Motorsport: Organisers of the Irish Forest Rally Championship received a major boost at their awards ceremony in Clonmel on Saturday night with the announcement that Valvoline will underpin the series for the next three seasons.

THE Ford Fiesta has been with us for my motoring life and its sporty versions for nearly as long. Many people think 1981’s XR2 was the original sporting Fiesta, but that was 1980’s 1.3-litre Sport, the first Fiesta hot-hatch. My friend and former colleague, Kevin Mills, owned one and loaned it to me so I could cover a county championship game between Muskerry and Millstreet, in Ballyvourney.

My wife is a relaxed and easy-going person, yet two simple words can instantly produce what I call ‘the look’.

FOR the young solo English backpacker, Northern Ireland during the Troubles had a certain curious allure.

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is to become a tourism ambassador for Ireland.

THE longstanding Irish policy of neutrality, an ongoing balancing act of several competing pressures — nationalism, the post-colonial relation with Britain, a burgeoning involvement with European politics — came under particular scrutiny in 1983.

Just as he brought some fresh thinking to hurling as a player, Donal Óg Cusack has thankfully extended the same as a pundit.

The Department of Agriculture in the North has defended its decision to stand-down air support providing emergency relief to stricken farmers.

A British Royal Air Force Chinook helicopter has started dropping feed to thousands of farm animals stranded in huge snow drifts in the North as the agriculture crisis triggered by blizzards deepened.

Dunlop National Rally Championship leader Thomas Fitzmaurice will battle a strong overseas contingent at Sunday’s ALMC Rally in Meath and Louth.

THE benefits of sheer bloody-minded hard work were graphically illustrated to me last November when I tried to ride a bike over Torr Head.

KATIE is 17 years old. I want to see her doing her Leaving Certificate. I want to see her going to college.

The GAA All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship was launched today at the Dunloy GAA club in the Glens of Antrim by GAA President Christy Cooney.

THE final round of games in the two top divisions of the Allianz Hurling League this weekend and plenty still to play for.

A man believed abducted and murdered by the IRA at the height of the Troubles will be buried following his funeral today.

Body remains recovered from a beach in the North were that of an IRA murder victim secretly buried after going missing nearly 40 years ago, the authorities confirmed today.

A search for the body of a man believed murdered by republican paramilitaries in the Northhas discovered human remains, investigators said today.

CARDINAL Cahal B Daly was born in Loughguile, in the Glens of Antrim, on October 1 1917. He was educated at St Patrick’s National School in Loughguile, and then as a boarder in St Malachy’s College, Belfast, in 1930.

Officers working for the Police Ombudsman in the North have released a 77-year-old man arrested yesterday for questioning about the murder of RUC Sergeant Joe Campbell in February 1977.

The SDLP could see its majorities in three Westminster constituencies cut under Boundary Commission recommendations proposed today.

Dublin can become one of the great cycling cities of the world like Amsterdam or Copenhagen, a Government minister said today.

A fresh television appeal for information about the murder of a German backpacker in Northern Ireland 17 years ago has led to a new witness coming forward.

UNDER pressure SDLP leader Mark Durkan last night pulled off the political triumph of his life.

Under pressure nationalist SDLP leader Mark Durkan tonight pulled off the political triumph of his life.

Agriculture Minister Brid Rodgers’ officials were today accused of putting Northern Ireland’s entire farming industry at risk because of a lack of information about any contingency plans to deal with future outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease.

Preparations are under way in the North for thee slaughter of as many as 50,000 sheep if more outbreaks of foot-and-mouth are confirmed.

The Stormont Assembly's agriculture committee has been recalled to discuss the deepening crisis over foot-and-mouth.

The illegal movement of animals is suspected of being the root cause of the spread of foot-and-mouth disease in the North.

The crisis over foot-and-mouth in the North has again deepened with news that animals on a farm in the Co Antrim village of Newtown-Crommelin are being slaughtered.