The 27-year-old has represented his home province on 105 occasions.

Brian O’Driscoll believes Joe Schmidt’s Ireland team can take inspiration from Shane Lowry’s Open triumph as they seek to emulate the Offaly golfer by climbing higher than ever before on the world stage.

So that’s nearly Wednesday wrapped up. Here’s some of the stories we published on irishexaminer.com today which we hope will help you make sense of it all this evening.

Padraig Harrington will look to take inspiration from Shane Lowry’s Open triumph in the Barracuda Championship, where high points totals rather than low scores will be the order of the day.

World number one Brooks Koepka would welcome more equipment club testing during the season in the wake of Xander Schauffele’s row with the R&A at Royal Portrush.

On the first morning of their four-day clash against the recently crowned World Cup champions, Ireland tore through the entire England batting order in just over two hours.

Murtagh was the star of the morning’s show with five wickets for just 13 runs from nine overs.

Eir sport has unveiled a "new and fresh" looking Rugby World Cup team of experts, with Gordon D’Arcy, Peter Stringer and Jerry Flannery fronting studio analysis for Japan in the autumn.

The last thing Shane Lowry needs is to be a hostage to fortune — but while the new Open Champion insists he would retire happy with a single major win on his resumé, a steely ambition for further success lurks not far beneath the surface.

Peter O’Keeffe is desperate to end his run of near-misses at the Pierse Motors-sponsored South of Ireland Championship which begins in Lahinch this morning.

With just two races remaining at the Laser Radial World Championships in Japan this morning, Aoife Hopkins has moved into 41st place overall in the 55-strong Gold fleet finals series.

Joe Root insists England must beware of “sleep walking” into their inaugural Test against Ireland at Lord’s today.

Ireland’s eventers have a home international fixture this week as the Sema Lease Camphire International Horse Trials get underway tomorrow in Waterford.

Last year when Kerry played a Super 8s match in Croke Park, it didn’t exactly fare well in the TV channel-hopping stakes.

The fortunes of supermarkets are diverging on either side of the Irish Sea, with UK grocers posting their first fall in sales since June three years ago and Irish supermarkets adding sales and increasing prices.

William Porterfield has urged Ireland to seize their moment in the spotlight when their four-day Test against England begins tomorrow.

Former Liverpool target Nabil Fekir has left Lyon to sign a four-year contract with Real Betis.

Senior international Megan Campbell has strongly urged the FAI to make an external appointment to succeed Colin Bell as manager of the Irish team and warned that anything else would be a “cop-out” and signal a regression for the women’s game here.

Pádraig Harrington toasted the double victory of Shane Lowry and Royal Portrush as a brilliant moment for Irish sport as the 148th Open Championship was declared a resounding success.

If the video clips doing the rounds on social media yesterday are anything to believe, Shane Lowry has been living up to his pledge to enjoy his magnificent and well-deserved Open Championship victory.