Earlier this week, in these pages, Paddy Heaney wrote about the Kerry football conveyor belt of talent — the headline, ‘Kingdom’s unique structure keeps them well ahead’, conveys the general spirit of the piece.

One of the most important meetings of my year took place earlier this week in the front seat of the car, writes Michael Moynihan.

Rose Martin looks at a new book on the life’s work of the self-taught and New Zealand-born creator of the boutique hotel concept.

THE second Happy Days International Beckett Festival, devoted to Irish literary giant, Samuel Beckett, is on this week in Enniskillen. Beckett lived in the Fermanagh town during his teenage years, when he was a boarding student at Portora Royal School.

I’m especially good at expectorating, sings Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, and the hunter’s skill with a well-aimed spit is just one more indication that he’s the villain of the piece.

The Kanturk native behind the hugely popular Sminky Shorts cartoons has been named as Cork Person of the Month for December.

A talent agency to the stars has signed the Irish comedic genius behind the hilarious Sminky Shorts internet cartoon sensation.

Broadcaster Clive James has admitted he is “getting near the end” after several years of serious illness.

Brian O’Connor

Martin Amis: The Biography, Richard Bradford

ANYONE who has ever held a hurley in his hand has had the dream, or some variant of the dream.

TV veteran Michael Parkinson has criticised the "foolish ambition" of celebrities who try their hand at fronting talk shows.

SOME journeys matter more than the destination, but not yesterday in Semple Stadium.

AFTER Princess Diana died there was a lot of... well, apart from the heart-stopping grief felt by people who had come no closer to the lady than rubbing the front of a celebrity magazine, there was a lot of... guff spewed by people who should have known better.

Mayor of London Boris Johnson will make a guest appearance on 'EastEnders' later this year.

Author Salman Rushdie has said he is still glad that he wrote his controversial novel 'The Satanic Verses' in an interview coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the publication of the book.

WRITER Sebastian Barry has won this year’s €10,000 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award for his novel A Long Long Way, it was announced at the opening of Listowel Writers’ Week yesterday evening.

DOUBLE Booker Prize winner JM Coetzee will be among the literary luminaries attending Listowel Writers’ Week from May 31 to June 4 next.

Television critic and author Clive James has launched a scathing attack on the thirst for fame that is fuelling the reality television phenomenon.

A supporter of genetically modified crops has claimed that Ireland and Europe are losing out because of their opposition to the introduction of such crops.

Music stars including Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey are owed royalties worth a reported €16m.