A 55-year-old man has appeared before the Special Criminal Court this afternoon charged with the possession of explosives at Finnstown House Hotel on Sunday.

An explosive device found hidden in a printer cartridge on a cargo plane at a UK airport was apparently designed to blow the aircraft out of the sky, British Prime Minister David Cameron said tonight.

US intelligence agencies did not miss a “smoking gun” that could have prevented an alleged attempt to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day, President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser said today.

A former Irish soldier was convicted of having ammunition and a smoke hand grenade at a house in Limerick last year by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin today.