Esther N McCarthy is away with the fairies this week — and has picked up a few other bits along her way.

One of the best known figures in the Munster hotel industry, Dick Fizgerald, of The Woodlands House Hotel in Adare, has died after a short illness.

ROMANCE is helping keep the heritage picture postcard village of Adare sweet and rosy in the depths of the recession.

A WAITRESS who suffered severe burns to her leg after her clothing caught fire while working in a restaurant has secured more than €65,000 in damages at the High Court.

IT MIGHT be quiet times in the property market, but the Limerick auctioning scene was agog last night after a house in the most exclusive development ever undertaken in the mid-west went on the market.

LIKE Napoleon’s army, John Coughlan knows golf fans attending the Irish Open in Adare over the next four days will march on their stomachs.

ADARE is planning a big street festival to ensure the public gets into the swing of the Irish Golf Open, which will be hosted at the Co Limerick venue in May.

A NEW private hospital due to be opened in Adare at the end of next year will give free care to disadvantaged patients from home and abroad who need specialist treatment.

A 100-bed private hospital and clinic is to be built in the grounds of a luxury Co Limerick hotel, creating 380 jobs, it emerged today.

ONE man dropped his wife off at the maternity ward and returned to play his round of golf, but even he couldn’t upstage mobile phone magnate Denis O’Brien — who had the mother of all chip shots.

WITHIN days of Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney deciding that health insurers Bupa would not have to compensate VHI for its older, costlier customer base, an application for a private hospital in the grounds of Adare Manor Hotel has been lodged with Limerick County Council.

LEOPARDSTOWN might have lost up to €500,000 in revenue yesterday but Limerick Racecourse enjoyed one of its best meetings ever.