Ireland | GlobalPost

The handshake comes 14 years after three decades of violence between pro- and anti-British forces in Northern Ireland came to a halt with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

In an interview on Monday, Ryanair chief executive Micheal O’Leary said his airline could benefit from the worsening outlook as passengers would not stop going on holiday but instead switch to lower cost carriers.

Ireland’s three main political parties back the fiscal compact, with the opposition Fianna Fáil party indicating it will support the government and campaign for a yes vote in May.

The former Dublin politician was on the verge of being expelled from Fianna Fáil after a tribunal investigating corruption in Ireland’s planning process found money from party supporters had been deposited in his bank account.

Thursday’s figures overshadowed data showing that Ireland's economy grew by 0.7 percent in 2011 as a whole, bringing an end to three years of declines since the financial crisis began in the country.

Ireland has struck oil off the County Cork coast in what may prove to be a multi-billion dollar discovery.

Ireland will hold a referendum on whether to accept the EU fiscal compact treaty which imposes strict new budgetary discipline on each state, Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Tuesday.

Davos. The name, the place, what it stands for is a challenge to an ideal of journalism. It seems to be one of those events that become a story not because of any intrinsic news value but because a bunch of famous people get together and allow journalists to mingle among them.

There are many national leaders at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos but no treaties are signed, nor are there joint declarations of policy made. That would be news and worth reporting. There are titans of industry in Davos, but no products are launched or companies acquired. That, too, would be news etc.

It can't be news because the comments about the year to come actually shape events. I came across this article from The Washington Post a couple of years ago on Google about some famously wrong predictions made by the rulers of the planet at the World Economic Forum. It's pretty amusing. (For that matter, did anyone at Davos in 1996 or 97 predict there would be something like Google (founded in 1998) and that a search engine would upend all previously known models of information aggregation and dissemination?

Anyway, the leaders are at Davos, journalists are tweeting like fan-boys and girls about rubbing shoulders with them.

Brian Shivers was convicted on Friday of the murders of Mark Quinesy and Patrick Azimkar outside a military barracks in Co Antrim in 2009, the first such killings for more than a decade in Northern Ireland.

Quinn’s use of loans to make disastrous investments in Anglo Irish has left the failed state-owned bank chasing him over debts of nearly $3.7 billion and battling to gain ownership of his properties.

Queen and ex-IRA chief Martin McGuinness in historic handshake

Ryanair reports record high profits

Ireland sets May 31 date for EU pact referendum

Ex-Irish PM Bertie Ahern resigns from Fianna Fáil

Ireland falls back into recession

Oil is discovered off the coast of Ireland

Ireland to hold referendum on European fiscal treaty

Davos takes on euro zone crisis

Brian Shivers, dissident Irish republican, convicted of murdering 2 British soldiers

Irish businessman Sean Quinn declared bankrupt