Roughly a decade ago, the pretty village of Ballydehob, in West Cork, featured in a national broadsheet article as a poster child for the rural decline, further accelerated by the then-raging recessionary storm.

Consistency, a clear mind, and classical music may have helped some of the country’s top students secure their impressive exam results.

Leading trainer for the fourth successive year in Galway, champion trainer Willie Mullins continued in sparkling form with a double in Cork yesterday, highlighted by the easy win of odds-on favourite Pravalaguna in the featured Joe Walsh Memorial Hurdle.

A Co Down hospital is celebrating the birth of two sets of healthy triplets in the space of just 24 hours.

Here's your summer events guide for the month of July, including all things music, arts and ents.

Widows: Five stars Juliet, Naked: Four stars Peterloo: Three stars

More than a century on, a headstone will be placed on Friday on the previously unmarked grave of one of the 40 children killed during the 1916 Rising.

Carolyn Moore showcases the most exciting new names in fashion

After proving a class apart from his rivals in making a winning debut for new connections in the featured Grade Three Surehaul Mercedes-Benz Novice Hurdle in very testing conditions at Powerstown Park, Chris’s Dream earned his ticket to next month’s Cheltenham Festival for a tilt at the Albert Bartlett.

Is it just us or has January felt 365 days long this time around?

Boris Johnson has poked fun at the Brexit impasse by asking if an atomic microscope could be used to split the deadlock on future cross-border trade.

Extreme times call for extreme pop stars and Annie Clark fits the bill perfectly. After four progressively more audacious albums as St Vincent, her latest, Masseduction, may be her masterpiece — and the first great record of the Age of Trump. 

Extreme times call for extreme pop stars and Annie Clark fits the bill perfectly.

I am having dinner with my old friend Ed, writes Aida Austin.

Orla Cronin got her first Cork senior camogie call-up in 2012 at the tender age of 16. 

The mixed-race daughter of an Irish Traveller mother has told how she grew up believing her mother set fire to her as a tiny baby because she was born after an out-of-wedlock affair with a black British man.

Shaking up your make-up routine can help to hold back the years and to give you a confidence boost, reports Margaret Jennings.

The late Danny la Rue would have been 90 today. Dan Buckley recalls a memorable encounter with the Cork-born entertainer.

MISS Hannigan may be a raging alcoholic who’s criminally cruel to the children in her care but for actor Hilda Fay it’s a role she’s wanted for more than 20 years.

Annie opens at the Opera House next week. Ciara McDonnell joins the cast in rehearsals to see what it takes to bring the musical to the stage

Diane Keaton stars alongside Brendan Gleeson in her new film, and she tells Esther McCarthy that other Irish people in her life have included her beloved grandmother, Grammie Hall

Patrick and John Collison, the billionaire brothers from Limerick behind mobile payments firm Stripe, were still in their teens when they sold their auction website Auctomatic for €4.5m in 2008.

Vinnie Goes To Vegas by Stephen Walsh and Marita O’Donovan (O’Brien, €8.99)

The production will consist of two Annies and two teams of girls cast, due to the number of performances.

Michael Flatley’s mother was yesterday laid to rest beside her husband in the picturesque village of St Mullins in Co Carlow.

The funeral of the mother of dancer Michael Flatley has taken place in Carlow today.

From Champion Hurdle winner Annie Power to Arc heroine Found, it’s been a 12 months of evocative moments and unforgettable memories, both in National Hunt and on the Flat. Here are 16 of the best from 2016 from Darren Norris.

Dear Orla MacConnell (11),

A Terence MacSwiney play was watched over the weekend by his grandson — almost 80 years after his own mother played a lead role in the last Cork production.

Four-year-old Oscar Donnelly, from Coatbridge in the UK, has got some amazing moves.

FAIR City’s Clelia Murphy may not be prone to tears in real life but she knows what it takes to make her cry on screen.

Owner Graham Wylie is looking forward to seeing Nichols Canyon step back up in trip in next month’s Doom Bar Aintree Hurdle.

You know what they say: Third time’s a charm.

Take a chance on Dermot Weld’s Silver Concorde, each way, getting us off to the perfect start in the Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham today.

1. Will Min be Merciless?