ONE of world’s rarest mammals, the Mediterranean monk seal, has returned to the Adriatic coast.

Sometimes, you’d think that Roman Abramovich bought Coventry that time and not Chelsea.

Gay Byrne begins a new series of The Meaning Of Life on Tuesday at 10.15pm on RTÉ One with an interview with Mary McAleese.

Real Madrid registered their first Primera Division victory of the season after a comfortable 3-0 win over Granada at the Bernabeu — but an unhappy Ronaldo suggested all is not well within the camp.

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within.

Anyone who has attended a training session at any level of the game will be able to testify that Gaelic football has become a very complicated affair.

Author Alex Scarrow talks to Carl Dixon ahead of his appearance at the West Cork Literary Festival

COMPARE and contrast, if you will, the utterances of two Catholic priests.

I read The Irish Examiner article: “Archbishop: Secularism not all bad for Ireland”.

RESTRUCTURING costs at Jacob Fruitfield Food Group Ltd last year contributed to pre-tax profits plummeting by 81% to €2.1 million.

FIRST of all, it was driving on a deflated tyre which produced a blow-out that tried to do her in, and now it is the fault of anti-Roman Catholic Church voters who misunderstood her.

THINK Turkey and the standard images of turbans, complex relationships with the Greeks and delightful sweets usually come to mind, often zooming into view on the back of a flying carpet.

Jeremy Irons tells Helen Barlow about his portrayal of a philandering pontiff in raunchy TV series The Borgias.

BANIMPIRE became the first filly to win the Group 3 P W McGrath Memorial Ballysax Stakes since 1996 when turning over Ballydoyle pacemaker Regent Street and odds-on favourite Recital at Leopardstown yesterday.

WE’VE reached the moment that the Romans celebrated with the Festival of Janus, the two-faced god who managed to look both forwards and backwards at once.

The Balfour Declaration: The origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict

A Roman Catholic bishop in the US has banned Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the Church, because of the congressman’s support for abortion rights, Mr Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published today.

LAST week two party leaders, Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore, were branded as populists for proposing to get rid of the Seanad and “Junket” John O’Donoghue, respectively.

Suspected Muslim guerrillas detonated a bomb near a Roman Catholic cathedral in the southern Philippines today, killing at least three people and wounding more than two dozen others.

MORE than 5,000 Leaving Certificate music students were confused by a mistake in part of a harmony question on yesterday’s higher level exam.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) launched a personal attack on Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams tonight in a sign of growing political tension.

Tottenham manager Juande Ramos may rest striker Roman Pavlyuchenko for the Carling Cup third-round match at Newcastle tomorrow.

BRITISH pop star Cliff Richard is “sick” of media speculation about his sexuality, according to excerpts from his autobiography.

LAST WEEK had gone so well: then the weekend’s clouds started to gather.

Rescue crews scoured densely forested mountains in southern Brazil today for signs of a Roman Catholic priest who vanished over the Atlantic Ocean with a cluster of helium balloons.

GERARD HOGAN, in his extended foreword to Dermot Keogh’s and Andrew McCarthy’s book, The Making of the Irish Constitution 1937, wonders if it is asking too much to give Eamon de Valera some credit where credit is due?

WESTERN Europe took many of its ideas and culture from the old Roman empire, which brought about the greatest development in the use of hunting as an amusement or what is now claimed as ‘sport’.

MANY countries were Christianised in the early centuries AD, but only the Irish have an autobiography by a man who claimed to be the very first missionary.

LUNAR eclipses have signalled the collapse of the Roman armies, the Ottoman Empire and the reign of Mary Harney.

IT TOOK more than 1,600 years, but the ancient Greek god Zeus was honoured once again, pagan-style, by

German authorities are investigating the discovery of dozens of skeletons, many of babies or children showing signs of physical handicap, in a suspected Nazi-era mass grave.

Sexual abuse support group One in Four has today called for the introduction of worldwide mandatory child protection policy within the Catholic Church.

I LISTENED to the radio with horror as events unfolded in Dublin last Saturday.

Chelsea were today set to confirm a huge financial loss for the second year running.

THEY MIGHT as well wrap up the Premiership trophy now and send it by special delivery to Stamford Bridge with a card attached: ‘To be returned when Roman Abramovich takes up another hobby.’ That might be next year, in five years, in a decade, perhaps even longer.

“I was sexually violated by a Roman Catholic priest at a young age. I began to find the courage to deal with it following the documentary Suing the Pope in 2002.

Pope Benedict XVI began his first foreign trip as Pontiff today, leaving Rome to take part in the Roman Catholic Church’s World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.

ITALIANS started voting yesterday on whether to loosen assisted fertility legislation, after weeks of intense campaigning that has pitted the Vatican against those who say the law hurts scientific research and infringes on reproductive freedom.

WHETHER they want women priests, more say for the laity or a return to the Latin Mass, Roman Catholic interest groups are sending their varied messages to Rome - attempting to exert some small influence on the selection of the next pope or at least get more attention for their causes.

PRINCE Rainier III of Monaco is conscious and his heart, lung and kidney functions have stabilised, the royal palace said yesterday, as worshippers in Monaco attended Easter Mass with a special prayer for Europe's longest-serving ruler.

Terri Schiavo’s parents asked supporters to return home to spend Easter Sunday with their families as the couple’s severely brain-damaged daughter went a ninth day without food or water.

BOHEMIAN Rhapsody was a flamboyant piece to begin with but give it to a character called Macartacus pining “I’m a poor manager, nobody loves me” to competing choruses of “Let him go”, “No, no, do not let him go,” and not even Freddie Mercury in a space shuttle could go further over the top.