News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

Animal groups have erupted in fury over a planned turkey throw in Ireland. Fermanagh hotel owner Joe Mahon plans to throw 50 live turkeys from the top of a 100-foot clock tower to see if they can fly.

The draw for the 2010 All Ireland Football Championships was made Thursday night, and New York will entertain Galway, while champions Kerry start their defense against Tipperary.

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

Ireland's inland waterways, with that magical chemistry of water, nature and fresh air, are a beautiful way to see the country. Unlike sailing on the sea, the scenery is constantly changing and there is so much to see that you might just spend all your vacation on board!

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

Welcome to Ireland’s revitalized North and Northwest! Even the hip Lonely Planet Bluelist proclaims Northern Ireland as the hot new destination, and cites Belfast as one of the top cities on the rise.

The father of a Belfast man who was murdered by a Loyalist paramilitary group in 1997 has secured his plea to have a U.S. congressional hearing into his son’s murder next month.

Belfast, Northern Ireland’s most populous city, offers the buzz and vibrancy of a capital city while being a gateway to the rural retreat of Northern Ireland.

An important new tool in tracing your Irish family history has been released in Ireland. The National Library has released a searchable online database for the April 1911 family census for the entire 32 counties.

Two of Donegal’s most prominent councilors are working on a proposal to erect a memorial to Lord Louis Mountbatten, who was killed by the IRA thirty years ago this

News from the 32: Antrim, Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Cork, Derry, Donegal, Down, Dublin, Fermanagh, Galway, Kerry, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Leitrim, Limerick, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath, Wexford, Wicklow

For a quick easy snack (or if you make a lot of them it turns into a meal), what about some wonderful Irish smoked salmon on top of a potato pancake, or a boxty, as we Irish call it?

The latest news from around the country

Irish America Magazine columnist Edythe Preet has fond memories of her father’s favorite foods. Here's a recipe for the Irishman's favorite dessert, Strawberry Shortcake.

Rory McIlroy won the inaugural Lough Erne challenge against Padraig Harrington on Wednesday, posting a score of four under par and beating his compatriot by two strokes.

A gutsy performance from Cavan saw them beat a surprisingly awful Fermanagh team in damp conditions in Breffni Park on Saturday evening.

The National Archives of Ireland digitized online 1911 Irish census has added five more counties to its collection. Joining Antrim, Down, Dublin and Kerry are Cork, Donegal, Galway, Offaly and Wexford.

An important suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was the main suspect in at least one rape and two attempted rapes in Ireland. Raymond Hewlett, who used Ireland as a hide-out when his name was linked to similar cases in Britain, is also the prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

The Ulster Championship stumbled into action with a somewhat unexpected win for Fermanagh over a misfiring Down side at Brewster Park, while Louth needed to use all their guile and experience to get past Carlow in Leinster.

The father of a young man who was murdered in 1997 by a Loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), is in the U.S. this week to seek “truth and justice” for his son.

To be sure, in terms of bizarre place names, Ireland can’t match its British neighbor: It’s hard to compete with, say, Butt Hole Road, Crapstone, Ugley, East Breast, and Penistone. But...

Terror groups in Northern Ireland are trying to recruit teenagers, some as young as 13, for their violent campaign to unify Ireland.

Not so long ago, "Orange" parades in Northern Ireland were a byword for bigotry. Times have changed, however - and for the better.

The renaissance of Irish traditional music in New York has for the past decade been centered in the Rockland County suburb of Pearl River.  Known primarily for its huge annual

The inaugural Lough Erne Challenge will take place on July 22 this year between Irish golfing superstars Padraig Harrington and Rory Mcllroy.

At one time or another, many of us have sketched our family tree, either for a school project or for our own pleasure. But, despite the help of my grandparents, I could only trace back to my great great-grandparents’ generation. The rest seemed lost to history or accessible only to professional genealogists. However, the Internet has opened up a whole new world to the amateur

There are lists and there are lists! Some lists tell you who the richest people in the U.S. are and some lists tell you who the richest people in Ireland are. We've done some serious research and now we can reveal the list of the richest global Irish! We're gambling that you'll be as surprised as we were with the results!

Take a week out to trace St. Patrick’s footsteps and explore Ireland’s Christian tradition. You might not be able to drive the snakes out of the country, but you can at least learn about the man, the myth and Ireland’s religious past.

Ireland's inland waterways, with that magical chemistry of water, nature and fresh air, are a beautiful way to see the country. Unlike sailing on the sea, the scenery is constantly changing and there is so much to see that you might just spend all your vacation on board!

Excellent bike adventures (though perhaps not of the “Bill & Ted” variety) are all over Ireland waiting to be explored by cyclists or anybody looking to hop on a bike and see some great sites.

Another excellent example of local history is "The Stars of Ballymenone" by Henry Glassie, College Professor of Folklore at Indiana University and the author of previous books such as "Passing the Time in Ballymenone," "Turkish Traditional Art Today," "The Potter's Art" and "Vernacular Architecture." This time around, Glassie investigates the farming community of Ballymenone, in County Fermanagh, and how the local people endured during the hardest days of The Troubles. This is journalism-meets-sociology and Glassie comes up with some fascinating stuff.

From the Mountains of Mourne to the Giant's Causeways, and Fermanagh's lake district, Northern Ireland offers rugged mountain peaks and spectacular coastal scenery, and one of the best ways to see it is to take a walking tour. In "Northern Ireland: A Walking Guide," Helen Fairbairn has written a guide to the best routes, from challenging hill walks to shorter woodland and waterside excursions. Routes vary from two-hour strolls to eight-hour upland challenges.

THE news out of Northern Ireland has been getting better, and it is about to get much better as a massive cultural exhibit is about to be launched in the heart of our nation's capital, on the Mall in Washington D.C.

The Smithsonian Institution 2007 Folklife Festival has invited 160 participants from that part of the world to be part of their educational window on our world which spills over to the Mall in this annual celebration that surrounds the July 4th Independence Holiday.

FOR 41 years the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. has found a most extraordinary way to celebrate the birth of America around the various Independence Day rituals that mark the July 4th holiday.

If you think there's no such thing as Irish hip-hop, take yourself off to the first annual Irish Hip-Hop Throwdown in Boston next week. Featuring famous hip-hop acts from both Ireland and the U.S,.

FROM time to time, performance troupes from Ireland offering Irish music and dance organize themselves as a traveling show to say that they toured America.

A Leitrim-based group called The Emerald Revellers is in our midst at the moment. The 34 members hail from the north west of Ireland with Leitrim the majority county but Sligo, Fermanagh, Cavan and Longford are also represented and even some musicians from London (but from Leitrim and Galway stock).

"Death and Nightingales" by Eugene McCabe, set in 1880s Fermanagh, boils decades of religious and political strife into a single day as experienced by a woman. ($23.

If you haven't been to Ireland yet, "The Museums of Ireland: A Celebration" is a great introduction to nearly 80 galleries and museums all over the island. Perhaps most interesting about this book is that it includes information about smaller facilities such as the Sheelin Irish Lace Museum in Fermanagh and the Irish Agricultural Museum in Wexford. Of course, the big names such as the National Gallery, The Hugh Lane Gallery and Hunt Museum are also included in this lavishly illustrated, informative book.

NORTHERN Ireland First Minister Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness have denied that they were forced to appoint four victims' commissioners because they could not agree on a single candidate.There was surprise last weekend when it emerged that Paisley and McGuinness intended to appoint four people to work as the North's victims' commissioners in place of the previous sole position.Political opponents had accused Paisley and McGuinness of "chickening out" by picking multiple commissioners who will be acceptable to all sides.

EFFORTS to secure agreement on future policing and justice structures in Northern Ireland appear to have taken a significant step forward this week, with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) supporting a former IRA leader's decision to join a local policing board. For almost a decade the DUP insisted that it would not accept former paramilitary prisoners becoming members of local district policing boards.In 2002 DUP leader Ian Paisley warned that any attempt to allow former paramilitary prisoners to join policing boards was "obnoxious" and would force Unionists to resign their seats in protest.

THE INLA has been blamed for murdering a young Catholic man in Derry.Emmett Shiels (22) was shot by a group of masked men on the Creggan estate in Derry in the early hours of Tuesday morning.The victim, who was working as a pizza delivery man, had intervened when a friend was confronted by a gang of armed and masked men believed to be from the INLA.

DISSIDENT Republicans are judged more of a threat to Britain than Islamic terror groups, according to senior intelligence chiefs.Last weekend it was claimed that MI5 surveillance experts had determined that the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA currently pose a bigger danger to the British state than Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda.It is understood that two-thirds of all current MI5 wire taps and other covert surveillance is geared towards tracking the activities of dissident Republicans.

POLICE Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chiefs have expressed concern after Semtex explosives were used in a dissident Republican rocket attack against police officers in the North.On Tuesday the dissident Republican group the Continuity IRA claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on police officers in the Fermanagh town of Lisnaskea.Two officers were treated for shock while a third was treated for minor injuries after the device was fired at their foot patrol late on Saturday night.

Protestants living along the border have still not come to terms with the election of Bobby Sands as an MP for the area, nearly three decades later.

A Church of Ireland report entitled "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing" interviewed Protestants living along the border in Fermanagh and Tyrone. The report concluded that in many cases Protestant families felt that the IRA had attempted to ethnically cleanse them from the border counties, and that their futures remain uncertain even today.

Sinn Fein has rejected Unionist claims that mainstream Republicans are giving support to dissident bombers.

On Monday police discovered a bomb planted by dissident Republicans at Newtownbutler near the border in Co. Fermanagh.

The Labor Party's finance spokesperson Joan Burton has spearheaded calls for an inquiry into insurance regulations breaches that cost Ireland's richest man, Sean Quinn, and Quinn Insurance, one of many companies he heads, €3.45 million.

Quinn stepped down last week as chairman of the company after it was fined €3.

The ongoing political stalemate between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is being exploited by dissident Republicans, whose killing power is now at an all time high, it has been warned.

This week the IMC, the organization charged with monitoring the activities of Northern Ireland's paramilitary groups, warned that the threat from dissident Republicans was at its highest level since 2003.

"From May to the end of the period under review there was a more concentrated period of attacks that at any time since we started to report on them four and a half years ago," explained IMC commissioner Joe Brosnan.

Leitrim 1-16

Four Provinces 0-8

THE rematch of last year's county senior final was a mismatch as Leitrim dominated and ran out easy winners on the strength of a 1-10 to 0-3 point scoring display in the second half.

Four Provinces opened the game with two points from Ciaran Donnelly, as he chipped over a free when Paul Walsh was fouled, and then floated a nice score over from play.

For the next 10 minutes, however, the game wavered back and forth, with both sides guilty of a host of kicking mistakes.