In The News

At just 18 committed Christian and college drop out Charlie Kirk established Turning Point USA, an organisation with a mission to spread conservative ideals at liberal-leaning US universities.

On Wednesday, now aged 31 and a father of two young children, Kirk was once again at a university campus to debate and spread his socially conservative viewpoint.

A roof-top sniper shot him dead in what is being viewed as a politically moti...

An escalating series of threats made to Tánaiste Simon Harris in recent weeks went from an online threat to kidnap his children to co-ordinated bomb warnings on his Wicklow home.

Politicians say online trolling and verbal abuse now goes with the territory; dealing with it is part of the job.

Some have also had to face threats to their families with those against Harris being the latest.

It has prompted a debate about the g...

Earlier this year, US president Donald Trump sent shock waves across America’s medical and scientific community by appointing Robert F Kennedy jnr, one of America’s most prominent vaccine-sceptics, as secretary of health and human services.

Since then, the controversial health secretary has caused large upheaval within America’s public health system, making appointments and changing vaccine policies which impact the lives of mil...

Tom Phillips, a fugitive father who spent four years hiding in New Zealand’s remote wilderness with his three children was shot dead on Monday by police probing an armed burglary. The children were found unharmed. But why did Phillips disappear in the first place, and how did he manage to evade capture for so long? New Zealand journalist Tony Wall tells the story to Bernice Harrison. 

Produced by Andrew McNair. 

Could new technology help to finally reveal who killed Sophie Toscan du Plantier? 

After prime suspect Ian Bailey’s death last year, Sophie's uncle Jean-Pierre Gazeau said their family would never get the truth. 

But now a Garda cold case team has used new technology, called M-Vac, to harvest DNA from items recovered at the West Cork crime scene.

We talk to Jared Bradley, the man behind M-Vac, about how it h...

Nearly half of everyone watching Irish TV on Sunday evening tuned in for the scheming, lying and game-playing on The Traitors Ireland. It’s a hit.

RTÉ has joined more than 30 broadcasters worldwide in making a version of the Dutch format which sees players strategising, “killing”, banishing and lying – all to win a cash prize.

It is hosted brilliantly with more than hint of theatricality by Cork actor Siobhán McSweeney, who c...

Gardaí are attempting to unravel several conflicting witness accounts of what happened to a boy who went missing four years ago and is feared dead.

Searches for the child’s remains in an area of ground in north Dublin are expected to continue for several more days.

The boy spent about a year in state care before returning to his family in 2020, with Tusla confirming it had no contact with the child between 2020 and last ...

This week, Britain’s Labour Party returned to Westminster from a summer recess defined by anti-migrant protests, and during which, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK dominated the news agenda.

British prime minister Keir Starmer resumed business in parliament by announcing a small reshuffle of his Downing Street team. However, the Labour leader is still facing an array of domestic and foreign policy conundrums, most notably Farage’s rapid...

Kathleen Folbigg was convicted over the deaths of her four babies in 2003 in a case that shocked Australia.

In 2023 a judicial review found that the babies may have died of a genetic condition and having served nearly two decades in prison she was freed.

Her case is now regarded as one of Australia’s greatest miscarriages of justice.

In the second episode on the Katheleen Follbig case, McDermot explains how a scientific br...

Kathleen Folbigg was convicted over the deaths of her four babies in 2003 in a case that shocked Australia.

The first three were treated as cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) but when Laura died, the authorities looked to Meadow’s Law and arrested the grieving mother.

That controversial theory held that “one sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder until proved otherwise”.

She alway...

Brazilian couple Gil Rudge (39) and Natalia Bonadia (36) rented a room in a shared apartment from Eduardo Gonzaga’s company, Leevin Ireland.

All was fine until their landlord advised them that unless they accepted a third person to share their bedroom their rent would have to double.

Janiedson da Silva dos Santos was sharing a house with eight others – students rented a bed, not a room – until Leevin Ireland abruptly issued h...

Despite all the talk over the summer, the names that came and went, the speculation and supposition – there is still only one name confirmed for the presidential race.

Catherine Connolly, who launched her candidacy early with the support of Labour, the Soc Dems and others will be on the ballot paper.

She will be joined by other presidential hopefuls – that much is certain – but who?

Today in The Irish Times Pat Leahy repor...

This podcast was first published in June 2025.

The use of so-called 'dodgy box' technology to illegally stream television is widespread. Last week Mary Hannigan reported on the impact dodgy boxes are having on Irish sports broadcasters like Clubber, LOITV and GAA+.

“I said it before, it’s no different to going in to your local shop, picking up a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk and just walking out the door without paying,...

In the space of a few short years, generative AI has exploded into our daily lives, impacting the way we learn, work and understand the world around us.

Open AI, the American artificial intelligence company cofounded by Sam Altman and Elon Musk in 2015 which runs ChatGPT, claims its non-profit “mission” is to ensure these systems “benefit all of humanity”.

And while the launch of ChatGPT has undoubtedly lightened the workload...

For years the Irish Republican Brotherhood – the IRB – was remembered annually in a curious ceremony at Dublin’s Mansion House when its self-styled president Billy McGuire conducted a ritual that involved turning a golden harp to reaffirm the sovereignty of Ireland.

The existence of an IRB will come as a surprise to historians who consider that the secret-oath-bound society of the same name was disbanded more than 100 years ago.

...

The arrest of more than 500 people at a Palestine Action rally in London on August 9th did more than raise the profile of the little-known anti-war action group: it raised questions about the fundamental right of British people to engage in peaceful protest, and exactly what constitutes a terrorist organisation in the eyes of the government.

The arrests were on foot of a ban in July under UK terrorism legislation which put the g...

This episode was originally published in June 2025.

Tattle Life is a gossip site that many will have never heard of until a landmark defamation trial in Belfast in June 2025.

Donna and Neil Sands bought a defamation case against the site – and won. They were each awarded £150,000 (€176,000) in damages, with the court saying their costs should also be covered.

The married couple who live in Northern Ireland said that cruel...

In the 12 months leading up to April 2024, 30,000 Irish citizens who had been living abroad returned to Ireland. A similar number of Irish emigrants returned to Irish shores the previous year, in the 12 months leading up to April 2023.

Who are these people, why are they coming home and what do they think of the Ireland they've returned to?

Today, on the In the News podcast, we speak to three Irish people who recently returne...

The Rose of Tralee is one of the biggest events in Ireland’s cultural calendar.

It pumps millions of euro into the local economy and pulls in well over half a million viewers; no mean feat in an age of dwindling linear TV viewership.

Almost 30 years of being lampooned as a ‘Lovely Girls’ competition thanks to that Father Ted episode has seen its popularity undimmed.

Albeit only relatively recently, it has evolved to permit...