Vedado is coated in gloom. All Havana is cast in a hard darkness and the black smoke of the ancient taxis is periodically visible under the one dim lamp on the street. The roots of the dripping trees rise up through the cracked pavements and dogs make their homes under them while the locals walk on the rubble-strewn roads for fear of tripping.

Labour's Brendan Howlin failed in two leadership bids and is opposed to a pre-election pact with Fine Gael. But he's lost none of his enthusiasm for politics or for his party, he tells Katie Hannon

The work of news journalists is vital to a functioning democracy, yet they operate with no special powers or privilege and even risk imprisonment. New legislation is badly needed, writes Conor Brady

Nestled at the foot of Tooth Mountain overlooking Kenmare Bay, it's hard to pull oneself away from the hypnotic landscape and re-enter the wrestling match of real life. But Village has thrown down a challenge to its readers to envisage the Ireland of 2005 they would wish to see and it is one that has succeeded in distracting me even in this beguiling place.

If you're not familiar with the band Keane then, suffice to say, they are about as far from being the rock star equivalents of their highly-charged footballing namesake as it is possible to be. Gazing out from the cover of December's issue of Q Magazine, it seems, for all the world, as though the irredeemably dull trio have just been informed that their prize turnips have been commended at a local gardening contest.

The IRA makes up to £30 million a year from legitmiate and illegal businesses in Ireland and the UK. Suzanne Breen reports

Sean O'Tuathail encounters inhospitable terrain but hospitable people on his journey across Europe and through the Middle East

Anywhere but your garden, where its fallen leaves lay in wait for the unsuspecting bare foot in summer, lacerating the soles.

Cock-a-doodle-doo! Next year will either herald a new dawn for the opposition or see the government continuing to rule the roost. Either way, expect plenty of political crowing, not least because 2005 is the year of the Rooster in the Chinese calendar.

In a year that the heavy-hitters didn't quite deliver, Dan Brown's much derided and debunked thriller ruled. Ronan Browne looks back at fiction from 2004