April has been declared ‘Natural Wine Month’ by Le Caveau wine merchants in Kilkenny which specialises in organic, bio-dynamic and ‘natural’ wines.

IT’S been a long time since video killed the radio star. 

I have written in the past about the difficulties faced by small wine importers given our draconian wine taxes. We are around 650% higher than the EU average and more expensive for wine than countries such as Sweden and Finland.

The tide is turning at Cork Airport after CityJet announced a high-frequency service to London City Airport from October.

Waterford Airport’s future looks secure following confirmation that flights on the Waterford-London/Luton route are to resume at the end of April.

SINGER, actress and more recently TV cook, Angeline Ball is a woman of many parts. 

A woman and her brother have been convicted of “justifying a crime” after her toddler son – named Jihad – went to a French nursery school in a T-shirt bearing the words “I am a bomb” and “Jihad: Born on Sept. 11.”

A TOP Rugby League World Cup official last night described the enthusiasm for the sport in Limerick as “overwhelming.”

The 2013 Rugby League World Cup will be staged in four countries, the Rugby Football League announced today.

Ireland will make history tomorrow when they host France in the first rugby league match to be held at the rugby union stronghold of Thomond Park in Limerick.

AN explosion in a furnace at the Marcoule nuclear waste treatment site in southern France yesterday killed one person, but there was no leak of radioactive material outside the site, officials said.

St Helens’ rising star Jonny Lomax is in contention to make his England debut in the Four Nations Series after being called into coach Steve McNamara’s elite training squad.

WERNER Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams celebrates a series of wildlife paintings.

FRANCE’S new ban on Islamic face veils was met with a burst of defiance as several women appeared veiled in front of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral and two were detained for taking part in an unauthorised protest.

THE novel, a surprise best seller in France, where it was first published in 2008, opens with two dramatic events: the arrival of a man, a stranger, in La Hague, a seaside village near Cherbourg, and the start of the first winter storm.

AN order of Benedictine nuns which is cut off from the outside world has signed a major record deal with the company behind Lady GaGa, it was announced.

EUROPE was blasted by more snow yesterday as Britain endured its coldest night of the winter and fears for energy supplies intensified.

The cold weather bringing chaos to Ireland has also caused problems across large areas of Europe.

KEITH FLOYD, 65, with his jaunty manner and gritty alcohol-fuelled voice, was one of the most popular and successful of an entire tribe of TV chefs.

TV chef Keith Floyd has died, his ghost writer James Steen said today.

A NUMBER of European Union countries have promised to help Ireland persuade Belarus to lift its ban on its children travelling outside the country.

THE Government is considering pulling the defence forces out of EU peacekeeping duties in a bid to win acceptance of the Lisbon treaty and end any concerns about conscription.

European Union foreign ministers appealed to Moscow today to follow through on commitments to withdraw its forces from Georgia under a ceasefire plan.

THE possibility of conscription into a non-existent EU army is emerging as a significant reason why a majority of voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty, Foreign Minister Micheál Martin has said.

Liquid containing traces of uranium leaked at a nuclear site in southern France today with some of the solution running into two rivers, the country’s nuclear safety agency said.

DRUNKEN vandals broke into a Paris museum on Sunday and punched a hole through a priceless Monet painting.

A FRENCH museum curator yesterday accused a Frenchwoman of “raping” a €2 million artwork by US artist, Cy Twombly, by planting a lipstick-red kiss on its pristine white canvas.

I’M BEHIND schedule with my gardening this year. Mind you, nature is a bit behind schedule too. Blackthorn blossom and primroses in May — they should be flourishing in March. The soil in the vegetable plots is cold.

French President Jacques Chirac called a security meeting of his top ministers tonight after urban rioting spread – with arsonists striking from the Mediterranean to the German border and into central Paris for the first time.

Riots which have rocked France for the past 10 days reached central Paris for the first time today in an orgy of destruction and violence.

France was hit by a 10th night of rioting as the urban unrest reached Paris for the first time.

Wine is less a beverage than an elixir of life in France, but the country’s vintners say they’re confounded by a problem that threatens their livelihood - too much of a good thing and not enough people drinking it.

Pierre Salinger, who served as President John F Kennedy’s press secretary and later had a long career with ABC News, has died at a hospital in southern France.

John Kennedy, director Cork 2005, says Cork has a golden opportunity to put itself on European cultural map.