A chance meeting late last year with a Dublin-based gym owner has seen former British Open champion Darren Clarke lose more than three stone.

A Northern soldier killed in Afghanistan was totally committed to his job, mourners today heard.

President Mary McAleese and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern joined hundreds of people today at a service for Irish soldiers who died in war or on peacekeeping duty with the United Nations.

The Royal Irish Regiment will not be scrapped in Northern Ireland until all paramilitary violence has ended, British army chiefs insisted today.