Good afternoon. Here’s all the news you need to know this lunchtime.

There was delight for students all around the country — but particular elation for an exclusive club of just six who got 12 higher-level As in their Junior Certificate results.

Patricia Ryan hopes Dunrath Eclipse will pass his biggest test to date when he tackles today’s cross-country phase at the Johnson and Perrott Land Rover International Horse Trials in Cork.

Three men in their late teens and early 20's are due to appear in court this morning following a robbery at a house in Dunlavin in Co Wicklow yesterday afternoon.

IN 1971, David Bowie sang: ‘Is there life on Mars?’ There might be soon, and Irishman Joseph Roche could be one of 20 people to be sent in 2025 to the Red Planet to live, and die, in a space settlement.

An investigation is continuing in to an aggravated burglary in West Wicklow this morning.

Twenty-two year-old Helen Kearney claimed an individual bronze medal for Ireland at the European Para Dressage Championships in Belgium today.

YOU or your other half enjoys horseracing; you’d like to visit a trainer’s yard without actually having to pay to train, house and feed half a tonne of horse; and you’re looking for a different weekend away.

THEY come in the early morning before first light or at dead of night, armed with trucks and animal transporters.

SARAH WARDELL yesterday took the first step in making up for an aborted effort with Kincluny earlier this month at Burghley, by taking poll position on day one of the CCI three-star at Ballindenisk, Co Cork.

COMMUNITY leaders in west Wicklow are setting up a crime text alert system linking several towns and involving gardaí in the wake of the release of local convicted sex offender Larry Murphy.

WICKLOW GAA chiefs have given up in their bid to switch the venue of their Leinster SFC quarter-final against Westmeath on June 6 to either Carlow or Portlaoise and revealed they will accept the Leinster Council decision to keep the match in Tullamore.

THE 2008 Leaving Certificate began with a morning of English exams for more than 50,000 students, but most had a free afternoon to prepare for today’s second paper in the subject.

GRANGECON is a picturesque village with a population of about 200 people situated halfway between Baltinglass and Dunlavin in west Wicklow.

LIVING in the heart of horse breeding and training country in the green plains to the west of the Wicklow mountains, the Sleator family were themselves connected with horseracing for many years.

A 21-year-old man has died following a road accident at Dunlavin, Co Wicklow last night.

ERIC DORAN celebrated his 31st birthday earlier this month but there is little to cheer about in his life.

A 67-year-old man has died following a road accident in Co Wicklow.