WITH the daffodils just popping up now among the anemones and snowdrops in its front drive, and under old chestnut trees, Woodville House is a River Blackwater treasure, and an early-season Munster market arrival.

The blue and gold braided beard on the burial mask of famed pharaoh Tutankhamun was hastily glued back on, damaging the relic after it was knocked during cleaning.

There’s so much to do in the run up to Christmas, it can be hard to decide how to make the most of the festive fun. Take some tips from Ellie O’Byrne.

SHOP fronts don’t come much more historic, or reborn, as at Limerick city’s Grand Central, on pedestrianised street Bedford Row off O’Connell Street.

More than 1,500 people took to the streets in Cork today to protest against Home Help cutbacks.

Triskel Christchurch champions art house and leftfield film screenings in Cork, Colette Sheridan reports

BARACK Obama’s and Queen Elizabeth’s visits are a badly-needed boost for financially ailing Ireland and should be welcomed by all.

MASTER MINDED features among a field of nine runners in the Victor Chandler Chase at Ascot tomorrow.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will return 19 artefacts taken from the tomb of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, Egypt’s antiquities authority and the museum said today.

F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has given the green light for Silverstone to stage the 2010 British Grand Prix on a revised circuit layout.

IT seemed like a routine assignment at first. Arrangements had been made, the editor explained, to meet the renowned strength and conditioning coach Mike McGurn at Dublin Airport at 9am the next day.

A new 7km Dublin cycle path which the Government claims will be safer and mostly off-road has been given the green light, it emerged today.

BOOKMAKERS believe John Smith’s Grand National success for ante-post favourite My Will could cost the industry up to £100m at Aintree on Saturday.

Formula One commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone has dismissed talk of a breakaway championship in the sport.

I’VE been living on the same small patch of rural Ireland for more than 25 years and for all that time I’ve been carefully keeping tabs on the wildlife around me.

Cloudy Lane, ante-post favourite for the John Smith’s Grand National on April 5, features among the 115 horses still engaged in the Aintree marathon.

Dublin City Council is reportedly planning to extend the area off limits to trucks following the opening of the Dublin Port Tunnel.

CORK’S Lord Mayor danced a jig on the banks of the Lee yesterday to invite Irish dancers from all over the country to the city next month for a world record-breaking attempt.

Footstepsinthesand has been installed as the 7-4 favourite by the sponsors to complete a Classic double in the Boylesports Irish 2000 Guineas at the Curragh on Saturday.

Jim Caldwell and Louise Hogan

IRELAND’S largest ever fireworks display has been cleared to take place in Cork city in just over a week.

The future of the Grand Prix circuit came under renewed threat tonight amid concern that races in Europe could be boycotted unless teams are exempted from new European Union arrest warrants.

Four men were arrested and charged today with assault causing serious harm to a Cork Institute of Technology student who has been on a life support machine since February last year.

Thousands of race-goers will descend on Aintree near Liverpool this afternoon for the Grand National.

A major investigation is underway in Cork following a vicious attack on a Limerick student in the city centre this morning.

Irish horses racing in the Grand National face being quarantined for as long as six months.

The Department of Agriculture made a surprising u-turn in their decision to allow Irish trained horses to travel to England to compete at Aintree in the Grand National.