A record-breaking marathon swimmer has embarked on what he says will be his final epic challenge — bidding to become the first person to swim the 80km from Ireland and Wales.

A Kerry sheep farmer who drove his vintage tractor, Betsy, across America’s famous Route 66 last month has so far raised €25,000 for cancer research.

Environmentalists are gathering for a weekend summer school at Carnsore Point in Co Wexford this weekend.

Ireland is bracing for flash floods after Met Éireann issued localised flood alerts and small craft warnings last night.

The power of what is behind any volunteerism is a simple word called ‘service’.

Six fishermen were today rescued from a sinking trawler in the Irish Sea.

Four fishermen were today rescued from a sinking trawler in the Irish Sea.

WE quote him all the time but many people don’t seem to realise that Neil Armstrong went all the way to the moon only to fluff his lines.

RENOWNED physicist Philip Walton (Letters, June 18) extolled the virtues of nuclear energy and lamented the negative attitude prevalent in Ireland towards its adoption as an alternative to unreliable fossil sources — oil and gas.

DIVE crews were due to enter the wreck of the Honeydew II again this morning to search parts of the galley and hold for signs of the its two missing crew members.

A massive search for seven fishermen missing off the south east coast is expected to resume today.

FIVE buses a day have been arranged from Kinsale to Dunmore over the weekend for those who will join the search for the bodies of the two fishermen missing from the Honeydew II.

BAD weather conditions forced the suspension of the sea search for the doomed Honeydew II trawler off the south east coast yesterday.

WELLINGTON boots, fish boxes, mineral bottles, a lantern, ropes, part of a hand-painted nameplate — just some of the debris which has been found by the dozens of volunteers who have been searching the south-eastern coastline for nearly a week, and which is presumed to have come from the stricken Kinsale-based trawler, the Honeydew II.

The dive to recover the bodies of the five fishermen who went down with the Pere Charles trawler could be delayed for at least a week, the Coast Guard said tonight.

THE search for the five fishermen who were on board the Pere Charles is now concentrated on an area of sea about two miles off Hook Head.

TWO visually impaired Irish canoeists will take part in the Irish Sea Kayaking Challenge 2006 and brave the Irish Sea for charity.

DEBATE on whether or not Ireland should go nuclear has been kick-started by one of the country’s leading educationalists, who yesterday made the surprising claim that, compared to other means of production, atomic energy is safe.

By Harry McGee, Political Editor

THE threat of nuclear power is looming over this country once again and it is coming, not from an unfriendly country, but from one of our own State agencies.

The family of a skipper missing since his trawler sank off the south-east coast on Wednesday night will today lay a wreath at sea.

A Government minister visited Wexford today to express his sympathies to the families of those bereaved in the Rising Sun tragedy as the search went on for the captain of the ship and a diver killed during the search operation.

A massive search for a rescue diver and a fishing boat captain believed to have gone down with his vessel off the coast of Wexford was suspended tonight.

A massive search for a diver who went missing while looking for the lost captain of a lobster boat off the coast of Wexford resumed today amid bad weather conditions.

A massive search was underway tonight for one of two local divers who examined the wreck of a fishing boat off the coast of Wexford.

The family of a missing fisherman whose boat suddenly capsized off the Wexford coast will have to wait until the weekend for navy dive teams to complete their search, it emerged today.

Dive teams attempting to locate the skipper of a fishing boat which suddenly capsized off the Wexford coast tonight called off efforts to identify a sunken vessel.

A NEW way of introducing the nuclear industry to Ireland is being floated by some economists who have close links to the Government.

ONE of the country’s largest universities is sitting on a two-and-a-half tonne nuclear store of uranium rods, the remains of a nuclear reactor which has been stored in one of its basements for 17 years.