A Garda manhunt is underway after a man sexually assaulted a female student in Limerick city.

Gardaí were granted an extra 48 hours by the courts today to continue to designate the home of a murdered pensioner a crime scene, following her killing last Friday.

A former garda detective has warned that anyone found to be keeping information from gardaí investigating the murder of a 78-year old Limerick widow faces possible prosecution in the criminal courts.

Latest: Gardaí have upgraded the death of 78-year-old Rose Hanrahan to a murder investigation.

Relatives of a pensioner found dead in her Limerick home yesterday were said to be “distressed and shocked” after gardaí confirmed they were treating her death as suspicious.

Latest: An army bomb disposal have made safe an explosive device found underneath Thomond Bridge, in Limerick, earlier today.

Despite threats to his personal safety, Limerick State solicitor Michael Murray never flinched from his duty and responsibility to uphold the rule of law through difficult times in the city, a judge said yesterday.

A man has been arrested after gardaí found a "viable" bomb in a car on the grounds of a garda station this morning.

Three brothers from Co Clare been awarded Garda Youth Awards after they gallantly defended their home and neighbours' properties from last winter's flooding.

Gardaí in Limerick have begun an investigation into last Friday’s takeover by protesters of a court at which house repossession cases were being heard.

Retired garda detective Ben O’Sullivan, left at death’s door by the IRA, yesterday spoke publicly for the first time of the nightmares that haunted him for years after an attack in Adare which claimed the life of colleague Det Garda Jerry McCabe.

Gardaí in Limerick are this morning expected to launch a murder investigation after the body of a well-known athlete was found in the back garden of a suburban house yesterday.

The Health and Safety Authority’s special investigations unit is proceeding with a major inquiry into the deaths last Saturday of two men carrying out work on Thomond Bridge in Limerick. However, it is unlikely their families will get a copy of the final report into the accident.

The outcome of a probe into the deaths of two workers who drowned when carrying out repairs on Thomond Bridge in Limerick will determine whether gardaí will launch an inquiry.

A man told gardaí “I really am sorry for the death of that man” after he was charged with a burglary at a house in Co Limerick where a 62-year-old man died after discovering intruders at his home.

For decades Christy Keane’s family ran a sizeable coal delivery business from their base in St Mary’s Park, better known as the Island Field. He soon discovered his delivery business was an ideal cover to get into drugs.

A senior garda said his “hands are tied” in relation to dealing with children younger than 12 “running riot” in a private housing estate in Ennis.

A file has been sent to the DPP following the arrest of a woman in connection with a fatal hit and run that claimed the life of a Polish father of one.

A priest told mourners for the late homeless man Josef Pavelka last night it is not a time to be angry, but a time to remember “a real legend of a man we all knew”.

A young woman who was stabbed in Co Clare yesterday has been transferred to Cork University Hospital where she is said to be in a stable condition.

Extra Garda patrols were mounted in the Moyross estate in Limerick last night after a local man died from bullet wounds he received on Sunday at his brother’s wedding.

Business people in West Cork are being urged by gardaí to “wake up” to the risks of crime.

A 28-YEAR-OLD man jailed by the Special Criminal Court in connection with extortion threatened to kill a prison officer while in custody on another matter, a court has heard.

GARDAÍ believe they may have smashed a racket involving the theft of phone cabling from Eircom poles.

A MAN arrested on Monday of last week in connection with a “Tiger” abduction which led to €105,000 being extorted from Newcastle West sub-post office, has been released without charge.

THE 30-year-old mother-of-one who died in a fire in Limerick on Sunday has been described as a great Irish dancer who had worked as a part-time model.

THERE were dramatic scenes outside Limerick courthouse yesterday when a group of more than 50 men, women and children tried to attack two men who were brought there on murder charges in relation to the shooting dead of Des Kelly and Breda Waters over a week ago.

MEMBERS of the armed Garda Regional Response Unit were still on duty in the St Martin’s Park area of Tralee yesterday, following a further outbreak of violence in a continuing feud between two Traveller families.

THE father of a teenager who died in a car crash in Tralee has claimed his son would still be alive if a pole, which he said had originally been the barrel of an artillery gun, had not been on a footpath in the town.

DEFENCE Minister Willie O’Dea yesterday came riding to assistance of the Moyross light cavalry whose members have been shot at and kidnapped in the Limerick feud.

THE great love Garda Brian Kelleher had for his wife and three little boys was recalled at his funeral yesterday.

A detective garda who took part in a raid on a house in Limerick where a suspected Continuity IRA was taking place, made a number of errors in his witness statement, the Special Criminal Court heard today.

A young man accused of murdering his mother told gardai he grabbed her in a headlock and snapped her neck, and knowing she was dead, he strangled her again.