Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have teamed up with colleagues from the University of Siena in Italy to discover a drug that can kill leukemia cells.

To get started with your own literary tour of Ireland here’s a list of the 10 top annual Irish literary festivals to check out. Pick any one of them and in no time you’ll be completely absorbed by Irish culture and craic.

Irish universities have climbed up the world rankings this year with both Trinity and University College Dublin in the top 100. This is the first year that UCD has cracked the Top 100, up 19 places from 107 to 87, while Trinity moved up six places from 49 to 43.

Ireland's foremost writer of fiction, William Trevor, talks about his latest work, ‘Love and Summer.'

The Moran clan have produced some very interesting folk. The anglicized "Moran" can be traced to multiple distinct Irish names, and though commonly linked to County Mayo, forms of the name originated throughout middle Ireland in Counties Leitrim, Galway, Kildare, Offaly, and more. Moran is so heavily anglicized - from the French "Morrin" to the Irish "Moran" - that exact knowledge of each Moran's lineage may be hard to trace.

Keough, Keogh, Kehoe, O'Hoey, Hoy, Haughy, Haugh and MacKeogh are all derivatives of the Irish surname Mac Eochaidh. The clan originated in Leinster, and the name is common in County Wexford, and in the Munster counties of Limerick and Tipperary, where the Irish spelling is MagCeoch or MacCeoch. In medieval times the MacKeoghs from Leinster moved from Kildare to Wicklow and then down to Wexford.

A big business effort is underway in Ireland to convince Irish people to back the same European treaty they rejected last year. Employers such as Intel and Ryanair have lined up to lobby Irish voters to say yes to the Lisbon treaty. They say that Ireland risks creating an even bigger economic crisis if voters say no.

A mystery revolving around President Barack Obama’s Irish roots was solved when a tomb containing the remains of Obama’s Irish ancestor was discovered in the Irish medieval city of Kilkenny.

Featuring 21 Irish playwrights, 12 venues and 375 artists over five weeks from September 1 to October 4, the second New York Irish Theatre Festival has doubled in size since its inaugural year in 2008.

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.

The heartbroken family of Dr Jane Deasy have been told that the young doctor's body has been recovered from the wreckage of the Air France plane which crashed in the Atlantic last month.

Trinity College Dublin (TCD) Provost Dr. John Hegarty, University College Dublin (UCD) President Dr. Hugh Brady and Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG) chairman John Hartnett met in Dublin on June 15 to announce a new partnership in technological innovation.

The Ireland-U.S. Council’s annual student work experience scholarships were presented today at an awards luncheon held at The Metropolitan Club in New York City.

PRESIDENT Mary McAleese and Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen led a string of tributes to the memory of the three young doctors, all friends and one a former Riverdance star, who are missing feared dead in the Air France trans-Atlantic disaster. McAleese said, “My thoughts and prayers, and the thoughts of everyone, are with the Irish families and the families of everyone on board at this very difficult time.”

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.

A young Riverdance star is among the three Irish women presumed dead in the Air France airbus A330 disaster. The Irish dancing star, a qualified doctor, was returning from vacation with her two Irish friends and another friend from Britain.

Three Irish people were on board the Air France plane which disappeared over the Atlantic overnight. The plane is feared to have crashed in the Atlantic with 228 people aboard after losing power in a massive thunderstorm high above the ocean. The flight left Rio de Janiero at 5pm EST yesterday and was due to arrive into Paris at 4.15am EST.

This month, in an exhibition that seems calculated to attract every Oscar Wilde enthusiast in America, the Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan will exhibit a selection of the Irish writer’s most important manuscripts and letters. But this isn’t just another stuffy museum piece featuring a more than usually compelling Irish writer. This time the Morgan can boast of a dramatic first: the whereabouts of this beautifully bound collection was unknown to scholars for over half a century.

Irish actor Jason O'Mara's third big American break has fallen flat as ABC has axed his show "Life on Mars."

A pregnant British woman, who's mother lives in Ireland, faces the death penalty in Laos on charges of drug smuggling

Mark your calendars, tomorrow and Saturday Manhattan’s Irish Arts Center and Glucksman Ireland House at NYU will host a remarkable two day tribute to Brian Friel, the undisputed master of Irish drama, in honor of his 80th birthday.

Every summer, thousands of Irish college students who come to the U.S. on the J1 Visa have an amazing time. But sometimes, as this list shows, things can go horribly, horribly wrong...

The incredibly fertile Irish warlord, Niall of the Nine Hostages, is thought to have 3 million descendants worldwide

Irish novelists aren't usually associated with mystery writing - but they have served up more than a few 'whodunits', as this list shows

Links to resources for Irish Studies students

After six years in Damien Rice's band, Lisa Hannigan was abruptly fired. But instead of wallowing in despair – something she had probably seen Rice do enough of – Hannigan picked herself up and recorded the critically-acclaimed album "Sea Sew."

"Ireland's Painters: 1600 - 1940" presents a stunning survey of the grand, oft-overlooked tradition of art in Ireland. From the early, stately portraits by Thomas Frye and Susannah Drury's "East Prospect of The Giant's Causeway," to Sean O'Sullivan's intimate look inside a cottage with "The Old Couple" and the grand career of John Butler Yeats, this book offers over 350 color illustrations of great Irish art. "Well over twenty years has elapsed since the publication of 'The Painters of Ireland in 1978'," the authors write.

A native of Birr, Co. Offaly, Caimin O'Brien is an archaeologist with the Archaeological Survey of Ireland, a branch of the National Monuments Service of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. This gives him unique insight into much of Ireland's landscape, which he has put to interesting use in a new book called "Stories from a Sacred Landscape.

THESE are exciting times for Irish arts in Manhattan. On the heels of the recent announcement of a new master's program in Irish American studies at NYU's Glucksman Ireland House comes word of a series of new play readings and two main stage productions by one of the most accomplished New York-based Irish theater companies, Origin Theatre.

The group was founded by Trinity College Dublin graduate George Heslin, the actor and director who first made a name for himself here starring in the Broadway national tour of hit shows like Stones in His Pockets and The Colleen Bawn at the Irish Repertory Theatre.

Since their March 2005 debut, Ireland's Celtic Women have enjoyed the kind of success that other singing groups can only dream of. CAHIR O'DOHERTY talks to the Irish super-group's newest member Alex Sharpe about their dizzying success and their upcoming New York shows at Radio City Music Hall.

IN the music industry the phrase "multi-platinum seller" is sweet music to everyone's ears - it means you've just sold several million records.

THE story of Oedipus, which depending on your point of view is a classical tragedy, a Freudian complex or a terrific Woody Allen joke, still fascinates.

In May Dublin's celebrated Pan Pan Theatre Company will bring their hugely theatrical version of it to that shrine of downtown hipsterdom, Performance Space 122, starting on May 21 and running through June 1.

Oedipus Loves You is their wickedly funny take on the Oedipus plays of Sophocles and Seneca and Pan Pan's performances here - the New York debut of this Dublin-based company, courtesy of Culture Ireland - are part of their highly acclaimed world tour following the show's premiere in 2006.

Guinness Store House
This is expensive (adult tickets are €13.50, or almost $19), but no trip to Dublin is complete without a visit. Simply every tourist in Dublin seems to come here at least once.

Silicon Valley's top innovators and business leaders have some strong advice for Ireland's emerging technology sector.

In a conference at Trinity College in Dublin last week Silicon Valley's Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG) told the audience that Irish technology start-ups need to develop global ambitions if they want to attract overseas investors.

While in Ireland the group met with Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowen and President Mary McAleese, and stressed that Ireland needs to invest more in the technology sector.

SILICON Valley has long been the birthplace of great innovation. Companies such as Google, Apple, Hewlett Packard and Intel all began their journeys to greatness here, and the world was changed forever. Now comes a new Irish organization that I predict could change the way the world sees Irish America and Ireland.

A YEARLONG study by an Irish historical research group has uncovered fascinating new details about Senator Barack Obama's Irish ancestry. Among the recent discoveries, researchers announced that Michael Kearney (Obama's sixth great-granduncle) was an 18th century business mogul who opposed political corruption in Dublin, and was widely celebrated in the city politics of his day where he won a landslide election to city Dublin City Council.The study also revealed that John Kearney, another relation, would be a distant cousin of Obama's, and went on to become the Provost (or head) of Trinity College Dublin, and later the Bishop of Ossory.

The O'Reilly family name is derived from the Gaelic "O'Raghailligh," meaning descendants of Raghaillach. The O'Reillys were the most powerful sept of the old Gaelic kingdom of Breffny (Cavan and the surrounding counties), and the family is still prominent in the area. The family has a proud religious tradition.

THE idea of producing a full scale Irish theater festival in New York City is a notion so mad, so bewilderingly ambitious that most Irish theater makers here would have suppressed it immediately.

But George Heslin, 36, artistic director of Origin Theatre Company, has

stamina and the gift of remaining clear and concise under pressure.

Within a minute of meeting him he can convince you that a New York Irish theatre festival should have happened years ago, and that he's person with the vision to now get it done.

From sipping a pint of Guinness, known as the "black stuff",  in the Guinness Storehouse's Gravity Bar, to gazing at the stunning architecture of Trinity College, a tourist in Dublin won't be stuck for things to

Ireland's long and troubled past make it a good choice for history buffs. Its history is far more complex than might first appear - as such, it's the type of place where a bit of local knowledge can go a long way.

Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island is set to become home to a new Irish studies program this coming