Further searches are to be carried out later today around Raphoe in Co Donegal following the discovery of bomb making equipment in the area.

GARDAÍ investigating the murder of a father of four in a double shooting yesterday, are trying to establish if the dead man had any links with organised crime.

Three men arrested in connection with a brutal murder of a man found shot dead in a church yard were released without charge tonight.

A man shot dead in church grounds on the border may have met his killer in a bar less than an hour before he was assassinated, it was revealed today.

LITTLE more than six weeks into the new year and gun crime has claimed its third fatality.

The people who murdered Andrew Burns are "criminals hell bent on damaging society", Martin McGuinness said today.

Dissident republicans are being blamed for a post office robbery in the North in which two women were held hostage overnight.