EVEN if you allow for the vanity that sometimes convinces us that this fleeting moment is the most historically significant, it is still very difficult to imagine that there has been, in the history of this State, a British general election result with the potential to have a greater impact on this island than the Conservatives’ resounding and totally unexpected victory yesterday.

BRITAIN goes to the polls today to elect a new government and if political punditry is worthy of even passing attention the result will map an utterly novel but challenging political landscape for our nearest neighbours. 

Britain is facing into weeks of political deadlock as both main parties seemed set to fall far short of a majority in tomorrow’s election.

Britain is facing weeks of political deadlock as both main parties seemed set to fall far short of a majority in Thursday’s election.

With only a week to go until a wide-open general election, Britain is about to become the European Union’s most politically unpredictable member, writes Anatole Kaletsky

Ireland assumes the presidency of the European Union in just over a month but it is fair to say that the European project has not faced greater challenges or been more uncertain since the Treaty of Rome, the foundation document of the European Economic Community precursor of the European Union, was signed by Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany in 1957.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has dismissed veiled criticism of his leadership style as he prepares for the party’s first ard fheis in three years.

BRITISH Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposal to move British clocks forward by an hour all year round and thus match up with the near continent have been given short shrift by the Irish Government and experts.

FIANNA FÁIL MEP Eoin Ryan has agreed to visit Scotland as anger grows over sectarian singing at football matches.

Scotland’s First Minister will meet his Northern Ireland counterparts in Belfast today.

The Rev Ian Paisley has become the first MP in the North to be voted Opposition Politician of the Year.

The Democrats’ successes in the US mid-term elections represent “a dramatic and wholesale rejection of those who have led the United States into a blood-soaked quagmire in Iraq”, Scottish Nationalist Party leader Alex Salmond said today.

Sean Connery stepped out in public today for the first time since having surgery to removed a tumour from his kidney and declared: “I’m feeling very well.”

THE population of the Republic is set to overtake Scotland’s within the next 15 years for the first time in modern history, according to new demographic estimates.