Amongst his more familiar but less tactful friends, Donal Leahy is oft jokingly referred to as The Nearly Man. Mafi Magic and Two Excuses must accept their share of the blame for that.

“WE will never find it in our hearts to forgive what you did — the only thing we are sure is that Lee is in a better place than you.”

THE lawyer for the Cork man accused of murdering a young Englishman said yesterday that the defendant killed him after the deceased provoked him by claiming that his father had been in a loyalist organisation.