Brecht-Weill’s rarely-seen opera is a stirring take on consumer excess, writes Padraic Killeen.

Drinks giant Diageo is to pay for extra gardaí to be brought onto the streets of cities around the country to police Arthur’s Day celebrations tonight.

IT’S just a blip, you know. Everyone says so. Just like coming out of a recession. I know they said it five or six times already, but they really mean it this time.

IT WAS with a certain sardonic smile that I scanned the headline in one of the Sunday papers last weekend: “Bush to tell IRA it must renounce violence.”