It's that time of year again - when people push aside the remnants of the selection box and walk off the Christmas Day excesses by barrelling around the St Stephen's Day sales.

I wonder if children had a choice, would they prefer if we got our act together to tackle climate change or bought them an array of presents from a bumper toy store, asks Joyce Fegan

Traders in Dublin city centre will have to pay €630 a year to use sandwich boards to promote their business.

The Menu is delighted to bring further detail to an item alluded to in last weekend’s column, news of what promises to be one of the highlights of this year’s culinary calendar, a fundraising dinner (April 29) in aid of two Leeside charities, Cork Penny Dinners, recent recipients of the prestigious Irish Food Writers’ Guild social responsibility award, and Cork Simon.

Dublin City Council is to introduce a licensing system for retailers wanting to use sandwich boards on public footpaths to promote their business in a bid to control the growing number of advertising signs on city streets.

Dubray Books is planning to expand its shop numbers and upgrade its online offering after a strong year.

The year 2018 brought about seismic change in Ireland, writes Joyce Fegan.

Don’t feel like cooking this Christmas? We’ve compiled the very best festive stays — so you can check in and chill out.

Attempts to preserve Dublin’s best-known shopping streets for high-end retail outlets are being reinforced with a recent decision by the planning authorities to reject plans for a doughnut shop on O’Connell St.

Freshly Chopped is facing closure of one of its flagship outlets after it was refused retention planning permission for its branch on Dublin’s Grafton St.

What's big for food in the week ahead?

Pro-choice members of the Independent Alliance have warned pro-life TDs and senators not to block the 12-week abortion access legislation if there is a yes vote on Friday, saying to do so would ignore the public’s wishes and be “absolutely wrong”.

Accumulated profits at one of the country’s best-known booksellers, Dubray Books increased to over €1.38m last year.

TD John McGuinness has claimed that the former garda commissioner told him in Leinster House that Sergeant Maurice McCabe “fiddled” with children and garda whistleblowers were “fucking headbangers”.

There is likely to be an increasing number of lone wolf, low-tech terror attacks in Europe in 2018 and we may be underestimating the danger of such an attack happening in Ireland.

Bargain hunters — assemble! The great sales rush began in earnest yesterday as many households shook off the Christmas Day fun with a bout of retail therapy.

The underwear brand is an unrivalled example of marketing masquerading as empowerment for women, says Clodagh Finn.

This is what it looks like to live in emergency accommodation.

Dublin has benefited most from upturn, says report from Pobal Towns with 1,000 to 5,000 population have been worst affected

New accounts filed by Mr Hansard’s Plateau Records show the artist — who left school at the age of 13 to go busking on Dublin’s Grafton St — was sitting on a cash pile of €1.24m last year.

Joe O’Donnell is coming home. Forty years after his last gig in Ireland, which was also the year he released his landmark album, Gaodhal’s Vision, the Limerick violinist and composer will perform with Shkayla as part of this year’s Cork Folk Festival.

Marjorie Brennan talks to Paul Bushnell, who used the success of The Commitments to secure a career in LA with the likes of Neil Young, Elton John, Michael Buble, and Phil Collins.

They are the tastemakers – celebrity experts in everything from fitness to fashion. Check out their dream gifts in their specialist fields with Ciara McDonnell.

A man has received a suspended sentence for hitting someone with a chair because he “got a bad vibe” from the victim’s friend.

Kerrie O’Brien, reading at the Winter Warmers event in Cork this weekend, has also put together a book in aid of the homeless, writes Eoghan O’Sullivan

Radie Peat is a musician and singer from Artane, Dublin. 

Electrical retailer O’Callaghan Sound and Vision have pulled the plug on their long-established Cork city centre store, to move to an 8,000 sq ft superstore unit near Harvey Normans, by the Kinsale Road Roundabout, and which opens today.

We were on our way to the beach. It’s something we do quite often on a Sunday for some quality Daddy and Fionn time.

A Dublin youth told a judge he would serve a two-month term for theft “on my back, asleep”, after he was sentenced for his 130th criminal conviction.

A Cavan man who “lurked” in the ladies toilets of a McDonald’s before trying to sexually assault a woman turned himself in after his parents saw him on Crimecall.

German fund manager Deka Immobilien Europa has acquired the Whitewater Shopping Centre in Kildare for €180m.

Many students in Trinity seem to approve of the Social Democrats, and it’s not all that hard to see why.

Supply constraints will send the cost of renting offices in Dublin soaring again this year and could likely take the shine off the capital as a leading destination for service and internet firms, the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) has said.

Germany’s largest pension scheme group is eyeing an Irish retail property splurge as part of a €1.3bn pan-European investment plan.