IRELAND’S National Day of Commemoration was held across the country yesterday to honour Irish military personnel who gave their lives in historic wars or on peacekeeping duties with the United Nations.

Political leaders and military veterans are due to gather in Dublin tomorrow to commemorate the Battle of the Somme.

A 13-year-old boy has died after a drowning accident in the Liffey this afternoon.

President Michael D Higgins led the nation in memory of those who died in overseas service and on UN missions.

Irish people who lost their lives in the First and Second World Wars will be commemorated at a national ceremony this afternoon.

Gardaí have been able to identify two men for an attempted gangland murder after DNA samples were recovered from airbags in their car.

Investigations are continuing into an attempted shooting in Dublin last night.

An 83-year-old army veteran celebrated his wedding day in his old uniform to make his new bride’s wishes come true.

HERE is a transcript of the Queen’s banquet speech for the state visit of President Michael D Higgins:

The goal of living together as neighbours and friends is now within reach, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II said a State banquet in honour of Irish President Michael D Higgins tonight.

The story begins on water and ends on ice. Henley, Oxfordshire, July 1986. Gerry Macken and Pat McDonagh, from Dublin’s Neptune Rowing Club, were training for the town’s prestigious regatta.

On Friday, Mar 29, graves and headstones in St Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork were vandalised. Graffiti was daubed on some headstones.

Gorey has emerged as the ghost estate capital of Ireland, with 25 unfinished developments in the Co Wexford town.

Enda Kenny’s office has spent more than €150,000 on entertainment since he became Taoiseach.

It’s 30 years since the “grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented” events that led to the resignation of the attorney general, writes Richard Fitzpatrick

Six years ago Sanita Puspure was working as a shop assistant in Dublin.

The unionist Lord Mayor of Belfast joined his Dublin counterpart today in paying tribute together to the shared sacrifice of Ireland's war dead.

In response to the efforts of campaigners (Irish Examiner, May 22), the recent assertion by Minister Jimmy Deenihan that it was not clear how the National Memorial site in Moore Street could be developed as a battlefield site is disingenuous.

With award-winning gardens and a tennis court, this Rochestown Road, Cork, property ticks all the right boxes, says Tommy Barker

Gardaí in Dublin are continuing to question a man in his 20s over the murder of a missing man.

Gardaí have formally identified human remains which were found in the Dublin Mountains on Sunday as those of James Kenny McDonagh.

GARDAÍ believe there is a “strong possibility” the skeletal remains of a man found in the Dublin mountains are that of missing 28-year-old James Kenny McDonagh.

THE first salmon of the 2012 salmon angling season was landed on the River Liffey last Sunday.

The first salmon of the New Year has been caught in the River Liffey.

WHEN I read Cormac MacConnell’s article (Farming, Sept 1) my shoulders dropped. Do people really still think like this? I had to check it wasn’t April 1.

WHO would ever have imagined at the time of her election that Mary McAleese would have turned out to be such a superb president?

THE visit of President McAleese and Queen Elizabeth II to the Garden of Remembrance and the Irish National War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge was hugely symbolic in our nation’s journey of reconciliation.

The Queen put the seal on one of her most significant state visits with a spur-of-the-moment walkabout, before hinting at a return to Ireland.

QUEEN ELIZABETH last night offered her “sincere thoughts and deep sympathies” to those who have suffered due to the troubled past of Britain and Ireland — but stopped short of an apology.

ARE they trying to kill the woman? In this time of peace process, reconciliation, normalisation, closure, are they trying to grind the British monarch into the ground?

LONG confined as a footnote in Irish history, the role of the 49,400 Irish soldiers who fought and died in the First World War has finally been restored to the spotlight.

The hierarchy of the GAA made peace with the British establishment today when the Queen set foot on the hallowed turf of its Dublin headquarters.

Tens of thousands of Irishmen who gave their lives fighting for Britain during the First World War were honoured by the Queen at a Dublin commemoration steeped in symbolism.

The British Prime Minister David Cameron has praised the Queen's "healing" visit to Ireland.

Gardaí are expecting protests ahead of the Queen's historic visit to Croke Park this afternoon.

Queen Elizabeth II is now arriving at a wreath laying ceremony in Dublin to honour the Irish who died fighting in World War One.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II bowed her head in respect as she laid a wreath in memory of those who died during Ireland’s long struggle for independence.

A KEYNOTE address by Queen Elizabeth at Dublin Castle this evening promises to be one of the highlights of her four-day visit to Ireland.

The Queen bowed her head and laid a wreath at Dublin's Garden of Remembrance today in a hugely symbolic and historic act of reconciliation between Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

A pipe bomb was found on a crowded bus on its way to Dublin just hours before the Queen was due to arrive in the capital today.

The Queen sets foot on Irish soil today for the start of a historic state visit which will herald a new era in relations between Britain and the Republic of Ireland.