HOPEFULLY we can cease writing about the weather and concentrate on the racing side of things and this week sees the commencement of the Tyrur McGuigan Open 575 at Shelbourne and the Vetsearch Kennedy Cup at Limerick.

Connacht full-back Danny Riordan has been named the Galway Bay FM Sportstar of the Year for rugby.

Jordan marked the first anniversary of al-Qaida’s triple hotel bombings today, voicing a fresh resolve to fight terrorism and commemorating the 60 people who lost their lives in the attacks.

Love Island winner Calum Best is to jet into Ireland later this month for a high-profile fashion event.

A man whose wedding was destroyed by a suicide attack today asked a Jordanian court to condemn to death by public hanging the one assailant who survived the bombing.

The mother of a bride, whose wedding was devastated in the Amman suicide bombings, died of her wounds in a coma today.

AMERICAN forces last year detained and later released an Iraqi with a name that matched one of three suicide bombers who struck Amman hotels, killing 57 people, the US military said yesterday.

Wearing a disabled explosives belt and a white headscarf and wringing her hands as she spoke, the Iraqi woman calmly described how she tried and failed to join her husband in a suicide attack on a hotel wedding party.

Thousands of Jordanians rallied in the capital and other cities shouting “Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!” a day after three deadly hotel bombings that killed at least 59 people.

Suicide bombers carried out nearly simultaneous attacks on three US-based hotels in the Jordanian capital last night, killing at least 57 people and wounding at least 115 in an al-Qaida-style assault on the Arab kingdom with close ties to the United States and a border with Iraq.

DOWN on their luck and up to their necks in senoritas, margaritas and banditos, the three amigos strode purposefully from the Ballybrit Suite.

OUT of the bland box of suburbia where I am quartered in Galway I sped with glee towards the bucks fizz sparkle of Ballybrit.

Retiring Irish rugby star Eric Elwood is to be honoured with a gala ball in the Radisson SAS Hotel & Spa in Galway on September 3.

Irish coach Eddie O’Sullivan will be one of several personalities who will feature at a rugby extravaganza which will be hosted by Connacht Rugby next Saturday night.