The result, and the game itself, produced more than its share of paradox. The North clearly has the weaker team. Their manager too was under pressure to change the squad, along with considerable pressure from critics about his whole approach. Inside the game itself, Blanchflower is regarded with suspicion. He defined his own situation as manager as being a "fairly amateurish one". It's not an approach likely to endear itself to professionals, and even Giles, in unguarded moments, let slip the view that he didn't believe one could approach the job that way.

Images from the life of former Taoiseach, Jack Lynch. From childhood to the height of his political career as Taoiseach

Exclusive: For the first time, An Taoiseach, Jack Lynch writes about his background, his sporting career, his entry into politics, his ministerial career, and his period in office as Taoiseach.

Twelve months is a short time. Yet for such an encouragingly energetic and tirelessly active Pope as John Paul II - so many speeches, so many trips - twelve months is a long time. There is no significant issue on which he has not already taken a definite stand; after just one year the contours of this pontificate stand out in bold and unmistakable relief.

He looked a bit like the man in the Marlboro cigarette ads, only younger. Tall and gangly, with the lope of a cowboy. I knew him for 16 years and most of the time he had a moustache; once, for half a day, he had half a moustache.

An agreed IFA position on taxation and the coming merger with ICMSA seem to demonstrate the growing strength and unity of the farmer organisations. But there are troubles ahead: farm incomes are under pressure and next year's IFA elections have opened a serious rift already.

James White has been director of the National Gallery of Ireland for fifteen years. His successor is to be appointed this autumn. If the right person is to be appointed to do the right job, he and those who choose him will need to know about some of the things that went wrong in the past.

It began with a low, continuous hum. Strands of sound, voices, car doors slamming, shoes slapping on pavements, weaving the aural blanket that hovered over the Dublin suburb of Cabra West. The parishoners had been told to arrive at the local church at 6.45 a.m. where hymns would be sung and the priests would lead the way to the Phoenix Park. Several hundred followed the advice, but by 5 a.m.

The pubs have been shut for almost half an hour. The early editions of the Sunday papers have been on sale since long before the cinemas emptied. The lines of taxis in O'Connell Street are beginning to dwindle. In countless doorways on main streets and in back alleys Dublin's teenage working class lovers are facing the perennial problem:

This Year is the centenary of the birth of the Anglo-Irish artist, William Orpen. A major exhibition of his works is now at the National Gallery of Ireland