What was described as a "gruesome" discovery was made by gardaí who found the body of a 30-year-old woman buried in a barrel in Capoley, Portlaoise.

Eamonn Lillis and his mistress exchanged more than 200 text messages and almost 90 calls in the fortnight before his wife’s death, his murder trial heard.

THE organisation representing the country’s 11,000 rank-and-file gardaí will take the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) to the European Court of Human Rights if it continues to investigate members of the force for off-duty incidents where they haven’t broken any laws.