He may have helped to make certain the Sam Maguire would be under no Kerry Christmas tree this year, but Dublin GAA star Bernard Brogan paved the way for Santa Claus in the great footballing town of Listowel last night by switching on the Christmas lights.

Champagne was flowing and there were pints on the house in a Kerry pub last night to celebrate a stylish off-course victory at Listowel Races.

No, she’s not related to him. She might be a Galvin, from Finuge, that plays football for Kerry with an astonishing intensity rampaging between the half-back and half-forward lines, so she can understand why you would assume that connection but, as it happens, they’re don’t really know each other.

MANY visitors to Listowel seek out John B Keane’s bar, or the street where another famous writer, Bryan MacMahon, lived.

Supersub Doireann O’Sullivan scored the crucial goal as Cork maintained their 100% start to Division 1 of the Bord Gáis Energy National League with a hard-fought victory over Dublin today.

A LARGE bogland scene from the artistic eye of Minister Jimmy Deenihan is among more than 200 anonymous paintings to be offered for sale in aid of the South Cill Rialaig artists’ retreat centre this weekend.

A 23-YEAR-OLD motorcyclist was acquitted by a jury of dangerous driving causing the deaths of two men in a crash between his and another motorcycle, on June 1, 2008.

ONE of the key founders of the Irish co-operative movement was commemorated this week with ceremonies in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin, where he is buried, and in Churchtown, north Cork, where he was born 150 years ago.

POLITICIANS in Kerry yesterday broke their silence on the Listowel sex assault case which has received huge countrywide reaction and drawn messages of support from around the world for the female victim.

TWO men died yesterday afternoon in a collision involving two motorcycles, near Listowel, Co Kerry, bringing to seven the number of people who died on the roads so far this bank holiday weekend.

Seven people have been killed in a series of accidents on the country’s roads this Bank Holiday weekend.

WHILE the focus has been on the introduction of a team time trial and a gruelling final stage to replace the traditional circuit finish, this year’s FBD Insurance Rás will also include some old, familiar obstacles as the eight-day showpiece returns to Kerry.

Colm O'Connor looks at the enduring appeal of the last GAA championship final of the year. ON SUNDAY, sports followers of all persuasions will speed past a golfing wonder of the world to get a ringside seat on an hour of local squabbling in Ballybunion.

THE honour of being the player to receive the 1,000th award at tomorrow night’s Vodafone GAA Allstar banquet has fallen to Kerry footballer Paul Galvin.

LIMERICK travel — not in hope but in expectation — to Cusack Park in Ennis tomorrow for a Munster SFC semi-final appointment with John Kennedy’s Clare.

YOU’D need to know a little about Eddie O’Sullivan to appreciate the significance of his comment that he ‘lives for football’.