An overweight Irish woman, fed up with her full figure, lost weight and then came to a New York plastic surgeon to put the finishing touches on her new self.

Five swine flu victims have died in the Irish Republic since cases of the illness emerged in May.

The family of Michael O'Dwyer, the Irishman shot dead by police in Bolivia in April, are calling for an International investigation into the death of their loved one.

Ronan Keating and the rest of the surviving members of Irish boy band Boyzone will bring Stephen Gately’s body home to Ireland, it was confirmed today.

Boyzone member Stephen Gately’s funeral will take place in Dublin on Saturday, and his famous friends are expected to fly into Ireland to pay their respects.

Spanish authorities now say a mystery heart problem killed former Boyzone star Stephen Gately. Gately, who died on vacation in Majorca at the weekend, died from pulmonary oedema, a build-up of fluid on the lungs.

A fundraiser will be held for the son and granddaughter of a Co. Kerry couple living in Massachusetts at the Kerry Hall in Yonkers on Saturday, October 18. Tena and Jimmy Maunsell have five children, all living beside them in Medford, Massachusetts. The Maunsells, who have worked hard through the years to provide for their children, have a daughter who was born with cystic fibrosis and is currently rejecting a double lung transplant she received many years ago.

Big-hearted Irish actor Colin Farrell will headline an event in Chicago this weekend to help raise money for children with Angelman Syndrome. Farrell's son James, who celebrated his sixth birthday in September, was born with Angelman Syndrome and will need lifelong care. Farrell has said he is honored to be helping out the gala event which will take place at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

Colin Farrell’s new movie “Triage” will open this year’s Rome International Film Festival (RIFF) on October 15.

An American tourist died after falling on Skellig Michael in County Kerry on Sunday. The 57-year-old woman fell while walking with her husband on the island.

A 21-year-old Irish woman has died from swine flu while on holiday in Spain. Richie, a hairdresser, from the Four Winds area of south Belfast, died after becoming ill on holiday. She had been diagnosed with pneumonia and swine

Rose McGowan has revealed that part of her elbow had to be taken out after she suffered from nerve damage after performing stunts for her upcoming film “Red Sonja.”

She may have a bold, in-your-face sense of humor, but Irish-American comedian Kathy Griffin wasn’t always so confident. When Griffin began her career in L.A., she was extremely insecure about her body, and went to great extremes to obtain the thin, perfectly sculpted Hollywood look.

Reports have surfaced that Colin Farrell is expecting his second child with girlfriend Alicja Bachleda-Curus. The 26-year-old Polish actress, who co-stars with Farrell in the upcoming Neil Jordan-directed Irish film “Ondine,” was photographed at an airport sporting a large baby bump.

The town of Carrick-on-Shannon was left reeling in shock after the suicide of a retired detectvie at the local station on Saturday.

Irish doctors may hold the key to early diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. An early diagnosis could help stave off the debilitating effects of the disease. Irish researchers were able to correctly identify 95 percent of 345 people who had progressed from mild cognitive impairment to early Alzheimer's.

Irish kids sure are growing up fast. A new Irish study has found that almost half of nine-year-old children in Ireland own their own cell phones and have a TV in their bedrooms.

Pfizer is upping its stake in Ireland with a

Johnson & Johnson has bought all of Elan’s Assets in their Alzheimer's Immunotherapy Program for $1 billion and will receive 18.4 per cent of company shares as part of the deal. Johnson &Johnson will also pump $500 million into to a new company to continue the development of the Elan’s drug bapineuzumab, which combats the spread of Alzheimer's.

Ireland’s relative lack of immigration, good health care and pure gene pool has rendered its people a great test study for degenerative brand disorders.

Robbie Keane, Shay Given, Caleb Folan and Richard Dunne will all be fit to face Bulgaria on Saturday, according to Ireland assistant Marco Tardelli.

The family of an Irish woman who died from complications from cosmetic surgery in New York has won the right to sue a second doctor responsible for administering the operation. The family of Kay Cregan, 42, who died on St. Patrick's Day in 2005 after undergoing face-lift surgery at the offices of Dr. Michael Sachs, has already sued Sachs and nurse Susan Alonzo-Francisco in a multi-million dollar suit. Now New York’s Supreme Court has ruled that the family may sue anesthesiologist Dr. Madhavrao Subbarao as well.

Galway is set for a jobs boost as a U.S. company is set to move 240 jobs from California to the western Irish

L.A.’s plastic surgeons say that the “Irish” look is in. And Irish noses and porcelain skin are all the rage in Hollywood and the fashion world.

It raised a few eyebrows – and heaven knows what else – when pharmaceutical giant Pfizer sent “Viagra boxers” to family doctors in Ireland. The underwear, branded with the Pfizer logo, was sent out to doctors to mark the 10th anniversary of the sale of Viagra in Ireland.

Newcastle United's new manager Alan Shearer is concentrating on keeping his team in the Premier League.

Transcripts have been released of the 911 call made while transporting Natasha Richardson to the hospital almost four hours after her fateful skiing accident in Canada. The actress' vital signs were normal during the 4

You've probably been reading reports about the British reality TV star Jade Goody, who’s dying of advanced cervical cancer at the age of 27.  Goody is a massive star in the

In preparation for an upcoming film role, Colin Farrell toured Bosnia last weekend, and though he wasn't greeted by sniper fire (sorry, Hillary!) the Irish actor was nonetheless "sickened" by some of the scenes he witnessed.

The brother-in-law of the New York Department of Records commissioner, Brian Andersson recently had an emotional meeting with the mother of a young man whose heart is now beating inside his chest after a transplant last November. James O'Hea, whose sister, MaryAnn, is married to the very active Irish American Andersson, received the heart of 25-year-old Dennis Malloosseril on November 24. Malloosseril was shot and killed at St.

The Irish mother of a severely epileptic boy who has been living in Chicago with her son since 2007 wants to go back home but is unable to leave the U.S. for fear her son will die back in Northern Ireland due to the lack of basic medical services he requires.

A man jailed for life for the murder of the drug-addicted daughter of top heart surgeon Maurice Neligan was only at liberty at the time of the crime because a judge suspended a two-year prison sentence for a previous knife attack that left a Slovakian-born barman fighting for his life. Brian McBarron, 26, pleaded guilty to stabbing his 31-year-old girlfriend Sara Neligan in June, 2007, at an apartment they shared in central Dublin. His only explanation to cops for the frenzied attack, in which Sara's throat was cut and she suffered several stab wounds, was that he intended taking his own life and he wanted to take her with him.

There has been furious reaction to the revelation that disgraced obstetrician Dr. Michael Neary has collected more than $900,000 since his enforced early retirement nine years ago.

Details of his pension of more than $100,000 a year which he continues to collect although struck off the Medical Register emerged in a two-part RTE television drama documentary on his bungling as an obstetrician at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.

Former Irish New York Transit employees and their next of kin filed a lawsuit last month against the manufactures of diesel engines and buses, claiming that decades of exposure to diesel fumes at Transit Authority owned and operated bus depots throughout the city has caused severe medical illnesses and, in some cases, death.

Appearing at New York Supreme Court on Monday, August 18, 13 former transit employees and their next of kin (four are Irish-born) filed suits against diesel engine and bus manufactures including General Motors, Grumman, Detroit Diesel and Cummins Diesel.

According to John Dearie, the attorney hired by the plaintiffs to represent them, each of the men, who have either suffered or are still suffering from cancer or heart attacks, were detrimentally exposed to severe exhaust fumes from 1958 to 1999, where they worked as bus drivers, bus shifters and bus mechanics for the Transit Authority and Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority.

Irish doctors are jubilant at the success of a groundbreaking medical breakthrough that will give thousands of heart patients a chance of a longer life.

The first key-hole surgery of its kind in Ireland was performed on two elderly high-risk patients, a man and a woman, in the Blackrock Clinic in south Dublin last week.

Details only emerged on Tuesday when doctors spoke of a new procedure in which lifesaving operations can be carried out on patients for whom open-heart surgery is too risky.

For a young Corkman life is nearly always sad these days.

Shane O'Leary, who has been living in New York for five years, wakes up every morning thinking of his sister back home.

His sister Catherine, a beautiful 31-year-old mother of one, was diagnosed with what doctors call Locked In Syndrome in February.

The family of an Irish woman who died after a plastic surgery operation in New York in 2005 filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the doctor they feel is responsible for her death this week.

Kay Cregan, 42, from Croom, Co. Limerick, died after undergoing a face-lift operation performed by cosmetic surgeon, Dr.

D.J. Carey, a prominent member of the Irish American community and a leading activist and fundraiser in the fight against ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), will be honored by the ALS Association's Greater New York Chapter's 14th annual Lou Gehrig's Sports Award Benefit at the Marriott Marquis in New York on Monday, October 27.

CORK superstar Sean Og O hAilpin has launched a bitter attack on the county's beleaguered hurling boss Gerald McCarthy, but McCarthy has hit back with fighting comments of his own.

O hAilpin has also hit out at the Cork County Board, claiming that the latest stand-off with the players is revenge for the original dispute between the parties in 2002 when he called for Frank Murphy to resign.

"I got my head eaten off for what I mentioned then," said O hAilpin.