The doom and gloom predictions of increasing battles around the world over water are a myth, with only a handful of disagreements over shared waters leading to armed conflict, an expert said.

Fifty companies from around Ireland pitched to leading Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists yesterday and the chance for the 20 best to travel to California to secure funding.

Anyone who has even casually studied how our Great Famine needlessly became the devastating catastrophe in our history cannot but be appalled at how British civil servants and politicians used starvation and the denial of food aid — life — to try to advance inhuman political and social philosophies.