In Paris tonight, during a television programme hosted by David Ginola, the famous Ballon d’Or trophy will be presented for the 62nd time.

There is room for a special deal on the North in any Brexit deal. 

Joe O’Donnell is coming home. Forty years after his last gig in Ireland, which was also the year he released his landmark album, Gaodhal’s Vision, the Limerick violinist and composer will perform with Shkayla as part of this year’s Cork Folk Festival.

The prime minister has helped Labour achieve a comeback which would force Lazarus to give a standing ovation, writes Allan Prosser.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny says that when he visits Washington DC he will seek talks between the US Congress and the EU to discuss the impact of Brexit.

SOCCER fans with long memories will remember the glory of Euro 1988, when Ray Houghton scored a looping header that secured England’s defeat against the Republic of Ireland.

British, French, and German leaders and bureaucrats realised after World War II that only an economically stable ‘United States’ of Europe would guarantee peace, says Kyran Fitzgerald.

Your recent feature “Rampant cannibalism in German concentration camp” made for sober reading.

Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the long-serving German foreign minister who was one of the key architects of the country’s 1990 reunification, has died aged 89.

Who is the star of this Germany team? It was goalkeeper Manuel Neuer who joined Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi on a stage in January in Zurich when he came third in the Ballon D’Or vote for the world’s best player.

Creating the music in the moment is what sets Paul Kalkbrenner apart from some of the globetrotting DJs he is normally lumped with, writes Ed Power

Like Jim Hawkins at the end of Treasure Island, I sometimes dream of my youthful voyage far from home. I dream of trains and pizzas and penalties and the Egypt match. And I start upright in my bed with that familiar, unlovely chat ringing in my ears. Olé Olé Ofeckinlay.

Your spoiler free guide to tonight's television.

Watching Roy Keane and the Irish players striding into Celtic Park past the statue of Jimmy Johnstone was to be reminded that, to paraphrase Martin O’Neill, some pre-match "distractions" are definitely more distracting than others, writes Liam Mackey.

Mesut Ozil has brushed aside any suggestions that Germany would be involved in another ‘biscotto’ affair and manufacture a convenient draw against the United States in Recife today.

Business could benefit from a new strategic bank but there are a lot of other factors in play here, writes Kyran Fitzgerald.

Google has apologised after a Berlin intersection briefly regained its Nazi-era name, Adolf-Hitler-Platz, on the Google Maps service.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says trust between the US and its partners has to be restored following allegations that American intelligence targeted her mobile phone, and insisted that there must be no “spying among friends”.

Hans Riegel, who made German sweet maker Haribo and its signature gummi bears a chewy hit across the globe, has died aged 90.

Frank Stapleton returned to his native Dublin yesterday and spent a considerable portion of the trip being led on a ramble back down Memory Lane and more, again being asked to look deep into a crystal ball.

GERMAN chancellor Angela Merkel, an unflappable pastor’s daughter, is closing in on a third term in Sunday’s general election, cementing her title as the world’s most powerful woman.

A report into doping in German sport between 1950 and the present day is to be published after the subject gained an increased level of interest over the weekend.

Moscow wants to exchange a married couple of Russian spies jailed this month in Germany for at least one convict jailed in Russia on charges of spying for the West, a report said.

BACK in the Nineties I went to visit the Bundestag.

Mayo 0-21 Roscommon 0-9

As a soldier in an army occupying West Germany, and West Berlin, I remember walking through utter devastation in Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin.

Most of the victims were immigrants and their deaths at first failed to make headlines.

Fifty years ago, Christine Keeler and John Profumo brought down a government and changed a nation forever. Clive Irving on the scandal that rocked Britain

A memorial plaque is to be unveiled next week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of a plane crash off the Cork coast which claimed the lives of 28 people.

Roger Williams and Jonathan Stone on recent revelations of Nazi connections with the German chemical company which made the so-called wonderdrug thalidomide

MICHAEL Noonan made an extraordinary admission in the Dáil on Thursday.

WHICH version of The Hoff is your personal favourite?

Should Spain win tomorrow night’s Euro 2012 final against Italy, Vicente del Bosque will become the first coach to win the Champions League, World Cup and European Championship trophies — an achievement which eluded even West Germany’s Helmut Schön, Holland’s Rinus Michels and Italy’s Marcelo Lippi.

The chief of the Bundesbank is an austerity advocate, but his calls for further action, as well as the move to closer fiscal union, have seen him compared to the German leader who preceded Hitler, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

Match of the Century, they called it. There’s even a plaque on the wall of the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City to commemorate the delirious 4-3 win that sent Italy through to the final of the 1970 World Cup at the expense of West Germany.

Ireland may have nothing to play for in tonight’s closing Group C game against Italy but they certainly have something to fight against.

They tell me that Kaiser Chiefs had been set to share the billing with Aslan at Shamrock Rovers’ ground later this month.

No one can be more qualified than Marco Tardelli to under-stand the pressures on players in a major tournament — and the twists of fate that separate triumph from disaster.

BY NOW, everyone knows that Germany is calling the shots not just in the eurozone, but across all of Europe.

I MUST have been the only Courtmacsherry resident not to have seen the flock of 16 glossy ibises that made the bay shore their home from October 4 to October 15.

The Republic of Ireland must get the better of Estonia in a two-legged play-off in order to qualify for next summer‘s European Championships.

THE state should avoid “waving the green flag” and “glamourising the gun” when commemorating the centenary of the Easter Rising in 2016, former senator Eoghan Harris has said.