Mountaineers should be banned from climbing Everest using oxygen, because they are “diminishing the adventure” and “achieving nothing”, actor Brian Blessed said today.

She’s alive and well, and now she’s on Twitter. Don Morgan pays tribute to that legendary institution, the Irish mammy

CONDITIONS are sure to be particularly testing for the opening stage of the very last Tralee Festival this afternoon, for which there is a 7.30am inspection.

MORE than two centuries of direct involvement by the Christian Brothers in Irish education has ended with the handing over of its 96 schools to a lay trust.

A MOVING statue has gone AWOL.

THE village with one of the most distinctive statues in Cork county, the grotto of the Blessed Virgin, Ballinadee, also has a handy location between Bandon and Kinsale.

There are certain well-meaning people who decry all talk of ‘a clash of civilisations’ where relations between Islam and the west are concerned.

A PLANNING application is to be submitted to Waterford City Council over the coming days for a development project designed to transform the historic Mount Sion site on Barrack Street into one of Ireland’s premier ecclesiastical and heritage tourism sites.

The tsunami that ravaged southern Asia last month was God’s punishment for world support for Israel’s plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, a former chief rabbi has claimed.

RECENTLY I took a trip to The Healy Pass, and what a sight that is for those who like to get in touch with the majesty of the Caha mountain range which divides and unites Cork and Kerry. Forget the old line about Bantry man Tim Healy, MP, the first governor general of the Irish Free State, who was said to have been as crooked as the route they named after him. The Healy Pass, in fact, is a brilliant feat of engineering by hungry men working in the terrible circumstances of the Famine.

The body of Pope John XXIII, in a crystal and bronze coffin, was displayed in St Peter’s Square today as thousands paid tribute to one of the most beloved pontiffs in modern times.