In The News

For the past 18 months, Dublin City Council has been keeping track of a worrying trend: an increase in the number of vacant council houses being targeted in racist attacks. The criminal damage, which happens just before the council moves a new tenant in, ranges from racist graffiti to making the house uninhabitable. So where is this happening? And what can be done to stop it? Irish Times crime and...

Naomi James (38) was pregnant with her fourth child when, disillusioned with Ireland's maternity services, she chose to give birth at home without medical assistance. Shortly after her baby was born at home in Drogheda in June 2024, she became ill and was taken to hospital, where she died. Naomi was just one of an unknown but growing number of women in Ireland who opt for a free birth , – to have...

A summit in Portugal last weekend laid bare the growth in a pan-European remigration movement, with speakers who ranged from an MEP to Greg Bovino, a former US border patrol official who, before retiring, became the public face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in US cities. The term means deporting not just illegal immigrants but all people judged to be unassimilated in western...

An assessment of need (AON) helps put children with a disability on a service pathway. But the waiting list is long and growing every year. It currently stands at 21,782 which means some children will wait years for diagnosis. To speed up the process and deal with the stubbornly long waiting list, the government has announced details of a new “autism assessment and intervention pathway protocol”....

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has firmed up its forecast for a return of El Niño this summer, increasing the risk of record-breaking heat and extreme weather events starting in June and lasting until at least November. Such is the threatened power of this weather pattern, it’s been called a super El Niño. What happens when temperatures soar and the heat is simply too much, impacting...

When Isak Andic, who created the Mango clothes brand, died from a fall while our hiking with his only son, Jonathan, in the mountains outside Barcelona, it was treated as a tragic accident. But for the Spanish police, something about events on that hiking trail in December 2024 just didn’t add up. First there were inconsistencies in Jonathan’s police statements. Then forensics found evidence that...

Is there such a thing as “summer on a plate”? What makes a great seasonal dish? And where is the best restaurant in Ireland for a memorable staycation night out? These were some of the factors Irish Times restaurant reviewer Corinna Hardgrave and food writer Joanne Cronin had to consider when they come up with their annual must-keep list: “100 great restaurants, cafes and places to eat around Irel...

The trial of Jeffrey Donaldson began on Wednesday with the jury warned they would hear about “difficult and traumatic incidents” the two alleged victims claim they experienced as children. By the end of the second day, Thursday, they had heard more of the substance of those alleged incidents, including watching a video of a police interview with the witness known as Complainant A. She and the othe...

Aggressive driver behaviour, speeding, poor cycling infrastructure and the increased size of vehicles are deterring women from getting on their bikes, research by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) has found. Most women in Ireland can cycle and have access to a bike, but are only half as likely as men to choose cycling as a mode of travel, according to the Empowering Women to Cycle report. And...

Just a few years ago Meta’s workforce in Ireland was about 3,000. When the newly announced round of job cuts are complete, the tech giant’s headcount at its Irish bases will be halved. The reasons for the job losses – the cuts are part of a global redundancy programme – have not been made public but AI is widely acknowledged as a driver. But how? And Meta isn’t the only company shedding jobs. The...

If the junior infants in St Joseph’s Primary School in Dundalk, Co Louth want to know something they can ask AI. An AI voice assistant named Merlyn will tell them the answer, type it on a digital whiteboard with photos and illustrations and prompt them to delve deeper into the subject. Every class is being taught how to use AI because St Joseph’s is taking part in a Merlyn AI pilot programme along...

Jeffrey Donaldson (63) was arrested and charged with sexual offences in March 2024. The former DUP leader and MP is accused of 18 offences – one count of rape, four of gross indecency with or towards a child, and 13 of indecent assault on a female, on dates between 1987 and 2008. His wife Eleanor Donaldson (60), is charged with aiding and abetting her husband but she has been judged to be unfit to...

RTÉ’s announcement that the salary of Derek Mooney , one of its most well-known on-air staffers, had been publicly misrepresented for years sparked a very public controversy. It prompted debate in the Dáil and an appearance for the broadcaster’s director general Kevin Bakhurst before the Oireachtas media committee. At issue was how pay is calculated in the organisation, with the suspicion that, on...

When two TDs left for bigger gigs last year it triggered elections to fill their places. Fine Gael’s Pascal Donohoe left for a big job at the World Bank and Independent TD Catherine Connolly left for a bigger job in Áras an Uachtaráin. Voters tomorrow will be faced with long ballot papers but the Irish Times IPSOS B&A poll suggests the early emergence of a small number of clear favourites in b...

On Friday at about 5pm, Yves Sakila(35) was pursued by security guards on Dublin’s Henry Street. He was suspected of shoplifting. As he ran down the street, it is believed he collided with an elderly man. What happened next was witnessed by several bystanders and by thousands of others because of a distressing video posted on social media. It shows the Congolese man’s last minutes as he lay face d...

This episode was first published in February 2026. On the night of his second birthday in May 1991, Seamus Daniel Howell’s mother Lesley was murdered by his father, Colin Howell, and his father’s lover, Hazel Stewart. The pair also killed Stewart’s husband Trevor Buchanan. They left the two bodies in a garage in Castlerock, Co Derry, staging the scene to make it look as if they had taken their own...

Betting on the results of an election is not unusual but Polymarket is not a typical bookies. It allows punters to take and then change their position on all manner of events, from when the Strait of Hormuz might open to whether Taylor Swift will be pregnant before she gets married. So when Irish Times investigative reporters Conor Gallagher and Rachel Lavin noticed almost €1 million had been wage...

Donald Trump arrived in Beijing on Wednesday night for a two-day visit that both the United States and China hope will stabilise their relationship and prolong a truce in the trade war that began over tariffs last year. The state visit – with all the pomp and ceremony that entails – had been scheduled for April but was deferred because of the war in Iran. There is a lot on the table and, in the sh...

When Dubliners first saw the multi-tiered, gleaming white, iron and glass shopping centre on St Stephen’s Green in the late 1980s, it was quickly nicknamed “the Mississippi showboat” and “the wedding cake”. And in a city that prides itself on its Georgian heritage and its historic buildings, it was seen by some as kitsch, an architectural pastiche and a bit embarrassing. But it grew on others. Now...

British prime minister Keir Starmer is clinging to power after scores of Labour MPs – and several ministers – called on him to resign or at least plot a clear path for a change in leadership. The immediate prompt is the collapse of the Labour vote during the local elections which saw more than 1,500 councillors lose their seats. Add the party’s losses at the devolved elections in Scotland and Wale...

When Irish Times consumer affairs correspondent Conor Pope got an email last June about the non-delivery of garden furniture, he couldn’t have known that it would be the start of a deluge of similar complaints from hundreds of frustrated customers. All had ordered from Rathwood, a family business, operating for more than 30 years that had grown into one of the biggest outdoor living retailers in t...

For online fraudsters to be successful they need a web of bank accounts to first receive the money they steal and then to channel it, often out of the country. Some people, often students, willingly let their bank accounts be used in exchange for a small sum of money. For others though, they have no choice, like the victim of sextortion before the courts this month who was blackmailed into letting...

On Wednesday, in the midst of a tentative ceasefire, Iran issued what could be the first step in a deal with the US over the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile Iran’s foreign minister was in Beijing meeting China’s top diplomat who urged an end to the blockade of the vital waterway and an end to the war. Could a peace deal finally be in sight? And why did German chancellor Friedrich Merz torpedo his rela...

The Iran war, which began on February 28th, has disrupted air traffic routes and pushed up jet fuel prices . That much is clear. But with the war showing little sign of resolution, what is less clear is what will happen as the aviation industry grapples with inevitable fuel shortages? The disruption to aviation has been severe in the Middle East and Asia but, to date, the impact on European airlin...

In June 2025, the Mancel family left their apartment in Leopardstown in south Dublin, headed to Dublin Airport and flew to Reykjavik. They checked into the luxury Edition hotel for what appeared to be a weeklong holiday for husband Emeric Mancel (57), wife Ming Ting and their 29-year-old daughter, Catherine. But on the day they were due to fly home, Emeric and Catherine were found dead from stab w...