Conall Harvey may be the most inspiring eight-year-old you ever meet with a football.

THE Sound of Things Falling by Colombian author, Juan Gabriel Vásquez, translated from Spanish by Canadian Anne McLean, is the winner of the 2014 International IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award and €100,000 — but how do awards affect the winners — and the losers? Do they really matter?

THE father of a German au pair crushed to death by a truck in Cork earlier this year said yesterday his daughter’s spirit lives on through the life of the child she saved.