Two spectacular stained glass windows depicting a series of historical and cultural ‘turning points’ over some 700 years in a West Cork town, have gone on display in the local church.

Poet Mary Noonan whose second collection, Stone Girl, has just been published, says that working as a lecturer in UCC’s French Department, means that she has to clear her head of “academic stuff” in order to write creatively.

Today is International Women’s Day. It is a day to be happy and rejoice. We can decide to be either depressed or encouraged at the general state of gender equality, so let’s choose the latter.

She had a complete mental meltdown in public, went into treatment and disappeared off stage for two months, did Sheridan Smith.

The field, the plaster face of the Virgin Mary, the labouring, dying 15-year-old, the dead baby…

A criminal who was trying to get into the “headstone business” has been jailed for 18 months after causing criminal damage to cemetery headstones in what the judge described as “an unbelievable mean, despicable crime”.

Cillian Murphy and co return for the fourth instalment of the BBC cult series ‘Peaky Blinders’, writes Georgia Humphreys.

A caretaker was left visibly shaken and suffered a cut to his neck after the attempted removal of a statue of the Virgin Mary at a school sparked a scuffle with a teacher.

Here's your lunchtime news bulletin.

Irene Kelleher is taking her fictional play, Mary and Me, to the Edinburgh Fringe. It was inspired by the tragic events in Granard in 1984, writes Colette Sheridan

Pope to make pilgrimage to the Portuguese town for the centenary of the Virgin Mary’s ‘apparition’, writes Barry Hatton.

Damien Enright recounts more tales from his travels in Ethiopia. 

With requests for exorcism on the rise, Louise Roseingrave looks back at an incident in Inchigeela, Co Cork, 30 years ago.

Catholic pilgrims from around the world, many sick or disabled, converged on a shrine in the French town of Lourdes under exceptional security following recent extremist attacks.

Gay Byrne presents a documentary on the Catholic Church in Ireland, Last Orders With Gay Byrne, at 9.35pm, RTÉ One on Tuesday.

From the Virgin Mary to females in film and fairytales, author Marina Warner believes perceptions of women are improving, writes Marjorie Brennan

On the eve of the 1916 anniversary, Claire O’Sullivan took her kids to Dublin to tour the city’s child-friendly museums.

Fifty years ago, an IRA bomb belatedly decapitated one of the most iconic monuments to British rule in Ireland, writes Billy O’Riordan.

As her much-adored picture book Five Minutes Peace approaches its 30th birthday, children’s author Jill Murphy reflects on her career, and tells Kate Whiting that her success was never planned.

Having done my Leaving the year she was born , I hadn’t heard of the writer Louise O’Neill until I was mooching in a bookshop the other day. I randomly picked up Asking For It — largely because of Jeanette Winterson’s recommendation on the cover — and read it almost in one go.

There is a strong suspicion that the horrible lessons we learned through the economic bust are

A Galway man has claimed that his son has been given the all-clear from cancer two years after he was told the illness was terminal.

A manuscript of enormous research value has been returned to Dublin 700 years after its creation there and four centuries after first leaving the country.

Today, tens of millions worldwide are celebrating the feast of this country’s patron saint, Partick. But ther’s a baffling number of patron saints, and some have rather unexpected job titles, says Brian Moss.

Kanye West has named his new album 'So Help Me God'.

His head bowed and hands clasped in front of him, Pope Francis stood today for two minutes of silent prayer facing east inside one of Istanbul’s most important mosques, as he shifted gears toward more religious affairs on the second leg of his three-day visit to mainly Muslim Turkey.

A statue of the Virgin Mary that had disappeared from a grotto near University College Cork was found dumped in a nearby car park.

A college student union has offered a safe haven for the sinner who stole a statue of the Virgin Mary if they want to repent and make right their wrongs.

THE CITY air smells like incense. Stall owners prepare for the crowds, turning on the water sprinklers over fresh coconut pieces, and arranging tubs of sweet marshmallow, giant lollipops, plastic horns, drums and cold drinks.

Take a walk with Liz O’ Brien to the literal end of the earth at Finisterre, on the rugged Atlantic coast of Galicia in Spain, where for centuries pilgrims have completed the Camino de Santiago.

He’s leaving Today FM to return to Cork to RedFM — but DJ KC believes it’s the best decision he’s ever made. He tells Áilín Quinlan why family comes first.

The tragic death 30 years ago of Irish schoolgirl Ann Lovett is the subject of a play to be staged in London next month.

Michael Moran is part of the team that evaluates miracles, writes Dan Buckley.

Cossack militia attacked Russian punk group Pussy Riot with horsewhips as they tried to perform under a sign advertising the Sochi Olympics.

Two members of the punk group Pussy Riot ran out of a police station in their trademark balaclavas after being released following several hours of questioning in Sochi, the host city of the Winter Olympics.

The freed members of the Pussy Riot punk band said yesterday they still wanted Russian president Vladimir Putin out of power and would like ex-tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky to replace him.

Live music: Ms Mr - Academy, Dublin

A man who toppled a 7ft high statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary from a pedestal in former convent grounds was yesterday jailed for criminal damage.

IN DUBLIN to promote my book, the taxi drops me at a Georgian house-hotel next to the Dáil.

Floods in south-west France have forced the closure of the Catholic pilgrimage site in Lourdes and the evacuation of visitors from nearby hotels.

THE voice was an eerie guttural, horrible sound, ferociously angry.

The brooding sound design of a play about the Virgin Mary is tipped to win an Irishman a Tony after earning him a prestigious award in New York.

Two captive doves have celebrated their freedom with a soaring flight over St. Peter’s Square thanks to Pope Francis.