In The News

Last month, a 22-year-old man named Evan Fitzgerald walked into the busy Fairgreen shopping centre in Carlow and opened fire. He then turned his weapon on himself and ended his own life. Following the incident, details quickly emerged about the young man’s fascination with guns and his previous run-in with gardaí. And this week, it emerged Fitzgerald had possession of more weapons than previously...

On June 30th 1922, a massive explosion ripped through Dublin’s Four Courts, after the Irish Free state national army opened fire on anti-treaty republicans occupying the building. Inside the building, the old, dry files housed in the Public Record Office quickly caught fire. The blast sent a dramatic pillar of black smoke hundreds of metres into the air and flung files, books and scrolls high in t...

Two court cases this month will have signalled to those supplying so-called ‘dodgy boxes’ that there is a high penalty to be paid. A man who appeared before Trim District Court charged with selling the boxes was jailed for 3½ years, while in the High Court Sky Ireland alleged that another man may have earned up to €450,000 a year from operating a different dodgy service. These cases occur periodic...

Renters and landlords alike are confused about exactly how the forthcoming changes to rules governing tenancies will affect them. In what circumstances can rent be raised? In what circumstances can a landlord legally ask a tenant to move out? Consumer Affairs Correspondent Conor Pope sets out to answer their questions, as submitted to The Irish Times. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mor...

A new chapter in the fractious relationship between Iran and the US began this week with America’s bombing of three Iranian nuclear-development sites; Iran’s retaliatory strike on a US military base in Qatar, and the tentative ceasefire in the Israel-Iran war announced by President Donald Trump. The two countries have history: Key dates include 1953 when a CIA-orchestrated a coup, with British sup...

Last weekend, former Ireland international and premier league star Damien Duff sent shock waves through Irish football when he announced he was resigning as manager of Shelbourne FC. In a statement, the Tolka Park club said it was “regretfully” announcing Duff’s departure. “While all at Shelbourne FC are deeply saddened by Damien’s decision, we fully respect that he feels this is the right choice...

In the early hours of March 15th 2024, a woman walked into a hospital in the city of Boston and reported she had been raped. The following day, Dublin firefighter Terrence Crosbie (38) was arrested at Boston Logan International Airport when he was boarding a plane to fly back to Ireland. Last week, after a six-day trial and more than 22 hours of jury deliberations, a Boston judge declared a mistri...

Tattle Life is a gossip site that many will have never heard of until a landmark defamation trial in Belfast this month. Donna and Neil Sands bought a defamation case against the site – and won. They were each awarded £150,000 (€176,000) in damages, with the court saying their costs should also be covered. The married couple who live in Northern Ireland said that cruel, untrue and hateful anonymou...

Since Israel launched air strikes on Iran last Friday, the two states have traded missiles with mounting casualties on both sides. Iranian military leaders have been killed as have some of its nuclear scientists but the country’s citizens have borne the brunt of the air attacks. Israel has said its rationale for the middle-of-the-night attack that sparked the war was its need to ensure, for its ow...

Someone in Ireland has just won €250 million. It's the biggest ever lottery win in Europe and it means the winner's life will never be the same again. But history shows that suddenly coming into vast wealth is not always a good thing. Conor Pope talks to Bernice Harrison about the pitfalls of winning the Euromillions - and what you should do in the extremely unlikely event you find yourself in tha...

On Monday, preparatory works began at the former site of the mother and baby institution in Tuam, Co Galway in advance of the long-awaited excavation to identify the remains of nearly 800 infants. The excavation, which is due to start in mid-July, takes place 11 years after research by local historian Catherine Corless found 796 children had died at the institution run by the Bon Secours religious...

On Sunday night, 57-year-old Vance Boelter was arrested and charged with murder following the largest manhunt in the history of the US state of Minnesota. Mr Boelter is suspected of shooting and killing a Democratic politician and her husband and of shooting and wounding a Democratic senator and his wife on Saturday. That same day, Donald Trump celebrated his birthday by holding a carefully choreo...

On her last gruelling day on the stand in the murder trial that has gripped Australia, Erin Patterson faced three succinct questions from the prosecutor. She put it to Patterson that she had deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms in 2023, deliberately included them in the beef Wellington she served her former in-laws; and did so intending to kill them. Patterson uttered three words: Disagree. Di...

Israel  has launched widescale strikes against  Iran , saying it targeted nuclear facilities, ballistic missile factories and military commanders, raising the potential for an all-out war between the two bitter Middle East adversaries. Iran's leadership has called the attacks "a declaration of war" and promises reprisals. Mark Weiss reports on why the Israeli government has chosen n...

Valerie French Kilroy was the mother of three very young boys, an occupational therapist and a much-loved sister and friend. In June 2019 she was murdered by her husband James Kilroy. She was 41. That he killed her was never in doubt – he admitted it – but the defence put forward at his trial in 2024 was that he was insane when he beat, stabbed and strangled his wife to death. That defence was rej...

The election for the next President of Ireland must take place before November 11th. It’s June, so where is the list of Áras hopefuls? As of now two independents have declared their intention to run, MMA fighter Conor McGregor and former candidate and businessman Peter Casey. They have yet to get local authority approval. When can we expect the race to get going and what qualities make for an idea...

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris had much to show the media at an event at Garda HQ on Monday. New riot gear, a massive water canon, smart body-worn cameras, hand-held computers and more secure vehicles, part of the force’s fleet, the largest ever. Questions why one piece of useful equipment – a cadaver dog – was not on the list of new acquisitions were eagerly asked by the media, and easily answere...

The Government will bring its latest housing fix to Cabinet today when it presents new rules on rent levels for approval. Aimed at boosting supply – by encouraging large institutional investors to build and small landlords to stay in the market – the plan primarily concerns rules around Rent Pressure Zones (RPZ). These were established in 2016 – the number of such zones grew over the years – to cu...

On Sunday, April 7th, 2024 there was a fatal road traffic crash in Churchtown, a suburb in south dublin. It happened early in the morning when a pensioner driving an old red van hit a tree. Unusually, the name of the dead man was not released though The Irish Times was able to report, through confidential information received at the time, that the dead man had been due in court the following day....

Sonia ‘Sunny’ Jacobs was 76 when she died on Tuesday morning in a house fire in Connemara . Her tragic death made headlines far beyond Galway and Ireland because Jacobs had led a truly remarkable life. It included a death row sentence for the murder of two policemen in Florida in 1976. She spent 17 years in a US jail, five in solitary confinement, before a deal with prosecutors saw her released in...

Children operated on when there was no need; industrial springs being used instead of approved medical devices; a doctor diverting children to his own private clinic leading to them facing dangerous treatment delays; and a poisonous work culture on the wards – these are some of the issues that have emerged in our children’s hospitals. And that’s before the not so little matter of the massive budge...

In the early hours of May 8th, two masked men in a stolen Audi staged a drive-by shooting, firing nine shots indiscriminately at houses on Limerick's Hyde Road, including at April Collins’s home. More shots were fired at a Collins-owned home on the Hyde Road in November 2024, and in two separate attacks in January 2025. Since then, there have been a dozen violent incidents, including pipe and petr...

Kerry farmer Michael Gaine’s disappearance on March 20th was first treated as a missing person’s case. Soon though, it was upgraded to a murder investigation as the Garda searched for his body and explored multiple lines of inquiry. Then the farmer’s body was found – in the most grisly of circumstances. He had been dismembered with his body parts deposited into the silage pit on his farm. One such...

From the moment he reported her missing in 2017, Richard Satchwell stuck to his story that his wife Tina had run off. His many media appeals begged her to come home. But as the jury heard during his five-week trial in the Central Criminal Court for her murder, she was indeed home and she had been all along . Richard had killed her in 2017 , dug a hole under the stairs of their terraced Youghal hom...

Shane O’Farrell was 23 when he was the victim of a hit-and-run near his home in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan . A law graduate, he had just submitted his master’s thesis and was enjoying a carefree cycle on that August evening in 2011. Questions around how the crash happened soon turned to who was behind the wheel. It was Lithuanian Zigimantas Gridziuska, a man known to the Garda and the courts. On...