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My marathon highs and lows

HIGHLIGHTS 1. Sheltering in City Hall with marathon veteran from New York Fr Brian Jordan — chaplain to the trade unions of the Big Apple — before the 9am start while thousands were getting drenched outside waiting for the Lord Mayor Niall Óg to sound the starting horn (gun for off apparently decommissioned).

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Dome highlights prove a low point

HOPEFULLY by Christmas the techies in Belfast City Council will have worked out a way to create a highlights package from the monthly Council meetings (now broadcast live on the web). And who would enjoy such a surprise from Santa? Only the simple-minded and those without a social life, some of you might say, but anyone who loves panto would also get a kick out of the contributions from unionist hold-outs Ruth Patterson and Brian Kingston, both DUP.

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We’ve come a very long way since the Ardscoil

I ALWAYS allow myself a little holiday in the heart when I attend an Irish language event in the Dome of Delight — as I did on Tuesday evening. That’s partly because I was thrown out after ten minutes of my first-ever meeting in City Hall back in the eighties because I spoke Erse, and that’s partly because it’s a thrill to witness the strength and vibrancy of today’s Irish language movement.

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How New Brunswick swept away old problems

Driving the success of the town has been medical giant Johnson and Johnson, which has its global headquarters in New Brunswick. After the Hungarian uprising of 1956, J&J promised that it would provide employment to anyone who could make it out of the communist state…

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How the suffering of children bridges the generations

If a book can be a lifeline then the greatest book about addiction and its crushing effect on families must be Breaking Night, an unforgettable memoir of life in a Bronx home where both parents are hopeless crack addicts.

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How children’s suffering bridges the generations

If a book can be a lifeline then the greatest book about addiction and its crushing effect on families must be Breaking Night, an unforgettable memoir of life in a Bronx home where both parents are hopeless crack addicts.

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Lock us up and swallow the key!

I was in Donegal at the weekend and I asked a man how he planned to vote in the south’s up-coming referendum. “Well,” he told me, “ if Sinn Féin say no about something, I say yes”.

Big man of GAA celebrates in style

Veni, Vidi, Vinci . I came, I saw, I conquered, was the powerful message sent back to Rome by Julius Caesar when he won a war in Zela (currently known as Zile in Turkey. After spending two days with the Gaels of Glengormley, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh might well have sent a similar message back to headquarters. Throughout the two days he won the hearts of all who met him as he demonstrated his love and passion for the Irish language and Gaelic games.

That’s not the way to do it as summer nears

THERE’S nothing funnier for children to watch than a long-suffering wife getting battered with a cudgel by a short-tempered violent husband – or so you’d think if you watched a seaside Punch and Judy show.

Blues make it a double

Linfield replicated their end of season celebrations from 12 months ago as they lifted their second trophy in the space of a week, defeating Crusaders 4-1 in Saturday’s Irish Cup final.

My marathon highs and lows

HIGHLIGHTS 1. Sheltering in City Hall with marathon veteran from New York Fr Brian Jordan — chaplain to the trade unions of the Big Apple — before the 9am start while thousands were getting drenched outside waiting for the Lord Mayor Niall Óg to sound the starting horn (gun for off apparently decommissioned).

Who calls the shots in Europe?

I enjoy elections. I enjoy them so much, I was delighted when the Fianna Fáil wheeze of introducing electronic voting machines backfired, leaving them (and the taxpayer, of course) with machinery that couldn’t be used and cost a packet to store.