MORE than half of all Irish merger and acquisitions activity in 2006 took place in the final three months of the year.

BARRY O’Callaghan is expected to remain as chairman and chief executive of Dublin-headquartered global educational software company Riverdeep, if it succeeds with its anticipated €3.5 billion (€2.7bn) reverse takeover of US company, Houghton Mifflin.

Bob Dylan, the unofficial poet laureate of the rock ’n’ roll generation, has now been officially placed alongside such literary greats as Philip Roth and Adrienne Rich, not to mention biographies of Shakespeare and Willem de Kooning.