Celtic 2 Republic of Ireland XI 2: This was always going to be a day when the Brown name dominated Celtic Park yet a midfielder with a similarly sounding surname put his stamp on the occasion too.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This is the football championship. Thirty-two counties chase a ball around for four months and at the end, the Dubs always win.

The temperature gauge in the Go Bus reads 21°C at 5pm as we are driven from Dublin Airport down the quays and along the Liffey to pick up more passengers for the three and half hour drive to Cork.

STIFFENED by morning frosts and beaten into bitter submission by another ‘soft day’, it’s little wonder that the tropical look (this year dubbed Rio), has grabbed the market with such joyous abandon.

It was a contrasting weekend for the two Irish managers dreaming of pitting their wits against the Premier League elite next season. 

The propaganda war is over, said Gordon Strachan yesterday.

Scotland’s Steven Naismith believes Fifa’s ‘granny rule’ should be tightened up, but the Everton star has defended the right of his Everton team-mates Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy to declare for Ireland under the current rules.

Euro Championship 2016 qualifier

An impressive start to their Euro 2016 campaign has heightened talk of Scotland’s first qualification for a major tournament since 1998, a route they can shuttle towards by beating Ireland at Parkhead.

When we took Jim over to Celtic, there was a lot of pressure on him writes Neil Lennon

Parkhead has known some great European nights, but the meeting of Scotland and the Republic of Ireland at the Glasgow ground on November 14 in Group D of the European Championships is almost guaranteed to go down alongside the most memorable.

A community art project in Sneem, Co Kerry, had residents hands-on for a collaboration in which their opinions on various subjects have been turned into an art work by Jochen Gerz.

Around our place everybody has nicknames which stick for life.

Martin O’Neill, the FAI and the Irish players are awaiting clarity on Roy Keane’s next move. Not to mention an Irish public whose fascination with the Cork man showing little sign of dimming.

Kevin Doyle knows all about the allure of Celtic, so won’t be surprised if Roy Keane leaves his country behind again for the golden gates of Paradise.

Wandering around the island of Lombok you’ll encounter everything from sea turtles to black water buffalo. Among the less friendly fauna Damien met was a scorpion, which dealt him a vicious sting.

We view a selection of trading up homes from around the country

PARADISE is a relative term.

IT is not always heavenly in Paradise, the imaginative name of the makeshift ‘resort’ at which we are staying on Sri Lanka’s south coast.

There was a sheepish air about 25-year-old Darren O’Dea as he emerged from the RTÉ studios on Sunday night as the FAI’s freshly-minted Young International Player of the Year.

THE anvil was singing away on the first afternoon I was stopped in my tracks by the sight and sound of Tom O’Sullivan’s roadside forge in Ballinacally, Co Clare.

THERE’S this fat ten year old boy whose mother is forced to come to live in the tough black ghetto of Brownsville in Brooklyn in the Seventies.

WHEN St Brendan, one of the great figures of early Irish monasticism, left Kerry’s Brandon Creek in the early years of the fifth century on his seven-year voyage to try to discover Paradise, he must have had many supporters who wished him nothing but the very best though they did not have any great comprehension of where he was going, why he was going or what he might discover.

THE Edward O’Grady trained Slieveardagh streaked away with the featured Batty O’Sullivan Fraydan Haulage Limited Handicap Hurdle at sun-drenched Killarney last night.

Celtic are to erect a statue in memory of their legendary boss Jock Stein, the club have announced.

Lily Allen got caught up in a bar fight when celebrating her sister’s birthday.

Celtic’s players know all about the exploits of Owen Coyle at Burnley – thanks to defender Gary Caldwell.

Richard Collins on how a Cold War crisis produced a wildlife miracle.

TO get to Paradise, some Americans go to Intercourse first.

WHEN Martin McHenry went to Cambodia he fell in love. Not just with the place, which he describes as majestic, but with the people, particularly the children.

WHAT started as an apparently generous gesture from a former butcher who became a lottery millionaire has ignited a family feud which has ended up in the courts.

GORDON STRACHAN has warned there is still much work to be done for Celtic to become a "great footballing side".

AN Irishman in his 20s drowned while on holiday in north east Australia yesterday.

BUSINESS was buzzing in Cork’s Friars Walk Tavern last night. Then again how often do you get to celebrate your favourite football club acquiring the signing of your city’s favourite son.

Officials today ordered residents to evacuate from the lower Florida Keys as a strengthening Tropical Storm Rita headed toward the island chain, threatening to grow into a hurricane with a potential eight-foot storm surge.

DESPITE all the stuff we hear about the laughing Irish, the upbeat Irish, the positive Irish, it never ceases to amaze me how little appreciation we really have in this country for ourselves, for our own, for what we have.

AN Israeli army team yesterday began evacuating tourists injured in the deadly suicide bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel. Kenyan police said they picked up 12 people for questioning in connection with the blast and a simultaneous attempted attack on an Israeli airliner.

Suspected Islamic terrorists crashed a large car bomb into a resort hotel filled with Israelis in Kenya today, killing 11 tourists and staff.

PEOPLE are starving to death in the coffee-growing mountains of Paradise.

A fire tore through a shantytown in metropolitan Manila today, killing two people and displacing about 5,000 residents, officials said.