Daniel Binchy, Ireland’s ambassador to the Weimer Republic, once described Adolf Hitler as a ‘harmless lunatic’ but one of the country’s most perceptive and insightful intellectuals was not fooled for long, as Ryle Dwyer notes.

Got an issue? Let Audrey sort it out.

Got an issue? Ask Audrey...

Their time together in the Ireland team may have been limited to just 15 prior appearances but Keith Earls and Luke Fitzgerald will be delighted if tomorrow’s meeting with Canada goes as well as their first joint-venture against the Canucks.

You wouldn’t want to be a camogie referee in Wexford now. Make a wrong call or two in a tight game down there, sorry, but it’s all your fault, the whole thing will have to be played again.

Kya deLongchamps celebrates the heroic and unlikely life of Thomas Francis Meagher (1823-1867) nearly 150 years since his mysterious disappearance.

The funeral Mass of 40-year-old Shay Casey, who died in an avalanche on the Alps, was not so much an outpouring of grief as a celebration of a life passionately lived.

Two rugby players from a prestigious private school who were involved in a mass brawl have avoided a jail term.

Two rugby players from a prestigious private school who were involved in a mass brawl which left a youth with a broken leg have avoided a jail term.

If pre-season training is a bit like going back to school, it was fitting that Fergus McFadden was continuing his Leinster preparations on the pitch where it all started a little more than 15 years ago.

ONE of the big draws on the programme for Cork World Book Festival, which opens Tuesday, Apr 23, will be Aidan Higgins: A Writer’s Life, a tribute to his contribution to literature.

Munster 12 Leinster 34

THE boys were treated like men, and not just any men, but professional sportsmen.

New biography of James Joyce shows he was ready to sacrifice everything for his art, down to the last supportive woman, writes Thomas McCarthy

IT used to be all too easy to chide Leinster for their dependence on the south Dublin hinterland — on and off the pitch — but Saturday’s win wasn’t just forged on the fields of Blackrock or Clongowes.

The Leinster/Ulster and Connacht/Munster teams for the O2 Challenge, the historic first game in Aviva Stadium, has been named.

LIKE Dr Pat Walsh (Letters, May 12), I too welcome the debate on Gallipoli in the columns of the Irish Examiner.

YOUR three-part feature on the Battle of the Somme gave insights into the Irish role in World War I.

Barry Coughlan