Well, we always knew Guinness was magical but have you noticed that it actually disobeys the laws of physics. The bubbles in a stormy pint of stout actually go down!

Nearly a century has passed since Ireland’s monumental 1916 Easter Uprising took place on the streets of Dublin. Today, the city still bears many of the scars as a result of the fighting between the Irish and British.

One of Ireland’s leading sexual disease experts has claimed priests, judges and politicians are romping with prostitutes on a regular basis.

A new Behavior and Attitudes poll conducted in Ireland has found that the majority of those polled support the option for abortion in cases including rape, foetal abnormality or where the mother’s life could be in danger.

The Irish documentary ‘The Summit’ has won a prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

Nobel Prize for literature winner Seamus Heaney has said there will never be a united Ireland and that Loyalists should be allowed to fly their flag over Belfast City Hall.

From October to December 2012 the number of trips to Ireland from North America increased by 14.2 percent, which is up to 201,300 trips from the same time last year. The Central Statistics Office has just reported the figures.

Couples will be offered the chance to see if they will produce redhead children. The DNA test, which will be available at the “Who Do You Think You Are?” exhibition in London, will show the depth of ancestry that can be read from a simple saliva swab.

Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates has praised Ireland’s efforts to recover from the collapse of the Celtic Tiger – and claimed the Irish economy will bounce back within two to four years.

Hollywood actor Stephen Rea has carried his former wife Dolours Price’s coffin at her Belfast funeral.

The policeman who witnessed the callous murder of detective Adrian Donohoe has vowed to catch his killers.

The killing of an Irish police detective during a credit union hold-up has been called an attack on the Irish state and its police force.

Irish government ministers have admitted to ‘difficulties’ in their bid to renegotiate the terms of the bank bailout deal with the European Central Bank.

Imagine alien economists landing from another planet to assess the state of the Irish economy. (Don’t laugh, for many Irish that is what the last few years have felt like, as troika economists – highly respected and capable but with very different frames of reference to most Irish people – have visited our shores). What would those alien economists say?
                   
The first thing they’d have difficulty understanding is why an island nation of 6.5 million people on the edge of Europe has been split into two separate tax, currency and legal systems.

Dissident Republicans are planning a terrorist attack on the G8 summit in Fermanagh this summer according to security experts with Britain’s MI5.

A valuable hoard of gold coins dating back to almost 400 years have been discovered hidden in soil beneath the floorboards of a pub in Tipperary.

Online crafts company Etsy are among six digital companies that are set to create up to 150 new jobs for Ireland, according to the Herald.

The Chicago Celts for Immigration Reform applauds President Obama for his courageous step forward in declaring his commitment to a comprehensive overhaul of our broken immigration system.

An evil rapist who laughed in a Cork woman’s face and told her he was HIV positive and suffering from Hepatitis C has been jailed for nine years.

The missing property developer found wandering on a country road in Leitrim had the word ‘thief’ engraved into his forehead – and claims he was abducted by the Russian mafia.

The growing problem of teenage mental health and suicide prevention in Irish schools 'is not about going to one person anymore,' Irish Minister of State for Mental Health Kathleen Lynch told the press this week.

Tipperary hurling star Lar Corbett and former All-Stars Brian McGuigan and Ollie Canning are part of a GPA work party workin in  Breezy Point New York this weekend with the support of Aer Lingus to help with the reconstruction of the community’s youth sports facilities destroyed during last year’s hurricane.

People in Ireland have one of the highest cocaine use rates in Europe, according to a new study.

Ireland’s abandoned equine issue has reached crisis level.  With thousands of unwanted and unregulated horses roaming the Isle and being easily targeted by unscrupulous meat processing practitioners, it begs the question: have abandoned Irish horses entered the food chain?  And, more importantly, have those horses contained bute (phenylbutazone)?  Bute causes cancer in humans.

Northern Ireland communities are separated by walls which are better known as the ‘peace walls but according to a recently released Government draft they may be down by the year 2022.

Top Irish news stories:

Irish immigrants, who fled the famine and arrived on US shores, were exceptional savers, according to the most recent issue of the Journal of American History.

A Jerusalem Post columnist has said she has been targeted for vicious  anti-Semitic mail from Ireland after writing about anti-Jewish comments she heard in County Kerry.

Erin Ryan Fitzgerald, from Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, has written a tell-all article on how her boyfriend came out as a woman while she was pregnant with their child.

Irish leader Enda Kenny described Gerry Adam’s apology to the family of murdered Detective Jerry McCabe as “ironic."

A high school in Galway is appealing for information after the discovery of an 18th century sword in the desk of an old employee.

If you want it your way at Burger King, hold the horse. That's the advice angry customers have been giving to the fast food giant who has found itself embroiled in a growing scandal.

A Dublin woman has succeeded in her attempts to get the media to focus on Magdalene Laundries by trending on Twitter days ahead of the publication of a government report into the scandal.

A man suspected of involvement in the murder of Detective Adrian Donohoe has been warned by police that his life is in danger.

Austerity certainly had an impact on Ireland, and the sciences weren’t spared from the influence. As part of austerity measures, Ireland chose to abolish - or absorb into another position - the role of the chief science adviser, a position that had been around since 2005, in late 2012.

ANTRIM

One of the most famous animal kidnapping cases the in the world took place in Ireland thirty years ago this Thursday.

Today's top Irish news stories:

Up to 2,000 children were illegally exported from Magdalene laundries in Ireland to adoptive parents in the U.S., mainly to wealthy families.

A Donegal priest has quit his parish after what he referred to as “bullying” in the form of verbal and physical abuse from his parishioners.

The Irish tycoon who turned up disorientated and disheveled on a remote country road is claiming he was held by a Russian mafia gang.

The remains of King Richard III have been found under a car park in Leicester. Scientists have confirmed the skeleton shows evidence of two fatal head wounds and the body was brutally hacked, presumably by his victors, having died on the battlefield in 1485.

Ryanair has proposed paying $136 million to the Flybe Group to take over almost half of Aer Lingus Group’s short-haul business. The move comes as it seeks to win European Union approval to buy its Irish rival, according to Businessweek.

Dublin headquarters of the Anglo Irish Bank Corp., which has been called the world’s worst bank, may be converted into a coffee shop.

The discovery of traces of pork in halal meat from a County Tyrone processing plan have been described as 'very disturbing' by a leader of Ireland's Muslim community.

A member of the Irish parliament has compared himself to Bill Clinton as he called for the legalization of drugs – after admitting to taking cocaine, ecstasy and acid.

Canadian working visas were snapped up in record time by thousands of hopeful Irish immigrants last week.

A leading Catholic lawyer and commentator has slammed the Pope for publicly shaming Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony over clerical child abuse whilst treating Irish Cardinal Sean Brady in an entirely different matter.

Ireland is in the grip of an arctic storm with snow causing havoc across the country.

Top Irish news stories today: