3/5

A biscuit or a Bard? As the world marks the great writer’s 400th anniversary, Ger Fitzgibbon reflects on how Irish people drawn to his work included rebels holed up in Jacobs during the 1916 Rising.

After her fun-filled turn in Catastrophe, Cork actress Eileen Walsh returns home in the Abbey’s production of a Sean O’Casey classic, writes Padraic Killeen

The struggle for the birth of a child is the work of love while armed struggle for the birth of a nation state is the work of hate, writes Victoria White

What if Pearse and Connolly had survived? Perhaps the first item on the agenda would have been a split, writes Gerard Howlin

Mark O’Halloran explains to Padraic Killeen how the central character of Davoren in The Shadow of a Gunman echoes O’Casey’s view of his younger self

Abbey Theatre, Dublin

IT WAS politics at its best, the referendum. Political parties looking at a proposition decided to espouse it. Ways were found by both sides in the argument to engage the public. The clearest of decisions was made by the electorate, and countless lives were changed for the better.

While he awaits news on Love/Hate, Peter Coonan is keeping busy with stage and film roles, writes Padraic Killeen

Jo Kerrigan rounds up the best theatre offerings at home and abroad for the months ahead

The Rising of Bella Casey

US actor Patrick Cronin returns to his Cork roots for an iconic role, says Colette Sheridan

The Plough and the Stars, set around the Easter Rising, is the story of one woman’s efforts to preserve her family, says Carl Dixon

AS many readers will know, two earth-like planets were discovered by NASA’s Kepler Mission just before Christmas.

ONE of the world’s top airline chiefs believes no company would consider buying Aer Lingus while its share price is so low.

Ciarán Hinds, star of film and TV, returns to the Abbey after 20 years, in Juno and the Paycock, says Pádraic Killeen.

Adrian Frazier does a fine job in bringing to life John Ford and others involved in the remarkable links between the Abbey and Hollywood, says Val Nolan

A mother of two, who stole an ambulance during an emergency call-out in Dublin in January, has been jailed for four months.

AWARD-winning actor Anna Manahan’s old theatrical group, the Waterford Dramatic Society, is celebrating its 75th anniversary with its production of Sean O’Casey’s classic canon The Plough and the Stars in the city.

GARDAÍ arrested two men yesterday when they foiled an aggravated burglary and freed a couple aged in their late 60s.

I MET Senator David Norris last week on the final episode of Questions & Answers.

YOU have a failed ideology, you have the most hopeless policy that I ever heard pursued by any nitwit.”

A 20-year-old man was found hanging in a Garda holding cell hours after he had been caught red-handed in a stolen car, an inquest heard today.

A 20-year-old man who died after falling unconscious in a Garda station cell had been arrested after being spotted in a stolen car, an inquest heard today.

DAVID IRVING’S three-year jail sentence for casting doubts on the Holocaust is incredible when you consider what his Stalinist counterparts got away with.

Two women went to the flat of men they met after a night of drinking and left the door on the latch so their boyfriends could rob the place, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told.

As a long-awaited début play opens tonight at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, its award winning writer begs for a 10-year break.

A 17-year-old passenger in a stolen car that rammed two garda vehicles has been jailed for two and a half years by Judge Elizabeth Dunne at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.