University Concert Hall, Limerick

For a man who had battled all his life, it was fitting that his last fight was the toughest and, perhaps, the most heroic.

It was almost lost due to a lack of funding and resources but, in a triumph of people-power, the eighth edition of the Ballydehob Jazz Festival will be launched this week.

Cork City is alive to the sound of music this weekend but there are dozens of other events throughout the South-West to whet the appetite of bank holiday visitors and revellers.

THE music will sound again this month in a remote village dance hall made famous as the Ballroom of Romance by author William Trevor.

MEMPHIS has Graceland and Elvis Presley’s body, the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris cradles the tomb of Jim Morrison but the latest shrine to a musical hero lies in the stony grey soil of Mullingar.

More than 2,000 mourners have paid their respects to showband legend Joe Dolan who was buried today in his native town.

A MUSICIAN abandoned his guitar 10 years ago with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease returns to the stage tonight following a remarkable battle to revive his talents.

Hundreds of people from all around the country have been flocking to the Boyle Arts Festival in Co Roscommon to enjoy its mix of art, music and theatre, organisers said today.

I HOPE you had a good New Year’s Eve.

TWENTY years a-growing, Dublin 4’s very own Wren Boys’ Festival lived up to its reputation for fun and divilment at Sandymount Green yesterday.

FOR Brian O’Driscoll, holding onto a six-month-old guide dog makes a change from holding onto an English front row forward.

IT’S 48 years since the late Paddy Burke put the show on the road back in 1954, but the village of Clarenbridge still becomes the world’s oyster every September.

THIS year's newly-crowned World Coffee Making Champion, Declan Corbett, plans to launch a unique Irish coffee drink into the world market in November, it emerged yesterday.