Airline passengers could benefit from a fares war on the Cork to Amsterdam route after KLM Royal Dutch Airlines announced a new daily service from March 30.

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Chinese airline Juneyao Air will operate the flights

The first of three flights that will take part in the mass repatriation of stranded Thomas Cook holidaymakers has taken off from Shannon Airport.

Four powerful strikers have battled their way through the most demanding of weather conditions to contest this morning’s semi-finals of the AIG Irish Close Championship at Ballybunion.

Saturday evening would have been a restless night sleep-wise, for both Robin Dawson and Cormac Sharvin.

A group of distinguished, older members of Lahinch Golf Club assembled outside the clubhouse earlier in the week and looked around in awe at the transformation that had taken place at the Irish Open venue.

Davy Fitzgerald has challenged his Wexford players to back up their Leinster title against Dublin, Laois or Tipperary in their All-Ireland semi-final later this month.

Maybe it was the bright sunshine at Lahinch yesterday morning that brought on the folly but at one point of the afternoon we began tallying the different adjectives used to describe this course’s most famous holes.

I managed to catch up with Paul McGinley early yesterday morning just as the early players were setting out for their first round.

Defining a great golf links course is trickier than you might think.

Graeme McDowell will be trying to avoid thinking about The Open Championship in his hometown of Portrush in two weeks as he bids to start his links golf season on a high at the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open on Thursday.

As the chairman of the Lahinch Golf Club Tournament Committee, John Gleeson has already visualised the packed grandstand behind his club’s 18th green as the champion-elect strides along the par-five final hole with a throng of spectators in his wake and hundreds more teeming up the Liscannor Road on the other side of the wall.

It was presented the award for airports which serve under five million passengers at the Airport Council International awards in Cyprus.

Wondrous dreams aren’t always realised and Mallow’s James Sugrue and Ronan Mullarney from Galway scarcely harboured thoughts of playing in the British and US Opens and the US Masters when they entered this week’s British Amateur Championship at Portmarnock.

After five months on the ground, Ireland’s first charity-funded air ambulance is finally set for take-off — with a promise of delivering pre-hospital emergency care within 20 minutes to those in need.

Ireland international James Sugrue will fly to England on Saturday confident he is in the best possible shape to impress Walker Cup selectors and kick-start a special season amongst the game’s amateur elite.

As the incoming Chair at it@cork, Anthony O’Callaghan is well qualified for the challenge, having spent four years as vice chairman alongside his predecessor, Caroline O’Driscoll, who steps down as chair in next month.

Mallow’s James Sugrue is lurking just four strokes off the lead in the Radisson Blu sponsored West of Ireland Championship at a sun-kissed County Sligo.

Cork Airport has launched eight new routes to its summer schedule offering new services to Croatia, Italy, France, Hungary, and Poland.

Holidaymakers in the south will have the option to visit destinations from Dubrovnik to Lisbon, and from Naples to Poznań, with new flights.

“We are delighted to officially open our open plan office facility (the Hub) in the terminal, along with the Airport Control Centre today," said Niall MacCarthy, Managing Director at Cork Airport.

Even those with a great love and admiration for the club and the village believe that Lahinch has undertaken a mountainous challenge in agreeing to stage the 2019 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open Championship.

For all the excitement generated by last month’s announcement that the Dubai Duty Free Irish Open is to be played at Lahinch Golf Club next summer, there is plenty to whet the appetite in 2018 as the famous links plays host to the 117th South of Ireland Amateur Open Championship.

The growing threat of legal action and multimillion-euro payouts are putting the future of the national breast screening programme at risk, it has been claimed.

Lahinch Golf Club were last night toasting Paul McGinley for his efforts in helping to bring the 2019 Dubai Duty Free Irish Open to the famous Co. Clare links course.

Cork Airport is to lose its first and only service to the US for the winter.

Local shops are every bit as important as parks, waterways, raised bogs and woodlands, writes Victoria White

One of the most iconic theatre venues in the south of the country may not re-open until December 2019.

The Cork region, and UCC in particular should become more energised about the global food and drink industry, writes Joe Gill

Not making the GB & Ireland Walker Cup team that faced the United States at the weekend was disappointing but it was nothing I wasn’t expecting.

As Warrenpoint’s Jamie Fletcher celebrates his win in the Irish Close last weekend, a new date for the blue riband event in Irish domestic golf means the championship is more accessible than ever for Ireland’s leading amateurs.

The tee shots may not have travelled as far as they once did and the swings were not quite as well grooved but the former South of Ireland champions who assembled at Lahinch yesterday demonstrated they could still teach the modern tigers a thing or two when it came to manoeuvring a golf ball around a links in demanding conditions.

Not a single member of one of the strongest fields to contest the Pierse Motors South of Ireland managed to break the par of 72 in yesterday’s first qualifying round of the 116th championship.

Nine of the eleven-strong Irish team that achieved a Grand Slam in last year’s Home Internationals and in the process completed a hat-trick of successes in the championship have entered for the Pierse Motors South of Ireland, starting with the first of two qualifying rounds at Lahinch next Wednesday.

Paschal Collins is not a man to aimlessly wander along with the consensus. While many boxers decry a certain forthcoming ‘super-fight’ as “bad for boxing”, the head trainer of the Celtic Warriors Gym takes a different view.

AT the start of this week weather forecasters lifted the spirits of the nation in a way even the most optimistic economist can only dream about. 

One of Cork’s most prestigious annual events, it@cork’s Tech Summit, takes place at City Hall on Thursday. Reporter Pádraig Hoare speaks to newly elected it@cork chairCaroline O’Driscoll about the event

Spike Island, Ireland’s equivalent of Alcatraz, has been nominated as one of Europe’s leading tourist attractions in the prestigious World Travel Awards.

Gabriel Fitzmaurice describes the selection process for his book of favourite poems of Munster

Cork Airport is celebrating on the double after landing a new route and an EU award for a campaign to secure its first transatlantic service.

WOW air, an Icelandic low cost airline, has announced transatlantic flights from Cork Airport, via Reykjavik, to eight cities across the US and Canada.

Castle’s Alex Gleeson is dreaming of landing his maiden “major” after breaking the heart of Tramore’s Robin Dawson for the second year running in the AIG Irish Amateur Close Championship.