blog

DENIS Coulson, a former forward for Ireland's U20 rugby team and ex-Connacht player, was sentenced on Friday to 14 years in prison after being convicted of raping a woman in Bordeaux in 2017. Coulson, who was playing for Grenoble FC at the time of the crime, was among three former players from the French rugby club who stood trial for the gang rape of a 20-year-old woman … [Read more...] about Former Ireland U20 rugby international is jailed in France after being convicted of rape

AN INVESTIGATION has been launched by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI) after a video appeared to show a PSNI officer kicking a teenager in the head during an arrest. It follows an incident outside a nightclub in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone in the early hours of Sunday, December 8. A solicitor acting on behalf of the teenager has called for the officer involved to be … [Read more...] about Ombudsman launches investigation after video appears to show PSNI officer kicking teenager in the head

COMEDIAN Jimmy Cricket was born James Mulgrew in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone and brought up in Belfast. He first rose to fame in the 1970s after winning a TV talent show. Jimmy was subsequently given his own television series on a show called And There's More produced by Central Television. Jimmy Cricket What are you up to? In between writing Christmas cards, I’m promoting my new … [Read more...] about Ten minutes with…Jimmy Cricket

NOSTALGIA for Ireland among exiles perhaps conjures occasionally unrealistic images of a distant past in which we are all living in quaint thatched cottages, kneeling in a circle in the living room to say the rosary together each evening. And that Ireland is not so far in the past that some older people cannot recall it. There may indeed be a thatched cottage somewhere on the … [Read more...] about Ireland’s beauty faces environmental challenges

IS THERE a more treasured Irish songwriter than Christy Moore? That’s a rhetorical question, of course, because in the past 50 years to so, between the jigs of Planxty, the reels of the Bothy Band, the numerous solo albums and countless gigs, Moore has carved out a place for him and his songs that is forever golden. His new album, A Terrible Beauty, continues mining the seam … [Read more...] about ON THE RECORD: New Irish music releases you need to hear