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The Irish Justice Minister today demanded a rematch after a blatant handball by French striker Thierry Henry beat Ireland and put France through to the World Cup Finals. Dermot Ahern lashed out at governing body Fifa after the Republic of Ireland were cruelly beaten by the controversial extra-time goal. Dubbed 'Le Hand', Barcelona star Henry confessed to using his arm to control the ball before squaring for teammate William Gallas to finish. The Irish Justice Minister today demanded a rematch after a blatant handball by French striker Thierry Henry beat Ireland and put France through to the World Cup Finals....

The giant deer, also known as the giant Irish deer or Irish elk, is one of the largest deer species that ever lived. Yet why this giant animal, which had massive antlers spanning 3.6m, suddenly went extinct some 10,600 years ago has remained a mystery. Now a study of its teeth is producing tantalising answers, suggesting the deer couldn't cope with climate change. As conditions became colder and drier in Ireland at the time, fewer plants grew, gradually starving the deer. The discovery is published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. The giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus) has become famous over...

SNIPPET: "An Irish jihadist living in Pakistan’s Swat valley says he is preparing to wage war against British and allied troops in Afghanistan. Khalid Kelly, a former altar boy from the Liberties area of Dublin who used to be known as Terry, told The Sunday Times he is undergoing weapons training in Pakistan’s mountainous tribal region in order to fight jihad against the enemies of Islam. His dream is to face a British soldier in combat, although he would “settle” for an American, he said. “I’m already on the path to jihad. I’ve already picked up a gun and done...

Men with an Emerald Isle brogue came top in a poll of 5,000 women worldwide, while the French accent only came fourth, just ahead of Australian.

Now THAT'S a doggie bag: How customs officers found a cheeky chihuahua in hand luggage By DAILY MAIL REPORTER Last updated at 12:48 PM on 24th October 2009 Customs officers sniffed out a pet chihuahua being smuggled into the country stuffed in a small bag. The tiny dog, hidden in a cage, arrived in Dublin Airport from a flight from Madrid with a Bulgarian man. It was found when his hand luggage was scanned through an X-ray machine and the image of the animal flashed up on screen. X-ray: The tiny dog, hidden in a cage, was revealed when the...

A section of Dublin's 900-year-old Viking city wall has been put on public view for the first time at the city council's civic offices on the Southside. When the Viking settlement site -- built in the 10th century AD near Christchurch Cathedral -- was first excavated over 30 years ago it caused huge controversy. The city wall at the time was earmarked for demolition and storage at another site but thousands of people demanded that the historically important area be preserved from a development that was designed to house the Dublin City civic offices. Measuring just under 20 metres in...

London (dpa) -- A woman has been injured in an apparent murder attempt when a bomb exploded under the car she was driving in the Northern Irish capital Belfast, police said Friday. No group made any immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Northern Ireland has seen an upsurge in activity by dissident Catholic republicans who are opposed to the province's ten-year-old peace process. Northern Ireland witnessed 30 years of civil strife and violence between mainly Catholics opposed to British rule in the province and the majority protestant population, until a peace agreement was signed in 1998. Over 3,000...

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has held a series of meetings in Washington with leading Democrats and Republicans on the issue of US immigration reform. Senior Republican Senator John McCain said he was still committed to a comprehensive deal. He said he hoped Congress would address the issue early next year. Senator McCain also said he was particularly anxious to resolve the difficulties facing up to 50,000 undocumented Irish in the US.

THIRTEEN CARS and three buses wound their way to Farmleigh and another piece of history was made as the first US secretary of state to make a dedicated visit to Ireland emerged from an armoured 07 BMW. She came dressed in a royal blue “pantsuit”, feminised with a ruffle, a large silver necklace and black kitten heels, none of which detracted from that formidable gaze as she and the Taoiseach swapped diplomatic phrases under a lowering sky.

Irish children told to bring loo roll to school to save costs Children at an Irish primary school have been asked to bring their own lavatory roll in order to help save money. Published: 7:00AM BST 07 Oct 2009 Pupils at a St John's girls' national school were asked to bring their own supplies of toilet roll Photo: GETTY Pupils at a St John's girls' national school, in Carrigaline, in the southern county of Cork, were asked to bring their own supplies in one of the starkest examples yet of the death of Ireland's "Celtic Tiger" economy. Catherine O'Neill, the...

Lech Kaczynski, Poland’s president, has signed the Lisbon treaty, leaving the Czech Republic the only country yet to ratify the controversial European Union reform plan. Flanked by José Manuel Barroso, the head of the European commission, and the Polish president of the European parliament, Jerzy Buzek, Mr Kaczynski put his signature to the treaty in Warsaw. “The fact that the Irish people changed their minds meant the revival of the treaty, and there are no longer any obstacles to its ratification,” said Mr Kaczynski in a short speech, adding that it was a “historic” day for both Poland and the...

The facts outlined below will prove that the Lisbon Treaty Referendum of 2/10/09 is Null and Void under Irish and European law. I present two separate points that shall subsequently be proven: I. Numerous violations of Irish Referendum law and discrepancies that call into question the security and validity of the votes themselves, default the Irish vote to the result of the last Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. II. The Irish Government, alongside the European Commission ran a fraudulent and illegal campaign for the Lisbon Treaty Referendum. If everybody reading this downloaded the printable version and filed it with the...

n a contest watched closely in Europe but largely ignored in America, the Irish voted on Friday to approve the Lisbon Treaty. The European establishment is celebrating what is supposed to become a stronger European Union. But the fat (Czech) lady has yet to sing. Five years ago members of the EU advanced a continental constitution to create a consolidated government in Brussels, with a president and foreign minister, increased "competencies," or responsibilities, for the EU, and fewer national vetoes over other issues. But in 2005 the Dutch and French peoples voted no. After that democratic debacle, the Eurocratic elite...

Ireland voted strongly in favour of the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, overturning a stunning No vote and taking a key step towards ending the 27-nation bloc's deadlock, ministers said Saturday. Europe Minister Dick Roche told AFP he expected "overwhelming" backing for the treaty in a second referendum, called after a June 2008 No vote, while Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin predicted a "convincing win." The No camp conceded defeat even before official results were published, after informal exit polls pointed to a 60 per cent vote in favour of the treaty -- designed to streamline decision-making in the expanding European...

Bloodied by the recession, and struggling under 20 billion euros of public debt, Ireland has reversed its earlier rejection of the controversial treaty It was lashing with rain but that wasn't the full reason Paul Callaghan was finding it hard to muster up the enthusiasm to mark his X. "I'm here because I have a vote and, basically, I've been told what to do with it," he said gloomily as he stood outside one of Dublin's polling stations in O'Connell Street on Saturday afternoon. "Look at the state we are in now," he said. "A year ago I had a...

The 2,000 Irish employees of accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), while munching on their prawn sandwiches during a lazy lunchtime last week, received an email from senior management urging them to vote Yes in the upcoming Lisbon Treaty referendum, writes Hermann Kelly. While Ireland still has the benefit of the secret ballot it most certainly does not have the benefit of equal campaign funding for both sides. Incidentally, not all Yes campaigning companies are canvassing the same way. Microsoft Ireland managing director Paul Rellis said his company’s public Yes position on the treaty was well known, and "you don’t have to...

The Irish love their dogs, but aren’t a big fan of cats, according to a new study about pet ownership in Ireland. Research by University College Dublin (UCD) found that 36 percent of homes in Ireland have a dog, while just one in 10 homes own a cat. The dog-to-cat ratio is much more drastic than in most other countries. For instance, in the U.S., 37 percent of homes have dogs while 32 percent have cats, while in Britain, the split is even smaller with 22 percent dogs and 18 percent cats. But Ireland is unequivocally a nation of dog...

There will be no winner of the Irish referendum – not at the level that matters most. But there will be a loser: the European Union. What matters most for the future of the EU is that it create popular support for integration. It is failing to do so. The most striking thing about opinion across Europe today is the decline of idealism about integration and the resurgence of a kind of nationalism. Calling a second Irish referendum to achieve the “correct” decision has strengthened perceptions of the EU as managerial, even undemocratic. If the Irish vote Yes, there will...

The Mad Hatter told Alice that "words mean what you want them to mean." He would have been at home in the European Union, where "no" means "yes" and political propaganda is passed off as information. If Ireland votes No to the Lisbon Treaty, the EU will continue and Ireland will be part of it, but if they vote Yes the Irish will find they have even less leverage in Europe than today. In the course of the second referendum campaign in Ireland some extraordinary claims have been made about the economic consequences of voting No: it would frighten investors,...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Plans to close Guantanamo are not sitting well with the Sept. 11 victims' relatives who sat stunned while two alleged terrorists declared they were proud of their role in the plot.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been sent to Ireland and Yemen, the Justice Department said on Saturday, the latest transfers as President Barack Obama tries to close the facility by January. Yemeni Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed was sent to his home country, while two other detainees were sent to Ireland, the U.S. government said, adding it would not identify the two at the request of the government of Ireland. There are still some 223 detainees at the prison. Some are expected to be transferred abroad while others could...

Audience gasps as Irish rock star tells Mary Coughlan she has great gamsControversial rock star Bob Geldof infuriated female delegates at the Global Irish Forum in Dublin Saturday when he told deputy Prime Minister Mary Coughlan that she had lovely legs. Coughlan visibly blushed when Geldof made his announcement and there was an audible gasp from members of the audience. Geldof "went way over the line," said one female delegate who asked not to be named. "That was a blatantly sexist remark about a woman who is doing a professional job at the very highest level." Another woman said she...

"EU funding 'Orwellian' artificial intelligence plan to monitor public for "abnormal behaviour" The European Union is spending millions of pounds developing "Orwellian" technologies designed to scour the internet and CCTV images for "abnormal behaviour"." SNIPPET: "A five-year research programme, called Project Indect, aims to develop computer programmes which act as "agents" to monitor and process information from web sites, discussion forums, file servers, peer-to-peer networks and even individual computers. Its main objectives include the "automatic detection of threats and abnormal behaviour or violence"." SNIPPET: "Project Indect, which received nearly £10 million in funding from the European Union, involves the Police...

A mother and son subjected to a horrifying ordeal when they feared terrorists would turn them into human bombs have been praised for their bravery. The south Down woman was driving a horse lorry through trouble-hit Lurgan when she was hijacked at gunpoint on Saturday night. The terrorists told her they had strapped explosives to the vehicle and ordered her to drive it to the Co Armagh town’s police station. The woman and her teenage son were making their way home from a showjumping event at Portmore Equestrian Centre when dissident republicans, rioting for the third night in a row,...

A mystery revolving around President Barack Obama’s Irish roots was solved when a tomb containing the remains of Obama’s Irish ancestor was discovered in the Irish medieval city of Kilkenny. After a painstaking search, film maker Gabriel Murray, who is in the process of making a documentary on Obama's Irish roots, finally found “Obama’s Lost Tomb” inside the 13th century St. Canice’s Cathedral.

YOU could have been reading a chapter of Dan Brown's best-selling novel The DaVinci Code. Two people painstakingly deciphering the Latin words on hundreds of tombs inside one of the oldest places of worship on these islands. Using a centuries-old map to identify a vault hidden under the floor of the 13th Century gothic building with tower attached, they solved a mystery that had surrounded the Irish ancestors of US president Barack Obama. It's the stuff of dreams, but it has become a reality in Kilkenny, Ireland's medieval city. And so it was to St Can-ice's Cathedral that Kil-kenny film...

Thousands of people have signed an online petition hosted by the British Government to remove the late Ted Kennedy's knighthood. The petition's creator Stephen Clements says he started the petition because he claims that Kennedy supported the IRA. "Ted Kennedy throughout the 70's and 80's actively supported groups whose sole purpose was to financially support IRA families," he said. "This support enabled the IRA to continue its muder (sic) campaign against UK citizens for a longer period than would otherwise have happened and contributed to the number of deaths on both sides. "It is highly unlikely that the US Government...

It says much about humanity’s basic urge to be ruled by dynasties that Teddy Kennedy came anywhere near being elected president in 1980. Whatever his other qualities, his behaviour at Chappaquiddick eleven years earlier, where he might have been able to save Mary Jo Kopechne’s life but instead chose to save his own career by waiting until his blood/alcohol level reached a legal level, would have ruled out anyone else from becoming local rat catcher, let alone leader of the greatest nation on earth.But after the murder of his brothers John and Bobby, Teddy became America’s atheling – until the...

Agribusiness Correspondent FARMERS have called on Justice Minister Dermot Ahern to rethink gun laws that have just been introduced. No new handgun licences will be issued under the legislation, with limited exceptions for Olympic shooting sports. A Garda superintendent can now inquire into the medical, including mental, health of an applicant. Those seeking licences will need to have character references and proof of having installed secure storage for their guns. IFA countryside chairman David Wilkinson said all gun owners are required to invest a huge amount of time satisfying complex and confusing red tape requirements. "This new system is a...

Note: The following text is a quote: August 21, 2009 Former IRA militant deported to Ireland Pol Brennan was convicted of transporting firearms and explosives for the Irish Republican Army HARLINGEN, Texas - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported a former Irish Republican Army (IRA) militant and convicted criminal to Ireland on Friday. Pol Brennan, 56, was deported following a series of criminal convictions in the United Kingdom and the United States. Brennan's case received full review and consideration by the immigration court system. On order of the Immigration Judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals, Brennan was detained...

The number of new cases of human swine flu in Ireland is increasing, with around 1,800 reported in the week to last Sunday. According to new figures from the Department of Health, 12 more patients have been hospitalised; a total of 62 people have received hospital treatment to date. Department officials said this evening that 19 people remain in hospital, including four in intensive care. Two people have died from the virus in the Republic. The HSE says that it expects to have a licensed vaccine around the end of September and that it will be given to the whole...

Call it the third green wave. It is a much smaller migration than its predecessors - the historic westward flow that gave Boston its Irish identity, and then, in recent years, the return home of thousands of Irish emigrants seeking to ride the Celtic Tiger, the roaring Irish economy. But now, with Ireland deep in recession, far deeper even than ours, thousands of its residents are again heading abroad; nearly twice as many people left Ireland in 2008 as four years earlier. And some of them are heading to the United States for the second time

To a certain type of New Yorker,every Dumpster is a potential treasure chest,right up there with thrift stores and stoop sales. But if the scavenger gods offer only a finite number of prizes, Julie Finch might have claimed one of them. Last month Ms. Finch stood on her toes to peer into the Dumpster outside her building on West 26th Street and found a blue wooden harp distinguished mainly by caked layers of grime and dust and a snarl of broken strings. “It was this old thing with wires going in all directions,” she said.“It didn’t look like anything anybody...

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has signed new gun control legislation into law. The act bans handguns in Ireland and also introduces a requirement for referees, background medical checks and standards for the safe keeping of guns in the home for all firearms licence applicants. It also makes it an offence to brandish a realistic imitation firearm in public. Mr Ahern says the legislation is designed to halt the emergence of a gun culture in Ireland.

...they open their arms and welcome those who deserve to be celebrated.When about 300 American soldiers on their way to Iraq were grounded in Ireland, they wound up in a hotel where a wedding reception was in full swing.Now, erroneous reports first said the soldiers crashed the party for Amelia Walsh and Sean O'Neill, but actually they were invited to join the celebration at the Clare Inn in Newmarket-on-Fergus. The groom's uncle, Joe O'Neill said: "It didn’t take long before the combat fatigues were maneuvering to the strains of ‘The Walls of Limerick'." The newlyweds posed for pictures with the troops and the father...

With bare feet, they shuffle around the island muttering prayers; pain and suffering writ on their faces and a rainstorm breaking over them. An ancient pilgrimage set in what medieval Christians called “the ends of the world” is undergoing a revival in Ireland as economic woes prompt a spiritual reawakening. St Patrick’s Purgatory, on Station Island, a rocky islet in the midst of Lough Derg, was once Christendom’s premier pilgrimage. Its renown was based on the belief that it was a gateway to the next world and a place where penance could be matched to any sin. Now that the...

DUBLIN -- Ireland has agreed to accept two inmates from the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern announced Wednesday. Ahern said the two men belong to a group of about 50 inmates who are "no longer regarded as posing a threat to security but who cannot return to their own countries." He declined to identify them, but other officials confirmed that both are from Uzbekistan and seized in neighboring Afghanistan in bitterly disputed circumstances. Ahern's announcement came as he met newly appointed U.S. Ambassador Dan Rooney following a visit last week by Irish officials to Washington...

In the Golden State, leading lizard researchers have — We interrupt this column about the discovery of a new species of horny toad in California for breaking news from several days ago: IRELAND’S GOAT KING IN JEOPARDY. According to a July 22 report from Reuters, the situation in the country known for shamrocks and leprechauns is dire. “Traditionally, a male goat is caught in the mountains of Kerry in southern Ireland and paraded through the town of Killorglin where he reigns (as ceremonial king of Ireland) for the three days of Puck Fair, a centuries-old festival of drinking, music and...

A bride's father has refuted claims that a bunch of American soldiers in army fatigues ‘gatecrashed' his daughter's wedding. Wedding guests complained at the wedding of Amelia Walsh and Sean O'Neill tied in Co Clare last week that the troops had wandered "uninvited" into the young couple’s reception. However, the bride’s father Eamon Walsh, from Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co Clare, said yesterday that the pair were "proud" to have the soldiers there on their big day. He said the newlyweds had actually invited the troops to come in and have photos with them earlier on in the day. Nearly 300 troops were...

Here I was in a rather small capital of Northern Ireland, which is still and probably always will be a part of the United Kingdom --an opinion of which I don't have. But anyways, it's a city hall! And, on the grounds of this city hall (it's a small city with a population of some 267,500 according to the NISRA), there's a memorial that dedicates the lives of those that fought and died in Korea nearly sixty years ago. All because of the words of one man -- Harry Truman (who single handedly decided to intervene in the Korean War;...

HORSE-drawn carts have been banned from one of Ireland's most famous national parks in an escalation of a long-running row about their refusal to use "nappies" to deal with the horse dung. The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) said today it had "taken action to refuse entry to jaunting car operators'' to the Killarney national park in the south-west unless they have "the required dung catcher device''. Operated by so-called "jarveys'', some 66 traditional carts, known as jaunting cars, carry tourists along 15 kilometres of internal roads within the picture-postcard park. "An unfortunate consequence of such a high volume...

On Friday July 11th, 2009, Ireland passed the Defamation Bill by one vote. One of the aspects of this bill would make it illegal to criticize religion… any religion under penalty of fines up to 25,000 Euros. That is the equivalent to nearly $35,000.When I first heard this story on the internets, I was certain that it was a false story. I read the story, googled it, checked out legitimate Ireland news sites, and double checked more Ireland news sites. The story checks out. It seems that the Blasphemy Clause of the Defamation Bill was challenged in the legislature...

Last July, the third national Survey of Lifestyle, Attitudes and Nutrition by Ireland's Health Department determined the Irish were smoking more and getting fatter, and though they were drinking a little less, they still were consuming the third highest volume of alcohol per capita in the European Union. Since the last survey in 2002, the smoking rate had risen two points to 29 percent, despite the blanket smoking ban in workplaces and enclosed public spaces that went into effect in 2007, while the overweight rate jumped from 33 percent to 36 percent. At the same time, Ireland is in the...

Ireland has a very high level of prehistoric gold objects especially from the early Bronze Age (2400-1800BC) when large quantities of it was used by skilled craftsmen. They turned out beautiful objects such as the gold collars or lunula similar to the one which turned up recently following a robbery in Co Roscommon. This led to speculation for centuries about the source of so much easily available gold and a belief there had to be lots of gold available locally to the craftsmen. Now archaeologists and geologists believe they have found that source, following a 14-year study which used not...

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) Tuesday declined to confirm or deny a report in the New York Daily News that he turned down a White House offer to become United States ambassador to Ireland. “I’ve had conversations with [White House chief of staff Rahm] Emanuel, and I’ve had conversations with the president,” King told POLITICO. “But those conversations are private.” The report follows the Obama administration’s June 2 nomination of Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y.) to serve as secretary of the Army. McHugh and King are two of the three remaining Republican congressmen in the 29-member New York House delegation. King, who...

Rep. Peter King in January turned down an offer from President Barack Obama to be ambassador to Ireland, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions. Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called King the week before the inauguration with the offer, said the source, who declined to be identified. King turned it down, the source said, because he couldn't go along with Obama foreign policy. King also was reluctant to live so far away from his family. King, who often touts his Irish heritage, declined to comment Tuesday. "I had a lot of conversations with Rahm Emanuel and...

Kendall Myers, 72, who appeared in federal court in Washington on Wednesday charged with spying for Havana for nearly 30 years, had a fascination with Northern Ireland. The Daily Telegraph has established that as well as seeking the envoy's post, which carried the rank of ambassador, Mr Myers travelled to the British Isles and met British and Irish officials, senior Northern Ireland politicians and intelligence officers. .... "Anything this guy could have found from his European responsibilities he might have funnelled to the Cubans for them to sell off," said John Bolton, a former top State Department official in the...

Note: The following text is a quote: Former State Department Official and Wife Arrested for Serving as Illegal Agents of Cuba for Nearly 30 Years Couple Allegedly Conspired to Provide Classified Information to Cuban Government A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government. The arrests were announced today by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Channing D. Phillips, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Joseph Persichini, Jr.,...

Your views and Patricia Ireland’s may not be that different… This week, as a movement, the Pro-Life community has been fiercely attacked by the mainstream media. Unfortunately, because of the few who came out in support of Dr. Tiller’s murder, the many of us have suffered by being called terrorists and extremists. All of us who believe in the dignity of life from conception to death understand that this was a ruthless killing of what Kansas law considers to be an innocent man. Therefore, I am not writing about whether or not we are terrorists; I don’t wish to dignify...

A man was jailed today for shining a laser at a passenger plane preparing to land. Hossein Hosseiny briefly illuminated the cockpit of the Dublin to Cardiff aircraft which was carrying 52 people on board on the evening of March 8. The pilot said the actions of the 21-year-old father-to-be from the Countisbury Avenue area of Llanrumney, Cardiff, caused a "momentary loss of concentration" during his approach to the runway due to a "dazzling green light". The incident was reported immediately by the pilot to air traffic control and Hosseiny, a failed asylum seeker from Afghanistan, was arrested soon after...