There is no escaping the sense of excitement and expectation not just amongst the members of Lahinch Golf Club but also the whole of the village and West Clare in general as the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open Championship looms this week.

An inmate at Cork Prison was caught twice in three weeks with a mobile phone in his cell.

A 63-year-old woman woke to find a drunken intruder in her bedroom and when she told him he might have walked into the wrong house he raised his voice aggressively and said he was not in the wrong house.

Evidence against a thief for burgling an apartment in Cork included a fingerprint at the window, DNA on a Pepsi can, DNA on a cigarette, and a phone credit receipt linked to him.

A book of evidence was served today on a 23-year-old man who allegedly stripped himself naked and chased three women into their homes.

Organisers of this summer’s Dubai Duty Free Irish Open at Lahinch have insisted the prestige $7m European Tour event will not be defined by the absence of Rory McIlroy from the field.

Asked if the Vicky Phelan case never happened, when would Ruth Morrissey have found out about the audit reviews on her smear slides, Cervical Check programmer manager John Gleeson said: "If she had chosen to ask us".

Two prisoners at Cork Prison were caught in possession of mobile phones during routine searches and each got a two-month term added his sentence.

Even those with a great love and admiration for the club and the village believe that Lahinch has undertaken a mountainous challenge in agreeing to stage the 2019 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open Championship.

Two families were united in grief as the first victim of the Malin Head drowning tragedy in Co Donegal was laid to rest.

A Cork company director who hiked his insurance coverage before setting his own premises on fire and then trying to claim €200,000 insurance received a 10-year suspended jail term yesterday.

The two external labs at the heart of the CervicalCheck controversy were paid a total of €12.4m in the past two years for their services.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has defended the granting of a time extension to the Scally scoping exercise into the cervical cancer scandal.

A 47-year-old man, who denied arson causing €200,000 to his own business but was found guilty by a jury, pleaded guilty yesterday to a charge of making a fraudulent insurance claim afterwards.

Women and families affected by the cervical cancer scandal have to borrow money and rely on “the good faith of solicitors” to fight for access to medical records as supports promised by the Government have not yet materialised.

Two women with cervical cancer “who do not have time on their hands” have been refused their own medical records, the Dáil has heard.

The HSE has said it is “essential” that the leadership of the CervicalCheck Programme remains in place pending a review into the smear test controversy.

That result saw Mullins close the trainers' championship deficit to €226,714, having been over €521,000 behind Gordon Elliott at the start of the day.

Next month marks the 50th anniversary of the National Hurling League final between Kilkenny and Tipperary, one of the most controversial clashes in GAA history, writes Enda McEvoy

Two High Court disputes between Irish Asphalt Ltd and James Elliot Construction have been struck out at the High Court after the parties reached out of court agreements.

An application to wind up Irish Asphalt Ltd has opened before the High Court.

Graham Norton returns to BBC1 on Friday. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Jack Whitehall are among the guests, while Take That perform a song.

Gardaí went to arrest a man for allegedly fracturing a woman’s cheekbone when he appeared at an upstairs window of a house armed with a petrol canister and later barricaded himself into a room.

The appointment of an examiner to the department store chain, Debenhams Retail (Ireland) Ltd, has been confirmed by the High Court.

A Co Kildare farmer has avoided being jailed a second time for contempt after undertaking before the High Court to comply with orders to hand over vacant possession of farm buildings on his property to a bank appointed receiver.

A farmer, his wife, and several other people, including anti-eviction activist Ben Gilroy, are facing jail over alleged interference with a receiver appointed over lands in Co Kildare.

An 86-year-old man was kicked in the leg on a street in Cork by a much younger man who shouted obscenities at him.

He was a "tall skinny young fella" who couldn’t work the deli counter in his local shop because his hands were too big. Now we know him as the legend: Paul O’Connell.

Derek O’Connor dominated yesterday’s Bruff point-to-point fixture at Rathcannon, the first Munster meeting of the season incidentally, by partnering three winners.

An independent expert has suggested that a young mother who died in childbirth after suffering major bleeding may have had a toxic reaction to drugs administered as doctors tried to save her, an inquest has heard.

The Moriarty Tribunal has made one of its highest payments yet of €536,876.94 to cover the costs of Danish telecoms expert, Michael Andersen, the Irish Examiner has learnt.

An action by the Hickey pharmacy group and its owner Patrick Hickey aimed at preventing their loans, valued at up to €45m, being included in a portfolio of €900m loans offered for sale by the liquidators of IBRC, has been withdrawn on confidential terms at the High Court.

The Irish arm of HSBC is being sued for more than half a billion dollars arising from the massive Ponzi scheme run by jailed US fraudster Bernard Madoff.

The 19-year-old son of Susan Dunne, who was found dead at her north Kerry home on Wednesday, has appeared in court charged with her murder.

A man stabbed and beaten in his home said when he managed to escape from the crime scene, his attackers tried to drag him back like a pig into a slaughterhouse.

An Irishman linked to a criminal clan has pleaded guilty to charges he used forged documents to sell horns from endangered black rhinos to a New York collector for more than €35,000.

Dolphin 15 Clontarf 21

A judge in New York has approved a deal that will allow HSBC to pay a record $1.9bn (€1.46bn) penalty to settle claims that the British bank helped Mexican drug traffickers, Iran, Libya and others under US suspicion or sanction, move their money around the world.

Dolphin edged ever closer to their first Ulster Bank top-four finish when they produced an unlikely but fully deserved victory over Clontarf at Castle Avenue on Saturday.

Clontarf 26 Dolphin 31

Results, teams and scorers from this afternoon's league action.

Dolphin 27 UL Bohemians 9