One of the two hotel employees acquitted of the murder of Michaela McAreavey in Mauritius is seeking damages of almost 75 million Mauritian rupees (almost €2m) for his treatment while in custody. Michaela McAreavey née Harte was found strangled in the bath of her hotel room while on honeymoon in Mauritius in January 2011. The […]

10 years ago

There is nothing as special as opening a handmade card, and nothing as fun (and chaotic) as making them from scratch with the kids. If you don’t mind a little messiness, getting stuck into an afternoon of creativity will really get everyone in the festive mood. And we all know kids love to do a spot of […]

10 years ago

Ratings-winning drama Call the Midwife is to have three more series that will keep the show on BBC One until 2020. Three Christmas specials have also been commissioned. Yay, yay and yay! A sixth series of the show, about nuns and midwives working in London’s East End, has already been announced and will air in early […]

10 years ago

Cystic Fibrosis Ireland have vowed to fight the HSE’s decision to turn down the ground-breaking CF drug Orkambi and have called for Health Minister Simon Harris to intervene. Cystic Fibrosis Ireland, Ireland’s national charity supporting people with CF, have expressed their dismay and opposition to the news – leaked yesterday to a Sunday newspaper – […]

10 years ago

The winter has well and truly arrived and let’s face it, Irish winters tend to be colder than most. But it’s not that we’re not prepared. In fact, we’re over-prepared and have everything one could possibly need for the coming months. Here are ten things that you’ll find in every Irish home this winter… 1. Briquettes If […]

10 years ago

Australia’s Health Minister, Jill Hennessy, has confirmed the death of a sixth person after an outbreak of ‘thunderstorm asthma’ in Melbourne. The city’s Herald Sun reports that the outbreak has left five patients in intensive care, with three listed as critical. Another twelve people are receiving hospital treatment for “a variety of respiratory and other related conditions” after asthma […]

10 years ago

The heartbroken parents  of four-year-old Ciarán Treacy have shared their tragic story on RTE’s Ray D’Arcy Show. The heartbroken parents of four-year-old Ciarán Treacy have shared their tragic story on RTE’s Ray D’Arcy Show. Gillian and Ronan Treacy, who are preparing to front this year’s Road Safety Authority Christmas campaign, spoke about the tragic circumstances in which they lost […]

10 years ago

Katie Taylor outclassed her opponent Karina Kopinska in her professional boxing debut yesterday at the Wembley Arena in London. The five-time world and 2012 Olympic champion won the fight with a third-round stoppage of Kopinska. Katie’s next fight is scheduled for the 10th of December and hopes are high that the Irish champion could challenge for a […]

10 years ago

The woman known to many of us as Carol Brady, actress Florence Henderson, has died at the age of 82. Florence was hospitalised on Wednesday and passed away after suffering heart failure on Thursday night at LA’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, her publicist David Brokaw and manager Kayla Pressman announced. They said the Brady Bunch star died surrounded […]

10 years ago

A new study conducted by iPass, surveyed 1,700 working professionals across Europe and the US and found that 40 percent of respondents think Wi-Fi is more important than sex, chocolate or alcohol. The researchers say that Wi-Fi is now not only the most popular method of internet connectivity, but has surpassed many other human luxuries and necessities and […]

10 years ago

A sad day for those of us who grew up with Bosco, Zig and Zag, Judge, Fortycoats, Mr. Crow and the gang from Wanderly Wagon. RTÉ have announced their plans to outsource their young people’s programming, meaning that all of the national broadcaster’s RTÉjr and RTÉ2 children’s television will now come from independent production companies. A statement from […]

10 years ago

Need a hand with your Christmas shopping? Whether we care to admit it or not Christmas is just around the corner. As the decorations start going up and the festive music starts to creep into the shops, it’s time we started ticking a few things off our Christmas lists and our latest competition could give you […]

10 years ago

Peter Andre and his wife Emily MacDonagh have had their second child together, a baby boy. Emily, a junior doctor and singer Peter are already mum and dad to two-year-old Amelia. Announcing the news on Twitter, Andre joked that they would try to name the baby in under six weeks this time: Very very happy for our […]

10 years ago

When a hectic day is drawing to a close, it can be difficult to switch off any lingering worries or stress before you hit the hay.  But there are some clever ways to get your zen back before lights out; all you need is a little determination to blitz those thoughts that bother you before bedtime. Here […]

10 years ago

The Southeast Asian nation has become the latest country to make commercial surrogacy illegal after bans on the practice in other parts of the world sparked a boom in Cambodia’s unregulated baby business. Surrogacy agencies began popping up in the small country after former surrogacy hotspots such as Thailand and India banned foreigners from the services following […]

10 years ago

Santa paid an early visit to plasterer Jay Clark, his girlfriend Caroline Donoghue, and their ten-month-old Maxie this year – because the terminally ill dad was worried he would not live to see his son’s first Christmas. 41-year-old Jay, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October last year, and his partner Caroline, 37, had lost all hope […]

10 years ago

The Santa Forgot campaign imagines a world where the magic of Christmas has been lost because Santa is living with the effects of dementia and can no longer visit children across the world. Alzheimer’s Research in the UK has launched a touching new Christmas advert that will definitely pull at your heart strings. Narrated by Stephen Fry, the tear-jerking […]

10 years ago

Oscar-winner Glen Hansard has teamed up with The High Hopes Choir to highlight the human faces behind the country’s homeless crisis. The Commitments and Once star paid a special visit to Focus Ireland’s coffee shop in Dublin’s Temple Bar to hear some of the human stories behind the homeless crisis. His visit comes as latest figures […]

10 years ago

“For the first few weeks, she was a very sunny little baby, feeding and sleeping quite easily. We felt so lucky. But now she’s like a different child. She cries so much, most of all in the evening, and nothing I do seems to console her. She really seems to be in such pain, it […]

10 years ago

Dublin singer Imelda May’s time as the queen of rockabilly has come to an end. The single mum-of-one has a whole new look and it has to be said she is lookin’ fierce well altogether! Imelda has wiped the slate clean after going through a tough split from her former guitarist Darrel Higham. The star thanked Dublin hairdresser […]

10 years ago

Everything is awesome! The world’s largest lego store has opened in central London’s Leicester Square. I have three lego nuts at home, who love the blocks and the movie, who would be saucer-eyed at the Danish shop’s new flagship shop. Now the largest lego shop in the world, it boasts exciting new experiences, such as […]

10 years ago

Chocolate cheese is an actual thing now and all my food group dreams have come true. Australian cheesemongers Curds & Whey who have a stall at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, have just produced ‘Choco 21’ and, I think we can safely say, just won food. The creators describe the delicious concoction as an Italian blue cheese […]

10 years ago

Channel 4’s ‘The Secret Life of Four Year Olds‘ is churning out some of the best tv moments of 2016. If you haven’t seen the brilliant documentary series yet (how? why not!?) then you have missed some of the funniest, not to mention cute, insights into the complex world of the under-fives. Having an almost-four […]

10 years ago

Four-year-old Jessica Whelan, pictured above in a heartbreaking photo taken by her dad Andy, has sadly died. Brave Jessica, who was diagnosed with high-risk stage four neuroblastoma in September 2015, passed away early this morning. Her heartbroken father made the announcement on his Facebook page, writing: “I feel both sadness and relief in informing you […]

10 years ago

With movies such as The Hangover and cheap flights to infamous party cities, the stag party has become an increasingly extravagant and popular phenomenon. But a new study says that many fellas don’t enjoy the parties and just want to go home. Bless! Daniel Briggs, a professor of criminology at Madrid University, and his colleague […]

10 years ago

Today marks UN Universal Children’s Day but what is being done to lift Ireland’s poorest children out of poverty? One Family – Ireland’s organisation for people parenting alone, sharing parenting, and separating – have voiced their concerns on the inequality that exists in Irish society for the one in nine (11 percent) children who live in consistent […]

10 years ago

Singer Adele, with a personal fortune estimated at a mind-blowing £92 million, is reportedly planning a simple registry office wedding. The Londoner was introduced to her partner of five years, Simon Konecki, by Ed Sheeran and the happy couple have a four-year-old son named Angelo. Simon is also dad to a nine-year-old daughter from a previous relationship. Simon, […]

10 years ago

Good news if you are over forty and feeling exhausted at work. Apart from the fact that you are twice as much fun as a twenty year old, research by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research has shown that working more than thirty hours a week is detrimental for this age group. It was […]

10 years ago

A fourteen-year-old girl had her final wish to be frozen instead of buried after her death granted by a judge. The young girl, known only as JS, was suffering from a rare form of cancer and died on October 17th. In what is thought to be the first case of its kind in the UK (and […]

10 years ago

A row has erupted between Human Rights Commissioner Emily Logan and Education Minister Richard Bruton over school admission rules. Mr Bruton introduced new legislation to the Dáil yesterday that would preserve an entitlement for schools to hold about 25 percent of their places for sons or daughters of past pupils. But Commissioner Logan has told […]

10 years ago

In Co Down, a two-year-old cockapoo (cocker spaniel/poodle cross) called Teddy has been declared a hero after she saved five-year-old Riley Duffy from an active tumble dryer. Riley, who has Down Syndrome, locked himself inside the dryer while his mum was hoovering. Teddy, immediately sensing danger, began to bark loudly causing mum Gillian to rush downstairs to find […]

10 years ago

Twenty-year-old student nurse Becky Topping from Antrim has been hailed a hero after saving a toddler’s life on Sunday. Becky had nipped out for something to eat with a friend whens she witnessed the young boy turning purple as his mum struggled to get him out of his buggy. She told Belfast Live what happened: “My […]

10 years ago

Searching for a baby name?  When it comes to deciding whether your little offspring will be honoured with an old-fashioned name (Rosie, Emily, Arthur), a hipster name (Xavier, Harper, Flynn) or maybe a good solid name (James, Sarah, David), chances are you and your partner will not agree on every single one. So, for anyone due a […]

10 years ago

A huge earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 and depth of 16km has struck the Canterbury region of New Zealand.  Damage has been reported in locations across the country and the quake was strongest in Christchurch, Wellington, Nelson, Marlborough, Taranaki, Hamilton and Auckland. The earthquake occurred just after midnight and the country’s Civil Defence […]

10 years ago

Missing Callan woman Jo Jo (Josephine) Dullard is to be remembered at a ceremony in Kilkenny Castle this afternoon. The 21-year-old went missing 21 years ago on the 9th of November while travelling home from Dublin. She was last seen making a phonecall from a phonebox in Moone, Co Kildare. A short time later a […]

10 years ago

Conor McGregor has finally confirmed that he is going to be a daddy! Although the rumour mill has been in hyperdrive in recent weeks that long-term partner Dee Devlin was expecting, the UFC star only confirmed the news at his post-fight press conference last night. Conor McGregor confirms that he is expecting a baby […]

10 years ago

Austrian police have said that a newborn baby died yesterday after being abandoned by its mother in a toilet bin at Vienna airport. A cleaner found the baby inside a plastic bag in the early hours of yesterday morning after hearing its cries. A police spokesman said that the emergency services rushed the infant to […]

10 years ago

Health Minister Simon Harris has told of his frustration as an Irish couple live tweeted their journey to Liverpool to terminate a pregnancy with fatal foetal abnormalities. Speaking yesterday, Harris admitted: “this greatly saddens and frustrates me that women and their partners find themselves in this situation in this country” The husband and wife, tweeting […]

10 years ago

Adare-based photographer PJ Corbett, who specialises in newborn photography, captured this unique image of quadruplets, triplets, and twins who were all recently born at the University Maternity Hospital in Limerick. Staff at the busy maternity hospital’s neonatal unit say it is the first time they have looked after so many multiples at once. Lisa Fenton and […]

10 years ago

Shocking exit polls released by NBC News have shown that women voted for Donald Trump to be the 45th President of the United States. Although 73 percent of all female voters surveyed in the exit poll stated that they were “bothered” by Trump’s reported treatment of women, Hillary Clinton has failed to win the support of […]

10 years ago

Former Xposé host and mum-of-three, Aisling O’Loughlin, isn’t holding back and has criticised claims that the show’s new-format has boosted ratings by nearly 40%. The Clare-born journalist co-hosted the popular entertainment show from its launch in 2007 before being controversially axed, allegedly while she was on maternity leave. Presenters Lisa Cannon and Peter O’Riordan were […]

10 years ago

The U.S. presidential elections have officially just been upstaged by bigger news; Toblerones have changed shape and people are NOT happy. Judging by the angry individuals taking to social media to protest the changes, the message is clear – you can mess with world politics but do not mess with our chocolate. Mondelez International, the makers […]

10 years ago

New research, recently published in the Paediatric Research journal, has found that baby girls may be better able to cope with the stresses of being in the womb and labour than baby boys. The Spanish study collected blood samples from fifty-six mothers (at the beginning and end of labour) and from their babies (umbilical cord […]

10 years ago

Today marks the end of the most bonkers presidential election in the history of the United States. It won’t be long before we know if it will be former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or The Donald (shudder) in charge of one of the most powerful countries in the world. At this point, there’s very […]

10 years ago

Brad and Angelina have reached a custody agreement with regards to their six children, who range in age from eight to fifteen. A statement released by Jolie’s representative yesterday has revealed that Angelina will continue to have sole custody of the children, with Brad having “therapeutic visits”. The actors apparently reached agreement over a week […]

10 years ago

Hundreds of secondary schools around the country will not re-open today after the mid-term break due to strike action. With around a quarter of a million students affected by the ongoing pay dispute, talks between teachers and the Department of Education appear to be at a deadlock. Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Education Minister […]

10 years ago

A small new study has revealed that a smear test in early pregnancy could flag genetic disorders earlier than ever. With current prenatal screening methods more invasive, this new research has revealed that a quick sample of cervical cells taken as early as five weeks could reveal genetic abnormalities. The study, published this week in […]

10 years ago

Science has just added more weight (see what I did there?) to the argument that Dad Bods are better. Professor Richard Bribiescas, in his book ‘How Men Age: What Evolution Reveals About Male Health And Mortality’, has found evidence that squidgy bellies, love handles, and general cuddliness are more attractive to women. The Professor’s research also […]

10 years ago

Researchers from the Irish Obstetrics Services in conjunction with Trinity College Dublin have released the findings of their latest study, demonstrating that one in six pregnant women in Ireland is at probable risk of depression. The Well Before Birth study, which was carried out by the Irish Obstetric Services and the TCD REDEEM research group between January […]

10 years ago

The rumour mill has gone into Kardashian-overdrive once again about Khloe’s suspected pregnancy. The 32-year-old is reported to be expecting a baby with her 25-year-old boyfriend, NBA star Tristan Thompson. If the whispers are true Tristan is set for a busy time as his ex-girlfriend Jordan Craig is also expecting his baby. Jordan, a model, has […]

10 years ago