And so it is that a small church on the east side of Manhattan, a famine church built by Irish shipwrights, is in danger of being knocked to the ground.

The Chinese government has announced it will monitor the blogs of its citizens. The government of the second largest population of Internet users had previously displayed its suspicion of the Internet when it forced search engines like Google to censor politically-sensitive content, and this measure is another step in its effort to "purify the environment of internet and mobile communication networks". The feasibility of the plan is questionable though, as reportedly 100,000 blogs are created in China daily.

I phoned the aunt just now and asked about Tom McGurk. She laughed awkwardly and said it was "nothing". I asked had the memory of McGurk caused her three divorces and she laughed even more awkwardly. She remembered McGurk had very big feet. The last time she saw him he was making a collection after a civil rights demonstration/riot in Newry, to pay for damage to police tenders that had been thrown in the canal. She thought this was sweet. Rodney Rice was there the same day, she says. She didn't fancy Rodney, she says. My aunt begged me not to reveal her name. I forebear, for now.

Hot on the heels of their prolonged attack on the legacy of 1916, Ireland's 'revisionist' political commentators turned their attention to the battle of the Somme. Editorials in both the Irish Times and the Sunday Independent deplored the "amnesia" which has surrounded this history of Irish sacrifice. The ideological positions of some commentators towards the two conflicts required them to rapidly invert their values.

According to the BBC news on 10 September last year, the cost of policing the controversial Orange parade to the Whiterock Loyal Orange Lodge on the Springfield Road in west Belfast and the subsequent rioting cost £3m sterling. The rioting by members of the 'loyal' orders lasted for days after an Orange Order parade was barred from going through security gates into an area of the Springfield Road which is almost entirely Catholic. Not surprisingly these residents resent the sectarian abuse heaped on them by some elements associated with these parades.

Darina Allen on the Slow Food movement, where long family meals and artisan products are sacred

Charity Queens squints through the flashing cameras at Ireland's most generous fashionistas, while Townlands takes a look at the growing popularity of cricket

A lunchtime in Dublin can be spent falling in love or just watching others do it, says Colin Murphy

The Rossport Five have dismissed as "pure propaganda" a front page story in the Sunday Times on 25 July claiming that they have "split", with Brendan Philbin, one of the five, supposedly breaking away from the other four.

Billy Leahy on Camilo José Vergara's exhibition at the Gallery of Photography: a series of images that track, without emotion or commentary, urban change in America