As the Metropole Hotel unveils its own new snug, Donal O’Keeffe takes a leisurely stroll around Cork and visits some of the city’s cosiest pub corners.

I joined the Labour Party as an ordinary member in my early 20s, and I’ve been a member now for not far short of half a century.

This Saturday at 8.30pm the Sinn Féin ard fheis will go live on RTÉ from the RDS. Gerry Adams will share his intentions and timeline for stepping down as party leader, writes Gerard Howlin. 

The Taoiseach has expressed concern that ‘beastly’ things might happen to three of his ministers if they go ahead with plans to visit North Korea.

Latest: Labour Housing spokesperson Jan O’Sullivan has raised concerns for the Housing Minister's plans to introduce shared accommodation for young professionals.

At least €800,000 in benefits has been withheld from welfare recipients who failed to sign up for a public services card after they were told to by the Department of Social Protection.

The Labour Party has said it would back and campaign for Michael D Higgins if he was to seek a second term as President.

The price of the average Irish home has risen by 3.5% in the first three months of the year, according to a survey carried out by an estate agents’ body.

The State’s ethics watchdog has said it is “unreasonable” for small political parties to fully audit their accounts, after the first report on what organisations received and spent for 2015.

A new opinion poll shows Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil and some of the smaller parties losing support.

Hours after Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, was suspended by a vote to put her on trial for breaking budget laws, the man who took her place unveiled his cabinet: An all-male line-up of 23 ministers.

One of the country's best-known social justice campaigners is promising housing plans that would get rid of housing 'ghettoes' in favour of a more integrated approach.

A new housing proposal recommends the State would rent 50% of homes in certain developments to households who qualify for social housing, and the rest to those who are not eligible.

The Department of Social Protection has strongly defended the JobBridge scheme amid calls for it to be scrapped.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has claimed that he “made every effort” to prevent a Fine Gael-Labour government and that it is not his job to “dictate” whether the outgoing coalition should be returned.

Ideas are being sought from the open market to help breathe new life into a city-owned historic former bank building.

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was detained for questioning in a federal investigation of a bribery and money laundering scheme that police said had financed campaigns and expenses of the ruling Workers Party.

There is mixed news for Fine Gael in two new opinion polls this evening.

The enactment of power in economic crisis by Haughey after 1987 and of Gilmore after 2011 was remarkably similar, writes Gerard Howlin

Cork City Council has avoided dissolution after councillors voted last night to accept the city’s 2015 budget.

Independents have to put egos aside and come together,writes Special Correspondent Michael Clifford.

The Lord Mayor of Cork, Labour’s Catherine Clancy, was the most high-profile casualty in the city’s local elections carnage as her party was annihilated.

Europe must be seen as a social, and not just an economic project by those elected to the European Parliament next month, an independent thinktank has said.

President Michael D Higgins is to get the Freedom of Cork despite severe criticism that the honour has become mired in politics and is being given out too often.

Enda Kenny celebrated his third anniversary in power by slipping on jackboots and giving democracy a good kicking.

Diplomats fretted about allowing Iran to open an embassy in Dublin because of its backing for the IRA as well as Fianna Fáil links with high-profile personalities in Iraq, State files have revealed.

Politicians shot down plans to honour Nelson Mandela with the freedom of Dublin just five years before he was eventually awarded the accolade, classified files have revealed.

We are all used to the bickering and points scoring which has become part and parcel of our political landscape but in one corner of Cork the politicians are all too often able to “draw” on support even from their political opponents.

More than 5,000 anti-government protesters marched near the Maracana stadium before a major football match, venting their anger about the billions the Brazilian government is spending on major sporting events rather than public services.

EVEN his opposition to the Church, his statement that the constitution is “my book”, is less about social radicalism than pursuing by different means the constant interests of changing politics.

DEAR Eamon,

Cork’s city manager has offered a staunch defence of the contentious Sky Garden project, saying criticism was “infuriating”.

THEY’RE back.

A well-known criminal was shot this afternoon in the Clontarf area of north Dublin, gardaí have confirmed.

YOU might forgive Eamon Gilmore if he didn’t want to fly home from New York.

Residents, businesses, and a third-level college are among the objectors to plans for a waste facility on the edge of Waterford City.

A proposal to scrap a prayer at the start of a local authority meeting sparked an unholy row last night.

The Workers Party has called on the Government to abandon the EU Fiscal Treaty referendum on May 31 at its campaign launch calling for the treaty to be rejected.

State prosecutors have been asked to examine the case of veteran Republican Sean Garland to determine whether he should be charged with an alleged US super-dollar forgery plot.

VETERAN Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa is to quit his post next month after nearly 13 years in Brussels.