ONE of the reasons Irish crime writing took so long to develop as a body of work is Ireland lacked the kind of large, anonymous urban settings where crime fiction tends to thrive. 

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During the recent European elections, Fine Gael candidates wouldn’t answer the following question: what will happen to the €300,000,000 the Central Bank gets when it sells the first of the promissory note sovereign bonds later this year. Will that money be destroyed?

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Leaving Certificate students at St Angela’s College in Cork City were fairly pleased with how they fared in the first papers.

The past is a different country for Nessa Childers.

will.i.am didn't think 'The Voice' would be as good without Jessie J and Danny O'Donoghue.

Nessa Robins has finally got round to putting her popular blog, Nessa’s Family Kitchen, onto the printed page in a new book, Apron Strings (New Island Cookery), a mixum-gatherum of recipes, household tips, party and picnic ideas and cockle-warming tales of family and friends and her efforts to feed ’em all. With this former nurse also furnishing a list of natural food-based home remedies, it’s the class of tome a body could wind up consulting from the crack of dawn to the dead of night. www.apronstrings.ie

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore suffered a fresh blow as an MEP quit the party and accused him of seeking to “hurt people”.

The world of GAA has said goodbye to one of its greatest sporting legends.

Just over half of Ireland’s coterie of 12 MEPs — Nessa, Proinsias, Paul, Phil, Sean, Jim and Marian — have signed the pledge to support gay rights which is doing the rounds in the European Parliament.

THE resignation of MEP Proinsias De Rossa has led to a row over how his successor as Labour delegation leader should be chosen.

Labour Party Chief Whip, Emmett Stagg, has said he did not threaten MEP Nessa Childers with expulsion from the party.

SO Ireland has a new head of state.

James Corden is to be reunited with Ruth Jones in a new Welsh sitcom.

Mathew Horne thinks a 'Gavin and Stacey' movie is a "bad idea".

CORK airport has become an unlikely refuge for desperate travellers attempting to enter the country as passengers attempting to come to Ireland are faced with Dublin and Belfast cancellation nightmares.

ABBOTT’S debut novel centres on Henry, a retired advertising executive who is racked with guilt after the death of a young relative in his care.

'Gavin & Stacey' may return for a one-off special.

RITA CHILDERS, the wife of former president Erskine Childers, who herself came close to being Ireland’s first female president, has died peacefully at the age of 95.

'Gavin and Stacey' star Ruth Jones was in tears for a week as the cast filmed their final scenes for the BBC1 comedy, she said today.

LABOUR stunned the Green party last night by poaching one of its more high-profile members to run for the European elections next year.

British Comedy Awards host Jonathan Ross heaped more embarrassment on the event last night as they went ahead without being broadcast.