Robot wars clicked, blinked, and whirred into the lives of 500 Cork schoolchildren this week, their months of hard work culminating in 19 of their specially-created robots doing battle on the grounds of Cork Institute of Technology.

For the once hurling-centric Éire Óg club, Sunday’s football finals – and the appearance of Daniel Goulding, Ciaran Sheehan and exciting minor Kevin Hallissey – offer a global platform to the strides the club has made with the big ball. Fintan O’Toole visited the Ovens-based club

OVER two decades, the landscape has shifted irrevocably. During Cork’s football hegemony in gaining consecutive All-Ireland senior titles in 1989 and 1990, their scoretakers in the full-forward line came from the city powers of Nemo Rangers and Bishopstown, and the West Cork strongholds of Castlehaven and O’Donovan Rossa.