FOUR people died in a series of tragic incidents at the weekend.

AS I STAND at the Mulranny Park Hotel in Co Mayo on day one of a weekend trip, my eye races over the empty spaces, trying to comprehend the beauty of the interlocking mountains, the sweep of the sea, the sense of boundless landscape.

ALTHOUGH Tim McNulty (Subaru WRC) and Alastair Fisher (Ford Fiesta S2000) each shared three fastest times over yesterday’s six stages of the opening leg of the Topaz Donegal International Rally, the former will take a 28.6 second lead in to today’s second leg of the Letterkenny-based rally, the fourth round of the Irish Tarmac Championship.

World Rally champions, Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena in a Citroen C4 WRC won the Shell Donegal International Rally.

Derry driver Eugene Donnelly and co-driver Paul Kiely have won the Shell Donegal International Rally for the second year in succession.

A young man, believed to be a foreign national, has died after falling off a cliff on Achill Island this afternoon.

With Andrew Nesbitt having stretched his lead in the Shell Donegal International Rally on today’s opening stage to 47 seconds, the rally was turned on its head on the next stage, Port Lake.

Three men were today shot and injured in what bore all the hallmarks of a loyalist sectarian gun attack in north Belfast.