AS the Irish Government considers sending relief peacekeepers to free French soldiers to fight against the self-styled Islamic State, last night saw musicians from the four corners of Ireland offer support of a different kind in Dublin’s St Patrick’s Cathedral.

THE gallery space in Lismore Castle is certainly one of the country’s most striking, based as it is in the 19th-century west wing of the castle. But to mark the gallery’s 10th anniversary this year, the summer exhibition will go beyond the thick castle walls and into the grounds, the town, and its other landmark, St Carthage’s Cathedral.

MUSIC NEWS: David Bowie (inset) caused quite a stir with his recent release of a single on his 66th birthday, and over the next few weeks we’ll get a proper chance to see if the Brixton boy still has some talent, or whether he should just make the most of his free travel pass.

DIGNITARIES will feast on some of Cork’s landmark buildings today ahead of the Queen’s arrival in the historic English Market.

THE leaders of Spain’s main political parties paid tribute to two slain police officers as security forces guarded against a fresh attack on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the armed Basque group ETA.

Churches stood empty today in heavily Roman Catholic Mexico City after services were cancelled, and health workers screened airports and bus stations for people sickened by a new strain of swine flu that experts fear could become a global epidemic.

THE long-awaited inquiry into clerical child sex abuse in the Dublin diocese will shock us all, the Archbishop of Dublin admitted yesterday.

Thousands of people are expected to attend a service for former president, Dr Patrick Hillery, at Dublin's Pro-Cathedral tonight.

More than half a million spectators are expected to descend on central London today as the Tour de France, the world’s biggest annual sporting event, hits town.

BACK in France, after the ‘Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music’ we performed in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral in Cork, I wish to express my best thanks to all the members of the Cork Jazz Festival committee ...

THERE were at least nine retreat houses in Ardmore, Co Waterford at one stage - the Brothers and Sisters of various orders of the Catholic church made their way every summer to the village founded by St Declan.