Gardaí were injured when they were confronted by a dangerous dog and a man armed with a knife during a drugs search in Co Louth yesterday.

A brave publican has spoken about how he stood in front of an armed robber who was pointing a gun straight at him and “called his bluff,” by challenging him to shoot him.

A seven-month-old baby narrowly avoided being shot dead when gunmen sprayed a house with bullets in an attack gardaí likened to “a gangster movie”.

An outspoken priest has hit out at intolerant and extreme right-wingers in the Church and questioned why priests like Fr Tony Flannery were being “persecuted with a zeal that is as pathological as the paranoia that feeds it”.

The widower of an Irishwoman who was raped and murdered in Australia almost a year ago is to return home to “clear his head”.