Many grooms begrudgingly sign up to the church’s customary pre-marriage course — but it pales in comparison to the marathon series of rituals endured by one Kerryman to gain the hand his Kenyan bride.

The son of a Kenyan government official was one of the masked gunmen who killed nearly 150 people at a university last week, the interior ministry said, as Kenyan churches hired armed guards to protect their Easter congregations.

Cold and muddy conditions will greet the Irish athletes when they arrive to the Bulgarian mountain resort of Borovets this evening for the 21st European Cross-Country Championships.

Two blasts have hit Kenya’s capital, killing 10 people and injuring 70 more in the latest in a string of increasingly frequent terror attacks.

Four people have been killed in bomb blasts in the Kenyan capital Nairobi as British holidaymakers were being flown home early from the East African country’s other main town Mombasa.

One person has died and several others wounded in two explosions on buses in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.

At least three people have been killed in a grenade blast in Kenya.

Local media is reporting at least three people have been killed and dozens more injured after two explosions in Kenya.

Ten people have been wounded in a grenade attack at a restaurant south of the coastal city of Mombasa in Kenya, an official said.

THREE sporting cheers for satellite and cable networks, and for the internet. Sunday’s All-Ireland hurling final will be seen by millions worldwide.

CORK AIRPORT, 3.20 pm, and I’m awaiting the arrival of my brother. Not the older one I stabbed in the arm with a sharpened pencil for stealing my pillow (don’t look at me like that) who didn’t deserve it. No, it’s my younger brother; the one who used his four sisters as psychological punch-bags, whom I called “fatso” — who deserved a sharpened pencil, but never got it because he was bigger than me.

Kenya was hit by a series of terrorist attacks today as millions waited in long queues to vote in the presidential election.

Multiple attacks against security forces in Kenya have killed at least 12 people as queues built up to vote in the country’s first general election for five years.

Kenyans began casting votes today in a nationwide election seen as the country’s most important – and complicated – in its 50-year history, five years after more than 1,000 people were killed in poll-related violence.

Becks allows us believe in immortality.

A radical Kenyan Muslim cleric who was on US and UN sanction lists for allegedly supporting Somalia's al-Qaida-linked Shebab militants, has been shot dead.

Kenyan police have said that at least one person has been killed and several others injured in an explosion in a nightclub in Mombasa.

Kevin O’Brien top-scored for Ireland as they cruised to a six-wicket win over Kenya in their first Twenty20 international at Mombasa.

Ireland have lost the first of two ICC World Cricket League matches against Kenya by seven wickets after a match-winning innings by Tanmay Mishra in Mombasa.

FIONNUALA BRITTON will win the European cross-country championships this year and, if not, she will certainly win them next year, according to her new coach, Chris Jones.

British forces helped free a German cargo ship held by Somali pirates off Kenya, it emerged today.

The German army has confirmed that pirates have seized a German freight ship off the coast of Kenya.

Somali pirates attacked a tanker in the Gulf of Aden today, but Nato forces chased them down and freed 20 Yemeni fisherman the pirates were holding on another hijacked boat.

French forces captured 11 pirates in a raid on a supply ship off the coast of Kenya today as attacks and counterattacks raised tensions in one of the world’s most important shipping lanes.

Somali pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at another US cargo ship in a failed hijack attempt.

Somali pirates have hijacked another vessel in the Horn of Africa, a freighter seized overnight in the Gulf of Aden, maritime security contractors said today.

AN American ship’s captain was freed unharmed yesterday in a US Navy operation that killed three of the four Somali pirates who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a senior US intelligence official said.

Somali pirates and their hostage American sea captain were adrift in a lifeboat off the Horn of Africa, shadowed by a US destroyer with more warships on the way in a US show of force.

FBI hostage negotiators joined US navy efforts yesterday to free an American cargo ship captain held captive on a lifeboat by Somali pirates.

A merchant ship carrying tanks and other heavy weapons was sailing away from the coast of Somalia today after being held by pirates for more than four months.

Somali pirates who hijacked a Saudi-owned oil tanker with 25 crew on board have opened negotiations, the vessel’s operator said today.

Civil war broke out today amid a gang of Somali pirates holding a ship full of tanks and other weapons leaving three of them dead.

THE African dominance of global running was reinforced to stranglehold proportions at the world cross-country championships in Edinburgh yesterday where Ethiopians raced to all four individual gold medals and were deprived of gold in just two of the team races by their Kenyan neighbours who won both the senior and junior men’s contests.

LAST year even Zersenay Tadesse himself appeared shocked when he stood on the podium to accept the gold medal at the world cross-country championships in Mombasa.

The violence and unrest sweeping Kenya is in danger of turning into a long-term problem, UN humanitarian aid chief John Holmes warned today.

The final day of organised protests across Kenya saw violence erupt near the country’s Masai Mara game reserve for the first time.

Street protests were set to resume in Kenya today after police fired tear gas and live bullets to halt the first day of mass rallies across the country.

Police shot at least two people dead in clashes with anti-government protesters across Kenya today.

Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele will bid to land a record sixth IAAF World Cross Country Championship title in Edinburgh on March 30.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband today issued a fresh call for political compromise to end the violence in Kenya as the Foreign Office continued to warn against non-essential travel.

DEIRDRE BYRNE and Linda Byrne, who were among Ireland’s top finishers at the European cross-country championships in Spain, returned to action in the muddy Belfast international at the Stormont Estate on Saturday where they finished third and fifth, respectively.

Kenya’s opposition leader called today for rallies across the country, raising the prospect of renewed bloodshed even as he indicated he was willing to negotiate a power-sharing agreement to resolve the explosive electoral crisis.

Kenya’s president is ready to form “a government of national unity” to help resolve disputed elections that caused deadly riots, a government statement said today.

The leading US diplomat for Africa is in Kenya today to encourage a peaceful resolution after a disputed presidential election sparked days of deadly riots.