To use a metaphor rooted in one of the passions people on both sides of the Irish Sea share with an equal but competing zeal — the fence akin to the Grand National’s Becher’s Brook has been, in terms of the divorce negotiations between Britain and the European Union, navigated successfully at the first time of asking.

Sharon Corrs’ kids had no idea their mum was a music icon – until the band made a comeback, she tells Lorraine Wylie.

On the 400th anniversary of his death, William Shakespeare is rightly celebrated worldwide as possibly the greatest dramatist of all time.

SSE Airtricity Premier Division

YESTERDAY’S weather, hard and wild, reminded us in so many ways we are at the mercy of forces beyond our control and probably beyond our rational comprehension too.

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His manager was uncharacteristically lyrical when discussing Henry Shefflin on Saturday night in Croke Park.

"For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" — Hamlet.

They pile up, inspiring us, enthralling us, exhausting us; those sublime sporting moments of ecstasy and vindication.

The only inevitable has preoccupied all cultures and religion, but now in the West we shun it, says Suzanne Harrington.

“Oh shut up, Baldrick – you’d laugh at a Shakespeare comedy.”

It looks like the Anglo trial is all over bar the sentencing but, in reality, the saga has a long way to go before it has exhausted public interest and ceased to be in the public interest.

Cocaine, obsessive love and poisonous wit all play a part in The Vortex, says Alan O’Riordan

Peter O’Toole never won an Oscar despite eight nominations. However, in 2003 he was given an honorary award for his body of work.

His plays are renowned, but a new book unravels the mystery of the man, says Rita de Brun

SHAKESPEAREAN theatre is associated with the tragic figures Hamlet, King Lear and Othello.

Jude Law is "proud" but not "fulfilled" by his career so far.

DAVID DUCHOVNY ON MR ROGERS AND ME

How ironic that in an article about slips and errors in recent speeches by the Taoiseach (“Kenny’s got the facts and tone wrong”, Aug 25), Michael Clifford should come up with the wonderful line about “the Blueshirts raising [Michael Collins] to the top of their petard”.

SILENCE, the movie by Cork-born film-maker Pat Collins, is in the cinemas at present.

Zoning in on weaknesses

When he died 100 years ago today, the Irish writer had not received due recognition for creating our favourite vampire, says Robert Hume

One of the twists Pan Pan has given Shakespeare’s classic is to let the audience choose who will play the lead each night, writes Colette Sheridan

A GLANCE at Queen Elizabeth II’s itinerary in Ireland would make you marvel: planting trees, laying wreaths, touring two cities from breweries to colleges, meeting the GAA (not for the faint-hearted, least of all anyone who has no idea of what the GAA is all about), a State dinner, visits to three equine studs, a tour of the Rock of Cashel (marginally less taxing than the GAA but rock-climbing at any age is a challenge), a State banquet, chatting to Cork’s market traders before speeding off to have another chat with its scientists, chemists and physicists.

Jude Law is in talks to play Aaron Johnson's love rival in 'Anna Karenina'.

IT’S just not cricket, is it? Not content with beating the auld enemy at their own game, it now appears we Irish may be denting English pride elsewhere — in equally dramatic fashion.

THE bill to provide civil partnerships and increased rights for same-sex couples has been passed by the Oireachtas but only after an extraordinarily ill-tempered debate in the Seanad.

SEVENTY years after it began, is there anything new to be written about World War II, which killed six people every second for the six years it lasted?

MUCH is made of Bertie Ahern’s diction.

IF you’ve just unearthed that Christmas book token from down the back of the sofa, here’s a sure-fire way to turn it into literary gold: pop around to your local bookstore and exchange it for a copy of “The Damned United” (Faber).

FOLLOWING the death of disgraced politician Liam Lawlor fundamental questions have been left hanging over two major issues — the coverage by certain Sunday newspapers of the fatal accident in Moscow coupled with mounting concerns that his absence might affect ongoing tribunal investigations into bribery of politicians by developers.

THOMAS STUDLEY (Irish Examiner letters, June 30) bemoans the fact that the attire of our public figures is “flouting decorum” and is in “extremely bad taste.”

DAVID MURPHY, one of Irish basketball’s most exciting young talents, faces a busy weekend with the possibility of playing in the senior men’s semi-final with Mardyke UCC Demons before going on to captain the club’s U19’s tomorrow night in the men’s junior final.

PRELIMINARY tests on substances found at a military training camp in central Iraq suggest they may contain a cocktail of banned chemical weapons, including deadly nerve agents, US officers said last night.