The noise was sudden and loud, a metallic thud, followed by the screech of breaks and a second dull thump, then silence followed by shouts and excited cries.

After the ball is over, after the break of morn After the dancers' leaving, after the stars are gone Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all Many the hopes that ...

When the devil was sick, the devil a saint would be. But when the devil got well, the devil a saint was he. I came across the above saying while researching this article. It dates from the late 19th century.

Last year when US President Joe Biden visited Ballina and, from outside St Muredach’s Cathedral, addressed thousands of people encircled at every possible vantage-point around the loop of the two bridges, I thought of those who at a time of endemic, ...

Snow, snow, beautiful, glorious snow.

In these pages next week, you’ll be able to read all the election results and pundits like this writer will attempt to analyse the result and draw conclusions.

Sympathy for politicians is always hard to muster but I can safely say I could think of nothing worse to be doing right now than running for election.

The nicest brown bread I ever had was made by the grandmother. It was a light, moist bread and seemed to have a wholesome, more colourful tinge to it. My mother’s brown bread was… funnily enough, just brown.

There's something rather splendid about watching the human machine wind down with all the grace of a Victorian music box that's been dropped down a flight of stairs.

What kind of election will this be? Will it be an epic or a bit of a damp squib? The signs so far are that it will be pretty routine rather than seismic, but you never know what any election means until at least the votes are counted.