UCC French lecturer Prof Grace Neville recounts how the sinking of the Lusitania shocked France

Vo Nguyen Giap, the brilliant and ruthless self-taught general who drove the French out of Vietnam to free it from colonial rule and later forced the Americans to abandon their effort to save the country from communism, has died.

In extracts from his new book, Bill O’Herlihy recalls his childhood in Cork, an Evening Echo secret, and why he has an eternal soft spot for both Dunphy and Giles

You think you know Bill O’Herlihy. He’s like that inoffensive ornament on the living room mantel that blends in against a beige wall. The background noise you’ve got used to.

Des O’Driscoll picks his highlights from the coming week’s TV schedule

AS the media were reporting here on the finding of the Saville Inquiry into the events in Derry on Bloody Sunday in January 1972, I was in the American Military Cemetery in Luxembourg, where 5,075 American soldiers and one American nurse were buried. All were victims of the Second World War.

A GECKO with leopard-like spots on its body and a fanged frog that eats birds are among 163 new species discovered last year in the Mekong River region of Southeast Asia, an environmental group said yesterday.

FRANCE’S best-known mercenary Bob Denard, who had a hand in numerous African wars and coups d’etat over 30 years, has died at the age of 78.

EXOTIC creatures such as tigers, leaf-eating monkeys from Indochina and Asian wild horses are to be brought to Ireland’s only wildlife park as part of a €20 million upgrade.

UNDER international law, reprisal actions are supposed to be commensurate with the provocation.

US scientists have found what they believe are traces of the lost Indonesian civilisation of Tambora, which was wiped out in 1815 by the biggest volcanic eruption in recorded history.

Oscar winner Adrien Brody and Star Wars actress Natalie Portman have been offered the starring roles in a film biography of war photographer Robert Capa, according to reports in Hollywood.

Caine may well have set himself up for another Oscar nomination for this re-make of the l958 screen version of the Graham Greene classic.