Opposition parties have welcomed new Garda legislation, but insisted its provisions needed to be stronger.

Before Oscar Pistorius was strip-searched and issued with an orange jumpsuit to start serving a five-year prison sentence for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, he appeared to grasp his uncle’s hand.

Patricia Ryan hopes Dunrath Eclipse will pass his biggest test to date when he tackles today’s cross-country phase at the Johnson and Perrott Land Rover International Horse Trials in Cork.

Munster 31 Zebre 5

It’s been just over two weeks since Donegal turned the bookies odds on their head and delivered their finest display of the Jim McGuinness era, seeing off heavily-favoured Dublin with a pulsating semi-final performance that few outside the set-up saw coming.

In the 48 hours after Donegal beat Cork in the 2012 All-Ireland semi-final, county secretary Aodh Mairtín Ó Fearraigh’s phone stopped working. It had melted under pressure from incoming calls, texts and emails.

Avondale United’s players wake up in Sligo today, having broken the back of one of the longest journeys in Irish football as they head for Ballybofey and an FAI Ford Cup quarter-final replay against Finn Harps.

On the night of Cratloe’s maiden county football final win last November, the Collins family marked the victory with a pot of tea at the kitchen table.

The best, like the best comics, know timing is everything.

The Cork Folk Festival provided a feast of great music and good fun, writes Eoin Edwards

So you think Irish life today is all about surviving the recession, the winter weather, and water charges? Well think again.

It is hard to avoid the sense that Ireland’s rugby provinces now find themselves at a crossroads, suggests Brendan O'Brien. 

This State would appear to have little time for anybody who stands apart from the herd. Time and again, whether it’s the musings of economist Morgan Kelly or the revelations of a number of whistle- blowers, organs of the State tend to close ranks and shut out dissonant voices.

So many great quotes this week, but the best was from one of Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s handlers, who, while defending Kenny damned him with faint praise: he said the Taoiseach was busy, because he had a country to “help” run.

The furore over Brian Cody’s criticism of Barry Kelly last weekend has shed some light on a little-discussed phenomenon in the GAA, the shadowy world of county-referee incompatibility, where it can be claimed without fear of contradiction that a certain county has issues with a certain official.

There were four house types built at the 33-unit scheme Mitchell’s Court, in Kerry Pike, just a short haul up the shouldering hills of Cork heading towards Blarney — or, towards Kerry, if you were to take the old butter roads.

The closing stages of the Cork senior football championship final seemed to pass in slow motion.

St Mullins 0-9 Naomh Eoin, Myshall 0-7

Ballincollig 1-13 Carbery Rangers 1-10

St. Anne’s 1-10 Shelmaliers 0-13