The selection of Samantha Power as President Obama’s next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations caps a remarkable career to date for the young Irish emigrant.

Ireland’s rugby team is set to face off against the American rugby team The Eagles this June in Houston, TX. This will be the third time the two teams have met.

Boston College: Enda Kenny, Ireland’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister), will give the Commencement Address to Boston College’s 4,400 graduates at Alumni Stadium this morning.
 
In the three years since coming to power, Kenny has looked to build a “Republic of laws,” a Republic that many Irish expatriates in the US—myself included—identify with because it closely mirrors the society in which we now live, a society where the letter of the law rather than the unspoken assumption of a doctrinaire moral code determines social policy.
 
Savita Halappanavar is a victim of that moral code and social policy. Mrs. Halappanavar died of sepsis, an infection brought on by the miscarriage of her seventeen-week pregnancy, in a Galway hospital on 28th October 2012. Her grieving husband described the medical treatment meted out to his wife as “horrendous, barbaric and inhumane.” To read the “Timeline” of his wife’s eight-day ordeal, based on evidence presented at the week-long official inquest, induces shame and anger. A young healthy woman fell victim to a lack of political will.
 
Enda Kenny outlined his vision for a very different Ireland during a Dáil Éireann speech in July 2011 when responding to the publication of the Cloyne Report. Like earlier reports—Murphy, Ryan, and Ferns—Cloyne echoed the well established narrative of clerical child sex abuse and confirmed the Catholic hierarchy’s failure to report such abuse to the civic authorities. The Bishop in question observed the dictates of the Vatican rather than the law of the land.
 
But Cloyne was of a different order too. It detailed how the Vatican deliberately organized to frustrate an Irish State-commissioned inquiry into clerical child sex abuse as recently as 2009. In an unprecedented move, Mr. Kenny, a devout Catholic, entered the Dáil chamber, the seat of political power in Ireland, and called the Vatican to account. And, he declared the primacy of the State’s standards, not those of the Catholic Church, in all matters related to the protection of Ireland’s children.
 
The “Cloyne speech” represents a watershed moment because it encapsulates a new vision for the nation:

The UK National Anthem will not be sang in the May 4th decider between Cliftonville and Glentoran at Windsor Park. 

Rhino heads and horns were stolen from a National Museum of Ireland warehouse late on Wednesday night in Swords, Dublin.

A 66/1 11-year-old rank outsider Auroras Encore won Britain’s most famous horse race the Grand National at Aintree outside Liverpool on Saturday.

The English Grand National steeplechase will never be able to escape attacks from animal rights groups with an average close to two deaths a year due to injuries during the famed race.  Katie Walsh, the closet woman jockey to winning the Grand National finishing 3rd last year, defended the race explaining horse casualties are bound to happen.

The streaking Fighting Irish led by AP All-American senior captain point guard Skylar Diggins stay alive in the NCAA tournament with last nights win over the Duke Blue Devils. Coach Muffet McGraw will now hope her team can capture another win in their soon to be fourth matchup this season with Big East rival UConn. 

What is it about the Irish and sex? Pre-Christian Irish attitudes to sex were decidedly more liberal than in recent times, where Cupid was saddled with a chastity belt by an outwardly pious nation. But have times changed? You be the judge. Here are 10 surprising facts about the Irish and sex: