Ireland were celebrating last night after clinching the Boys’ Home Internationals title &for the first time since 2010 after a gripping final day at Forest Pines in North Lincolnshire.

Ireland were denied a fifth consecutive senior men’s Home International title at Southerndown on the south Wales coast yesterday by a much-improved England outfit.

Garth McGimpsey retained his Tourism Malaysia-sponsored Irish senior men’s amateur golf title after a tense final day at Clandeboye.

Recently crowned Irish Close champion Chris Selfridge hit a wonder shot on the final hole of a three-hole aggregate play-off to match the 1988 feat of Ulster great Garth McGimpsey and complete a famous double by lifting the East of Ireland title at a sun-kissed Co Louth.

The presence of Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell, Pádraig Harrington and Darren Clarke provides Ireland with its strongest hand at the Masters at Augusta National.

IRELAND won the Men’s Senior Home International Championship for an unprecedented fourth successive year at Woodhall Spa in Lincolnshire yesterday and completed the Triple Crown with a 7-2 trouncing of England.

AND herein lies the North’s problem. The public sector grew so large when the Northern Ireland Office was running a virtual war economy that no party dares put it up to NIPSA, the public sector trade union and one of the last communist refuges between Havana and Pyongyang.

The minimum cost of a bottle of Chardonnay could be between £4 and £7 (€4.65 and €8.15) under fresh pricing proposals in the North.

The SDLP have branded the draft Budget lazy and unimaginative – heightening fears of a Stormont split on the crucial legislation.

Two young children with swine flu have died in the North today.

Michael McGimpsey and Martin McGuinness were at loggerheads today after the North's deputy first minister rebuked his colleague for missing a North South Ministerial Council (NSMC) meeting in Dublin.

The North's Health Minister says a state inquiry to discover the extent of historic institutional and clerical child abuse in the North should be considered.

A public inquiry into how a convicted sex offender set fire to his home and killed his family was called for today by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Some staff in special schools for Northern Ireland pupils with severe learning difficulties will be vaccinated for swine flu, the North's Health Minister announced today.

Three swine flu-related deaths in the North were announced tonight – one of them a girl who attended the same special needs school as a teenager with the virus who died last week.

Health Minister Michael McGimpsey tonight apologised to the family of a teenage Derry girl for the delay in telling them she had swine flu.

A young child with swine flu has died in the North, it was announced today.

A baby who died in the North had swine flu, Stormont’s health minister confirmed tonight.

The death of a baby in the North is suspected to be the second fatal case of swine flu in the region.

Daily updates on the spread of swine flu have been halted after the health authorities in the North gave up on trying to contain the virus, it was confirmed today.

Construction work on the new £270m (€307m) acute hospital for Enniskillen is finally starting following the signing today of the contract with the consortium which will build it.

Passengers who shared a flight with the North’s first swine flu sufferer do not appear to have been infected, Health Minister Michael McGimpsey said today.

Health authorities were tonight still trying to contact every one of more than 150 people on an easyJet flight to Belfast after one of them was confirmed as the North's first case of swine flu.

The North has its first confirmed case of swine flu, health minister Michael McGimipsey said today.

Extra stocks of antiviral drugs are being bought by the Department of Health to protect the North against any major outbreak of swine flu.

The first case of swine flu has been confirmed in this country in a person who recently returned from Mexico, health experts confirmed tonight.

A suspected case of swine flu in this country has not been identified as lab tests can not detect the deadly virus, health experts confirmed today.

There will be enough swine flu vaccines for every man, woman and child, the North's health minister promised today.

Hospitals in the North are reducing the time patients have to wait for treatment but are still failing to fully meet ministerial targets, new figures showed today.

An ambulance crew which left a neo-natal patient to hospital was kept waiting there for six and a half hours before she was moved elsewhere, it was revealed today.

The cost of prescriptions in the North is falling to £3 (€3.08) an item from next month, the Health Minister said today.

Nearly a quarter of a million people in the North are to be given the chance to say just what they think of their GP.

WITH the obesity time bomb ticking louder than ever people must take more responsibility for their health, warned junior health minister Mary Wallace yesterday.

Up to 40,000 children in the North could be affected by the misuse of drink or drugs by their parents, it was revealed today.

An additional £14m (€17.92m) is to be spent replacing 26 fire stations across the North, it was announced today.

A public inquiry is to be held into a hospital superbug outbreak linked to more than 60 deaths in hospitals in the North.

Dramatic cuts that could see more than 2,000 jobs go across health and social services cannot be avoided, the North's Health Minister Michael McGimpsey said today.

A new supermarket labelling scheme being piloted in the North and Scotland in a bid to curb binge drinking was welcomed tonight.

Up to 60 new ambulances are to be bought over the next three years as part of a major upgrade of the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS), it was announced today.

The North's Health Minister Michael McGimpsey today announced plans to abolish prescription charges in the North.

Welfare services involved with the family of registered sex offender Arthur McElhill, who killed himself and his family when he set fire to their Omagh home, were guilty of a series of failings, an investigation into the deaths found today.

Not enough is being done to help the victims and survivors of sexual violence and abuse in Northern Ireland, it was admitted today as ministers launched a new five-year victim-focused strategy.

A nurse will end up dead unless attacks on medical staff in the North are stopped, it was claimed today.

The gap between health spending in the North and England is set to widen if current budget proposals at Stormont stand, a power-sharing minister warned today.