In The News

Last November former Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for fraud.  In July, the disgraced sportsman pleaded guilty to ten counts of deception involving thirteen individuals.  It was a stunning fall from grace for the Kilkenny man, who was once the most celebrated hurler in the country.  For years Carey spun a web of lies, convincing friends, a...

When Sean McGovern, a trusted member of the Kinahan organised crime cartel, was extradited from Dubai last May he can’t have known the depth and breadth of the evidence gathered by the Gardaí that would prove that he had directed cartel murder plans at the height of the deadly Kinahan-Hutch feud. It was all laid out in the Special Criminal Court this week as encrypted phone messages between him an...

Michael, the biopic tracking the early years of Michael Jackson, opened to dire reviews and criticism over its silence on the child sex abuse allegations levelled at the music superstar. The fans, though, don’t care; they made Michael a box office smash. Its first weekend broke records, with the film scoring the biggest opening of all time for any musical biopic. It stars Jaafar Jackson, who does...

Last Saturday evening, a food delivery driver was hijacked in Co Antrim, a bomb was placed in his car and he was ordered to drive to Dunmurry police station. When he got there he ran in to raise the alarm. Minutes later, a police officer’s bodycam recorded the car exploding as nearby houses were being evacuated, with two babies among those who were being brought to safety at the time. The attack i...

For a man who has been targeted by assassins, Gerry Hutch is surprisingly easy to track down in the village in Lanzarote where he has lived for more than 10 years. He hikes in the morning, frequents the island’s many Irish bars – Paddy’s Point is a favourite – and is happy to stop for selfies with the Irish holidaymakers attracted by the island’s winter sun. Irish Times investigative reporter Cono...

When Ellen Coyne heard her phone buzz in bed on a dark October night in 2022, she couldn’t have known that answering it would lead to the “biggest thing to happen to Irish dancing since Riverdance.” A dossier of messages and WhatsApp screen grabs claimed to uncover what had long been suspected about the sport and art-form; that competition-fixing between teachers and adjudicators was widespread, a...

Notorious Dublin criminal Robbie Lawlor was shot dead in Belfast in 2020, when he arrived at a house in the Ardoyne area of the city, to collect a drug debt. Lawlor was a 36-year-old father originally from Coolock, Dublin, though he had relocated to Laytown, Co Meath, for the final years of his life. He was the chief suspect in a number of gangland attacks, including five murders over a 15-year pe...

Sally Hayden reports on her visit to south Lebanon, where weeks of war between Israel and the Iran-linked paramilitary organisation Hizbullah have left a trail of destruction. Thousands were killed or injured in strikes. Buildings and entire villages have been left in ruins and an exclusion zone established by the Israeli military has left up to one million people permanently displaced, many of th...

Former British prince Andrew fell further from grace in February with his arrest as part of an investigation into whether he abused power by sharing confidential information with his friend Jeffrey Epstein. Up to then, the scrutiny of Andrew's relationship with the notorious Epstein focussed on allegations of sexual exploitation. But this affair shifted the focus onto Andrew's conduct while workin...

Daniel Kinahan, the leader of the Kinahan cartel and a member of the “super cartel” that runs about a third of the European cocaine market, was arrested last week in Dubai, where he has lived openly for years. In today’s episode Irish Times Crime Editor Conor Lally talks about the significance of this arrest, what charges Kinahan will face and what this means for the future of the cartel. Presente...

The appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK Ambassador to the United States is a moment Keir Starmer will rue. On Monday, he faced MPs in the UK Parliament to explain what he knew about the vetting process, which it has been revealed Mandelson failed. Starmer says he knew nothing about it and has sacked the most senior civil servant in the Foreign Office over what he says was the failure to inform hi...

The amount of cannabis being smuggled into Ireland has risen significantly in recent years, with most of the product for sale now coming from the United States. So why have drug gangs here turned to overseas product and why from the US? In today’s episode, Irish Times Crime and Security correspondent Conor Lally explains how drug gangs attempt to get cannabis into the country - and how they are ca...

Rob Heneghan is one of Ireland’s most popular online gambling tipsters. His social media accounts show his more than one million followers a glamorous lifestyle of private jets, yachts and wads of cash. In recent videos he’s placing large cash bets at Cheltenham with darts players Luke Littler and Luke Humphries. His company, Pro Sports Advice, charges between €19 to €149 a month for his tipping s...

When a pilot scheme was announced in 2022 to provide artists with a guaranteed weekly income of €325 a week for three years, there were more than 8,000 applications for the 2,000 places. The Basic Income for the Arts pilot programme ended in February and a review of it was conducted by the Department of Culture before the decision was taken to create a new, permanent scheme. It is now open for app...

As US president Donald Trump threatens to wipe out Iran and attacks the pope , even some former allies are questioning whether he has grown increasingly unbalanced. His social media post of an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus gave even more ammunition to his detractors. All of this has meant that Trump ’s political opponents have become louder in invoking the US constitution’s 25th amendment...

For almost a week there were blockades and go-slows which severely disrupted the country’s road network and Dublin city centre was at a standstill for several days. By the weekend a third of the country’s service stations were out of petrol and diesel because fuel depots were under siege. Gardaí were out in force from the start; on the streets, beside fuel depots, on motorways – watching. So what...

There have been 45 deaths on Irish roads so far this year – that’s six more people than this time last year. Tragically, 2025 ended as the deadliest on Irish roads in more than a decade with 190 fatalities. Why? What makes Ireland so different from our European neighbours who are successfully tackling this devastating problem? Business economist Sinead O’Sullivan, skilled in collating and analysin...

John O’Brien’s scam was simple. Arriving in the US on a tourist visa in 2021, he set himself up as a building contractor in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. By the time the authorities caught up with the 28 year-old, he had conned more than 100 victims out of an estimated $2.5 million. Many of the homeowners who handed him their life savings for promised building work were charmed by his Irish acce...

On Wednesday, as fuel protests over the Government’s response to rising petrol and diesel prices entered their third day it became clear the demands of the protesters showed no signs of being met. Taoiseach Micheál Martin said fuel protesters blocking cities and towns around Ireland are “wrong” and those breaking the law will be penalised. Several distinct but co-ordinated protests took place over...

The US, Israel and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday barely an hour before US president Donald Trump’s deadline to obliterate Iran was set to expire, with Tehran agreeing to temporarily reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The ceasefire is based on a 10-point proposal from Iran which Trump said was a “workable basis on which to negotiate”. So what is in the proposal and why was Pakistan key t...

More details have emerged about the Minister for Finance’s new savings and investment idea which aims to unlock some of the €170bn Irish people are estimated to have on deposit and encourage them to become stock market investors instead. Simon Harris first floated the idea of a Government-endorsed savings plan in February but the details were sparse. The idea is now clearer, though the fine print...

It is not surprising that the army’s spy wing is a highly secretive organisation, but lately it’s becoming a little less so, with one of its top bosses giving an interview to The Irish Times. Its job is to protect the State and the Defence Forces from military threats, counter hybrid activity and protect Irish interests overseas. Its expertise is wide, from on-the-ground surveillance to advising t...

Gardaí have identified a person of interest in the disappearance of Icelandic man Jon Jonsson. The suspect, who's from Liverpool, is a veteran criminal with a history of large scale drug dealing. Jonsson, who'd come to Ireland for a poker tournament, vanished on February the 9th 2019. He was caught on CCTV leaving the Bonnington Hotel on the Swords Road in north Dublin. Beyond those images, Gardaí...

In the entire country there are just 26 places for vulnerable children in need of the highest level of specialist care and supervision that Tusla is charged with providing. And only 15 of these beds are currently available. What this means is that when the child and family agency petitions the courts to have a vulnerable and in-danger child taken into its special care, it then has to admit to the...

The world is in oil shock. Since the US and Israel launched its war on Iran one month ago, the impact on the rest of the world has been felt in ever-rising energy prices. Iran controls – and has mostly closed – the Strait of Hormuz through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply usually passes. There is no guarantee in this uncertain war when oil supplies will start flowing again as normal. Hist...