on three DVDs.

A dramatic May Day cliff rescue ended in elation as heroic coastguard volunteers returned to its owners a dog that fell 45m.

SAINTS and sinners dominated a week that left more losers than winners.

Ferry and train services in Greece have ground to a halt as unions hold a strike for May Day.

Police and protesters have clashed in Istanbul after hundreds tried to breach barricades and reach the city’s main square to mark May Day in defiance of a government ban.

Putin governs Russia with all the panache of a Bond villain, says Dave Kenny. Or so his photoshoots suggest

Eleven people were arrested after a day of protest in London saw anti-capitalists from the Occupy movement pitch tents outside the Bank of England.

Lagan Brick workers will take part in a May Day march in Belfast this afternoon.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen delivered a further blow to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s re-election hopes by refusing to endorse him and telling her 6m supporters to make their own choice at Sunday’s ballot.

Banging drums and waving flags, tens of thousands of workers marked May Day in European cities today with a mix of anger and gloom over austerity measures imposed by leaders trying to contain the eurozone’s intractable debt crisis.

The leader of France’s resurgent, anti-immigrant far right, Marine Le Pen, is refusing to endorse either candidate in the country’s presidential run-off and said today she will cast a blank protest ballot.

IN setting a record score for the far right in Sunday’s French presidential election, Marine Le Pen has set the stage for her National Front to try and break into parliament at a legislative election in June.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy appealed directly to far-right voters with pledges to get tough on immigration and security, after a record showing in a first round election by the National Front made them potential kingmakers.

TENS of thousands took to the streets across the globe for May Day yesterday, to press for workers’ rights amid tough economic times and to back an array of other causes.

Extra gardaí are on duty in Dublin this morning as large crowds gather for the annual May Day rally.

Several companies, as well as bands from both sides of the border, will take part in a May Day parade in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, this afternoon.

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in central Athens and other Greek cities today for May Day rallies fuelled by anger at expected harsh austerity measures needed to secure rescue loans for near-bankrupt Greece.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has accused the Government of ignoring the jobs crisis and failing the country's 435,000 jobless people.

The annual May Day rally organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions takes place later today, at 2pm.

ON May 1, 1886, more than 100,000 people marched in Chicago in support of the eight-hour work day.

MEXICO was approved for $3 billion (€2.26bn) in international loans to fight the swine flu crisis, as the country began a five-day shutdown yesterday to try to halt the spread of the virus.

FINE GAEL looks like it will have a fight on its hands to win the Dublin Central by-election after Labour last night announced that popular Senator Ivana Bacik would enter the race.

FINE GAEL looks like it will have a fight on its hands to win the Dublin Central by-election after Labour last night announced that popular Senator Ivana Bacik would enter the race.

MAY DAY protesters clashed with riot police in Germany, Turkey and Greece yesterday while thousands angry at the government’s response to the global financial crisis took to the streets in France.

Tax hikes and other measures introduced in the emergency Budget come into effect today – while gas and electricity prices are set to fall.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen says he has no problem with SIPTU's May Day deadline for a new social partnership deal.

More than 15,000 people will be taking to the streets of Belfast today for the city’s May Day marathon.

An overcrowded tour bus lost control on a slope and flipped over today in Hong Kong, killing 17 members of a local religious group and injuring 45 others.

Belfast's Big Wheel has been so popular it could stay in the city for years, it was revealed today.

Hollywood actor Patrick Bergin joined in the trade union May Day celebrations and praised a character he’s about to play on screen, Irish union firebrand Jim Larkin.

A Hollywood actor is to pay tribute to one of Ireland’s trade union legends at a rally in Belfast this weekend because of a personal family connection.

There was no sign of a convalescing Fidel Castro as hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched through Revolution Plaza in Havana to celebrate May Day, an event the Cuban leader had attended for decades without fail.

Extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was today expected to tell his supporters how he’ll vote in the weekend finale of France’s presidential election.

Tear gas canisters were fired in Istanbul today to prevent hundreds of leftist protesters from marching to mark the 30th anniversary of a deadly Turkish May Day rally.