When Johnny comes marching home

  • 7 January 2005
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Johnny Adair is released from prison this week, Suzanne Breen reports on where he'll be welcome and profiles his life of violence

The Big Easy

  • 7 January 2005
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Only in New Orleans will you hear 'Summertime' played at a funeral. Vitali Vitaliev finds hope, optimism and joie de vivre in abundance

Retaurant Review: Bella bruschetta

  • 7 January 2005
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The most difficult restaurant to find is one where you immediately want to take all your friends to so that you can get to go again and again. Somewhere you always will feel welcomed and you can snuggle in, imbibe some red wine or a big pint and sit for hours over good food which doesn't cost the earth. I think I've found it.

The school of hard knocks

  • 7 January 2005
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A legendary victory by Munster over the All Blacks made for a legendary success of a play. Paul Meade describes what it was like to put on a pair of rugby boots and perform in Alone It Stands

Trees: The beautiful Staghorn sumac – (Cashew family)

  • 7 January 2005
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So it was great to find that Ireland has the perfect climate for the staghorn. It can grow, quite rapidly, up to 25 feet tall and spread to about 15 feet. Very manageable. It is really a good all rounder in that it looks delicately pretty in spring, with intense colour in summer and completely magnificent, with colours ranging from yellow, orange, red, dark red to almost purple in autumn, up until mid-November in fact. As well as its leaves, though, it has a magnificent crimson, pyramidal spiky fruit, which stands up on the leaves and outlasts them through December.

Trivial press coverage 'damaging democracy'

  • 7 January 2005
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Only 11 per cent of newspaper coverage of last year's elections dealt with the issues – the rest was about the candidates' personalities and their battles. The balance has become more uneven with every election – and it's bad for democracy, according to a new report. By Hilary Curley

Comedy of errors

  • 7 January 2005
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While RTÉ has always strained to produce decent comedy, most of the howlers have been provided off-screen writes Damian Corless

Walks:The Devil's Punchbowl on Mangerton

  • 7 January 2005
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So it is not surprising that over Christmas and New Year, this track turns into a pilgrimage route dedicated to counteracting over-indulgence. Most years, the weather assists by putting on a penitential air. The day we chose was fairly leaden, but most parking spaces were already taken when we arrived, and the early birds were already striding (or in some cases running) down.

Wine: Fruits of passion

  • 7 January 2005
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Like its food and music, Spanish wines can be fiery, interesting and with a rustic panache, which add happy alternatives to bland global manipulations of taste palettes aimed at pleasing the unadventurous.

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