The Show Gardens in the Phoenix Park last week were as good as Chelsea, writes Peter Dowdall.

A first this week as I believe this is debut appearance of wines from the Azores on this page.

An oasis of peace on a Greek island proved the perfect environment for Claire Droney to practice her writing skills tutored by a Man Booker author. 

A European air trade body has been asked to review its sampling procedures to include Cork Airport after its latest report showed Dublin was one of the fastest growing airports in Europe.

For feck's sake, Ireland. The first day of real, proper, scientific summer is rubbish.

After a weekend of politics, celebrations and commiserations in the Dublin sunshine, we all settled back into a regular Monday morning, looking forward to the bank holiday weekend ahead.

The Kerrygold Ballymaloe Literary Festival of Food and Wine is next weekend and there are lots of drinks-related events. 

Greece is in all the news bulletins as I write this and I suspect most Irish people have sympathy for the difficulties this ancient democracy finds itself in these days. 

Irish people spent more than €5bn on foreign travel last year.

The CityJet airline is to start flights from Cambridge airport to Dublin and Amsterdam.

CANARIES & MADEIRA – 7 nights €639pp

MSC Cruise Sale Now On!!

Tourists on the Greek resort of Santorini are facing candlelit dinners with warm beer after a power station fire left the entire island without electricity at the peak of the holiday season.

Rupert Murdoch was “extremely impressed” by David Cameron the first time he met him, he said today, especially the way he treated his children.

Ferry services to Greek islands and Italy were halted today by a 48-hour strike that left thousands of islanders stranded and disrupted holidaymakers’ plans at the start of the country’s vital tourism season.

The 35-year-old actress Tara Reid – who tied the knot with Bulgarian financier Zack Kehayov in a surprise ceremony in August – has claimed her nuptials, which took place on the Greek island of Santorini, are not officially binding.

KERRY tourism got a welcome boost when the Kingdom emerged as a major global hotspot for hidden getaway holidays.

More than 1,600 people due to fly from Cork Airport in the coming weeks have lost out on their holiday

A 31-year-old man beheaded his girlfriend on the Greek island of Santorini and then fled in a patrol car, a local official said.

PRIMERA Escorted Tours, in association with Budget Travel, has launched a new series of luxury autumn/winter tours.

LEE Travel has teamed up with UK-based agency Enjoy Travel to present Craic on the Cruise, Ireland’s only Floating Fleadh!

HOLIDAYMAKERS are fleeing to the sun to take advantage of the earliest St Patrick’s and Easter holiday in living memory.

Two shots. That is all it took for Darren Clarke to stop the rot and start believing that good times are just around the corner.

New US Open champion Angel Cabrera on Thursday starts his bid to become European Open champion as well – and only four of last year’s Ryder Cup team are able to stop him.

A French women whose husband and daughter are missing on the sunken Sea Diamond cruise ship, angrily rejected claims by Greece’s merchant marine minister that she delayed declaring their disappearance – and may even have lied about their presence on the vessel.

The captain of the sunken Sea Diamond cruise ship blamed currents off a Greek island for last week’s accident, state-run television reported today.

The captain of a cruise ship that sank in the Aegean Sea has been charged with negligence.

A Greek prosecutor today pressed negligence charges against the captain and five officers of a cruise ship that sank off an Aegean Sea island, state television reported.

Navy divers are searching the sunken wreckage of a cruise ship for the bodies of a Frenchman and his daughter, missing after the vessel foundered on a volcanic reef in Greece.

A Greek cruise ship sank off the holiday island of Santorini today, after the vessel struck rocks and nearly 1,600 people on board had to be rescued.

A LISTING cruise ship carrying nearly 1,600 people — most of them Americans — was being evacuated off the Greek island of Santorini yesterday after striking rocks in a lagoon, authorities said.

A cruise ship carrying nearly 1,200 passengers and some 400 crew was being evacuated off the Greek island of Santorini today, after issuing a distress signal, authorities said.

THE boss of a new travel company yesterday pledged to start a holiday price war and send 65,000 passengers a year on cheap breaks to the sun.

Rescue crews today recovered the dead body of a British tourist who was buried under debris after a metal roof collapsed at one of Greece’s most important archaeological sites on the resort island of Santorini, authorities said.

THE tsunamis that claimed thousands of lives across the Indian Ocean this week are the deadliest great waves in over a century and probably in modern history.

Rescue teams began evacuating 163 tourists and other passengers from a ferry that took on water near the Greek holiday island of Santorini, authorities said.