Looking for a veggie side dish for this year's Thanksgiving dinner? How about spicing up some delicious Brussells sprouts!

Irish coach Marco Tardelli has warned his World Cup hopefuls that they will need to be on full alert for the two legs of their playoff against France.

Wolves and former Irish national team manager Mick McCarthy believes Giovanni Trapattoni can inspire his old Ireland team to the World Cup finals in the forthcoming playoffs against France.

U2 has confirmed its tour dates for 2010. The fantastic foursome will kick off the 2010 tour on June 6 in Anaheim, California.

News bits from around the 32 counties in Ireland.

Irish mom Kathleen Meehan has spent the past 12 months sitting by her phone in Queens waiting for her oldest child, Cathy, 49, to call her. She left the country a year ago, and hasn’t been heard from since.

Irish chat show host Pat Kenny, host of the "Late Late Show," retired last Friday night and received one heck of a going away gift – an appearance by U2. The band chatted about any number of topics, including, naturally, the upcoming tour which they intend to be groundbreaking in every way.

Maggie Revis, native to Putnam Valley, New York, took to the stage in Belgium this past winter for her debut as the female lead dancer in Michael Flatley’s "The Lord of the Dance." Born into a family of competitve dancers, Maggie began her dance career at the age of three and secured her first win at the Mid-Atlantic American Oireachtas (Regional) Dance Competition in Philadelphia by the age of six.

The modern Ryan families of Ireland derive from two separate roots. The main one is from Maelruain, a 9th century chieftain whose descendants took the name O’Maelruain.

Luka Bloom returns to the U.S. in a few weeks to support his new CD, “Eleven Songs.”

A new survey has found that the Irish are among the happiest in Europe

Peter Berresford Ellis (who writes popular mysteries under the name Peter Tremayne) has written quite a useful new history. "The Celts: A History" explains that by around the third century B.C.

HOT Press magazine in Ireland is reporting that Van Morrison will join Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones on their European tour. Van the Man has been confirmed to open for the aging stadium rockers on the opening date of their 2007 world tour, Tuesday, June 5 in Werchter, Belgium. He'll also be playing at Goffret Park in Nijimegen, Holland on Friday, June 8.

Black Irish, a new drama about a 15-year-old Irish American boy growing up in the shadow of his emotionally remote father and his deeply troubled family, opens in New York and Boston cinemas this week. CAHIR O'DOHERTY talks to the actors, the writer and director.

BLACK Irish, a Boston-based coming of age drama starring Brendan Gleeson and rising young star Michael Angarano, concerns the volatile relationship between a teenage boy and his spectacularly dysfunctional Irish American family.

THE Oscar winning, Tony Award nominated Irish/ English writer Martin McDonagh has lots to look forward to in the New Year.

His first full-length film, In Bruges, with an all-star cast helmed by Colin Farrell, Ralph Fiennes, Brendan Gleeson and Ciaran Hinds, will have its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 17.

The film was selected to open Sundance, one of the world's most prestigious film festivals, so hopes are obviously high that McDonagh's work will wow the first nighters and generate all kinds of positive buzz.

For Terence Mulligan, founder of the Craic Fest, the annual New York Irish film and music bash, his work has been a 10-year labor of love, and this year's lineup is the most ambitious yet. CAHIR O' DOHERTY asks Mulligan what festival-goers can expect this time around.

TEN years ago Terence Mulligan, the founding producer of the annual Craic Festival, was checking out the latest Irish films in Dublin when he wondered what would happen if he showcased the ones that had impressed him most in a big headline event in New York City?

That simple question, he recalls, heralded the birth of the annual event now commonly known as the Craic Fest.

Colin Farrell lets his comic chops loose this week in his new film In Bruges, written and directed by Oscar winner Martin McDonagh. CAHIR O'DOHERTY spoke to Farrell and McDonagh about the project.

IN Bruges, the killingly funny debut full-length film by Oscar and Tony winning writer and director Martin McDonagh, opens on Friday, February 8.

This Wednesday June 25 film director Paul Larkin will accept the Best International Director of a Film award at the prestigious New York Film and Video Festival at the Times Square Arts Center. Walking up the red carpet he'll have time to reflect on the unlikely route his documentary film has taken to success. Hard experience has given him some strong career advice for all budding directors: "Go out and buy a hard hat and keep both chips on your shoulders for balance.

MARK Boyle set out on a well-publicized 7,500 mile walk to India "just for the love of it" and to prove it could be done without carrying money. But he was just a month and 300 miles into the venture when hunger and a less-than-friendly welcome from the French forced him to turn back at Calais, France.Still, undeterred by a barrage of negative publicity in the UK when he turned back, the Co.

AN Irish priest in South Dakota has been told he must leave the country by July 1 because he is undocumented. He has served a diocese in Sioux Falls community for 10 years.Father Cathal Gallagher, 58 and from Gweedore, Co.

Up to 6,000 jobs are under threat and about 100,000 pigs are being destroyed in the biggest crisis in Ireland's €7 billion food industry since mad cow disease, peaked in 2001, decimating the cattle industry.

Pork products across the country were recalled and around the world Irish bacon and other pig meats were swept off supermarket shelves in countries stretching from Britain to China.

Also on Tuesday, tests on some cattle that ate the toxic feed came up positive, but the Department of Agriculture said there was no public health risk and the beef would continue to be sold to the public.

A little bit of Ireland in the form of tantalizing chocolate has hit the streets of New York, just in time for the holidays.

Famous Irish chocolatiers Lily O'Briens is introducing their rich and luxurious selection of fine Belgian chocolates to sweet-toothed New Yorkers at Bryant Park now through December 28.

Located under the Christmas tree in Bryant Park on 42nd Street, the Lily O'Briens chocolate boutique is abuzz, on a daily basis, with tourists from all corners of the world sampling and subsequently purchasing a box of O'Briens chocolates for a loved one back home, or possibly for themselves.

Let's take a look at West Virginia-the home of Virginia ham. Ham can either be dry-cured or wet-cured. A dry-cured ham has been rubbed in a mixture containing salt and a variety of other ingredients (most usually some proportion of sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite), Sugar is common in many dry cures in the United States.

CELTIC manager Gordon Strachan was defiant in defeat in the wake of his team's 1-0 Champions League loss to Villareal in Spain last week. The Bhoys have now taken only one point from a possible 48 away from home in the group stages of the competition and have only one point going to Manchester United for their next game.

"It was the most comfortable I've been away from home since I came here," stressed Strachan.

YOUNG Irish striker Cillian Sheridan wants to start next week's Champions League fixture against Manchester United after scoring on his full debut for Celtic in Saturday's 4-2 over Hibs at Parkhead. Sheridan figured as a sub at Old Trafford last week but partnered Scott McDonald against Hibs when he was on the scoresheet along with Stephen McManus, Glenn Loovens and Scott Brown.

"The challenge is to start against Manchester United now," said Sheridan after his first start in the Scottish League.

There was a music industry report published around Christmas which explained the rapid decline of the box set, the ornately packaged collection that usually made such a great stocking stuffer.

Apparently, consumers were wary of paying $15 for one CD, never mind $60 for a bushel of them, fancy booklets and packaging be damned. Though the report was bleak for the music business, the analyst predicted that the new trend in back catalog marketing would be smaller "deluxe" re-issues that would include rarities, remixes and b-sides that sit alongside the tracks on the original album.