Many believe money would be better spent elsewhere but even non-believers should be able to appreciate the value of a place of solace in a bewildering world, writes Stephen L Carter

“Goodison is no place to go with a Spanish hangover,” fretted your pessimistic correspondent here last week, although not even I thought the week would turn out quite this badly.

Cork’s Oliver Plunkett Street is 850m metres long.

Peter Jackson gets over the gain line, behind the headline

Notre-Dame’s fragility reminds us of the EU’s. We must rebuild both, says Bernard-Henri Lévy

Latest: The structure of Notre Dame has been saved after a huge fire destroyed parts of the famous cathedral, according to a fire chief in Paris.

Tonight Tralee hosts a top-of-the-table sellout as Garvey’s Warriors take on Superleague rivals Templeogue. But as someone who went up against Carmelo Anthony in his first game Stateside, played in the famed March Madness in college and the cut-throat Asian continental league where loony owners could fire a teammate at half-time, Jason Killeen will hardly be daunted.

But, the changing of the guard is coming and Mary Lou McDonald is the clear favourite to take over the role as Sinn Féin leader.

IRFU CEO Philip Browne has revealed Ireland are open to another showdown with New Zealand in Chicago.

In the six days leading to Cardiff on Saturday night, Eddie Jones trotted out the usual Welsh stereotypes about daffodils, goats, and Tom Jones — all harmless, knockabout stuff even if some over-sensitive natives mistook it for a national insult.

The GPA’s Super 11s hurling concept is set to return to Boston next November with a strong possibility of two games taking place.

The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust has confirmed it has stepped in to assist the family of champion Irish rower Ailish Sheehan in returning her body home to Co Limerick.

Tributes have poured in for a champion Irish athlete who sustained serious head injuries in a freak fall just hours after celebrating winning a bronze medal at the FISU World University Rowing Championships, in Poznan, Poland.

Lee Corso didn’t make the journey to Dublin this time but the veteran ESPN analyst could hardly contain himself on TV when he was asked for his memories of the original ‘Emerald Isle Classic’, played in a very different Lansdowne Road, back in 1988.

Lee Corso didn’t make the journey to Dublin this time but the veteran ESPN analyst could hardly contain himself on TV this week when he was asked for his memories of the original ‘Emerald Isle Classic’, played in a very different Lansdowne Road, back in 1988, writes Brendan O’Brien of the Irish Examiner.

The management firm that operated one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country, Kylemore Abbey, posted retained profits of €1.6m last year.

At half-time in tonight’s National Cup final, Irish basketball will warm itself in the glow of a glorious past, when an iconic Ballina side is introduced to the crowd 25 years on from the classic final victory over Neptune in Cork.

Sometimes, sports stars are never more in peril than when they’ve stepped away from the action. From the gruesome to the outlandish, brace yourself for some of the more unusual injuries of the sporting year

The Aviva Stadium is to host another American Football game in 2016 — four years after it last welcomed gridiron teams to Dublin.

"One man practising sportsmanship is far better than 100 teaching it"— Knute Rokne, legendary Notre Dame coach.

Croke Park Stadium Director Peter McKenna has revealed his ambition to make Croke Park the home of American college football despite the failure to secure a profit from last August’s ‘Croke Park Classic’ — but the dream of bringing the NFL to Jones Road has faded.

The eve of another cup final weekend and with it a sense of history about it for those of us steeped in Irish hoops, writes Kieran Shannon.

Barely an hour had passed since Sam Ficken kicked the game-winning field goal for Penn State against the University of Central Florida on Saturday, but Croke Park and everyone inside and around the stadium were already moving on.

John Ri Manhattan College, a modestly-sized third level institution in the Bronx with a modestly-ranked athletics department, resonates quite deeply with the GAA in New York.

It hardly carried the glamour or gravitas of an induction into Cooperstown or Springfield, it wasn’t like there was a Larry Bird to welcome his Magic Johnson into this particular Hall of Fame, but there was something particularly pleasing about seeing Ronnie Whelan being honoured at the FAI International Awards on Sunday.

In Ireland the game of basketball is truly a family affair, writes Kieran Shannon

The five-star hotel business operated by TV’s trouble-shooting hotelier brothers John and Francis Brennan, has “weathered the storm” to record two years of profits.

In a year that saw nearly 5,000 official events held for The Gathering — not to mention countless unofficial events — there were five in particular that captured the public’s imagination.

The home of the famed University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana was an unlikely venue for a piece of hurling history over the weekend.

Sixty-nine minutes had passed in the All-Ireland semi-final between Dublin and Kerry when Michael Darragh Maculey launched himself at a breaking ball in midfield with a move more akin to one seen in basketball.

Michael Darragh Macauley believes his years of playing basketball at schools and club level have played an important part in making him the All-Ireland and All-Star-winning Gaelic footballer he is today.

GAA President Liam O’Neill has told Cork and Clare that there’ll be no change to the throw-in time for the All-Ireland hurling final replay.

"He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake." (Probably)

Eminem freaked out during an interview on Saturday night.

Páraic Duffy loves American sport.

A US basketball player, who was a leading force in the game in Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s both as a coach and player, has been charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl he was coaching in his native South Carolina.

Thousands of American football fans are expected in Dublin next year for the opening game in the college football season.

The NFL in Dublin: it’s the tease that just won’t end.

The concept of a regular season NFL game coming to Ireland has been given the thumbs up by three Minnesota Vikings stars who attended a Sky Roadshow event at Croke Park this week.

Catholics around the world are still waiting for a new Pope, as cardinals signalled at 7.41pm that they had failed on their first attempt to find a leader for the Church.

It was another glaring example of the ever-evolving chasm between old media and new.

The man behind the dead girlfriend hoax involving a US college football star said he did it for love and insisted player Manti Te’o knew nothing about what was going on.