Outside the National Sports Campus, people like Liam Harbison don’t register, a bit like the powerbrokers pulling the strings in the West Wing. Dubliner Harbison is the ‘chief of staff’, one of the most powerful and influential people in an Irish sporting landscape that has capitalised on the political fallout following the Rio Olympics.

Ireland’s Paralympic team has been set a target of eight medals from this year’s Games in Brazil.

IT’S 20 years since this column sat down to complete the Leaving Cert – for a second, excruciating time – but it is probably some sort of twisted pseudo-tribute to that daunting time in all our lives that scraps of the information we had to learn by rote occasionally jostle their way back to the forefront of the mind when least expected, writes Brendan O’Brien.

Luis Suarez’s injury. Italy training in a sauna. Leighton Baines’ reading habits.

Never mind the Republic of Ireland’s loss in Cologne, or Munster’s woeful experience in Edinburgh, Irish sport’s most damaging defeat is about to be recorded today, and in Leinster House, of all places.

Double gold medallists Michael McKillop and Jason Smyth have been denied the opportunity to defend their Paralympic titles in Rio.

Ireland's most successful Paralympic team ever touched down tonight with 16 medals en tow, receiving a rapturous reception from the thousands of well-wishers at Dublin Airport.

Home are the heroes, a bit later than expected.

As the days ticked by and Ireland’s medal count climbed higher and higher at the Paralympic Games, the fear mounted just as quickly that people might get the wrong impression that it was all just a wee bit too easy.

It was the most incredible two weeks in London.

Preparations are under way to welcome back an Irish Paralympic team that raised the bar of expectation here and across the sporting world.

Winning gold was a family affair for Team Ireland runner Michael McKillop when his mother presented him with his medal in a historic moment at the Paralympics.

The 2012 Irish Paralympic team departed for a two-week pre-Games training camp this morning with chief executive Liam Harbison claiming they were ready to better the successes achieved four years ago in Beijing.

Paralympics Ireland is set to step out of the shadow of its Olympic counterpart this summer with the announcement that the Games are to be screened live in this country for the first time.

James O’Reilly and his pals on the Ballincollig junior B football team had an idea.

Irish 200 metres record-holder Paul Hession plans to be in the shake-up with Usain Bolt and reach the business end of their events at the London Olympics this summer.

JOHN TREACY has warned high-performance programmes will have to be dismantled and jobs lost if the current government continues the trend of its predecessors by shaving the budget for sport.

HIGH-ACHIEVING graduates of Waterford Institute of Technology are to be honoured at a new event in the college next month.

Ireland’s flag bearer, six-time Paralympian Patrice Dockery, proudly led the 45-strong Irish team along with team staff into Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium today at opening ceremony of the 13th Paralympic Games.

SPORTS Minister Martin Cullen, has vowed the government’s sports budget will not be “one of the first things to be cut” as the country enters an economic slowdown.

MEMBERS of the Irish Paralympic panels will travel to Beijing on Thursday for 10 days of acclimatisation and familiarisation in advance of next year’s Paralympic Games.

The triumphant Irish Paralympic team was today praised for winning four medals at a special reception with President Mary McAleese.

Bray teenager Gary Messett has been chosen as Ireland's flag-bearer for Friday's opening ceremony of the twelfth Paralympic Games in Athens.