A report by the prominent Irish real-estate website myhome.ie found that there had been a threefold increase in the number of ‘sale agreed’ second-hand residential properties in January 2010, compared with the same month last year.
At the same time, the primary barometer of Irish real estate prices – the Permanent TSB/ESRI house price index – [...]

The NSW GAA is facing a crisis, scrambling to secure a ground on which to play the 2010 season, now just weeks away.
The organisation’s traditional ground, Princes Park in Auburn, is almost certain to be re-allocated to another sport by the local council.
The leadership of the NSW GAA has painted this as a sleight on [...]

Ambivalence and the absence of sensible debate about Australia’s constitutional future is now threatening the apparent inevitability of this country becoming a republic.
There is now a real danger that the lack of political will and serious debate could derail the cutting of constitutional ties with the British monarchy and installing an Australian as head of [...]

Ireland is once again being forced to confront another sickening chapter in its recent history.
A report by a specially appointed commission into the Catholic Diocese of Dublin details widespread abuse of children by paedophile priests. The crimes were, in may cases, then covered up by the Catholic hierarchy and routinely ignored by the police.
How can [...]

Irish-Australian sporting clashes in recent years have been undermined by acrimony.
The International Rules series has been white-anted by fundamentalists on both sides, by Australian ambivalence on the one hand and by Irish hysteria on the other.
The affection with which the Wallabies were once welcomed to Ireland – so evident during the 1991 Rugby World Cup [...]

The opinion polls are telling us that the Rudd government is vulnerable on the issue of asylum seekers.
The Prime Minister’s mantra of “tough on people smugglers, humane on asylum seekers” does not appear to be cutting through with voters.
Newspoll, published in the conservative, Murdoch-owned daily The Australian, asked voters whether the government’s approach was working. [...]

BOB Geldof’s politically incorrect praise of Tánaiste Mary Coughlan’s legs notwithstanding, the Global Irish Economic Forum (GIEF) appeared to go off without a hitch.
But we will wait and see whether this marks the beginning of some new engagement between Ireland and its global network of emigrants and descendants – beyond the US and UK – [...]

OCCASIONALLY, sport provides us with the most dramatic of news stories and so it was last weekend at Croke Park.
An emotional Tadhg Kennelly completed a unique feat by becoming the first player to win both an Australian Football League Premiership medal and an All-Ireland winners medal. Expats from 31 counties watching the game around Australia [...]

FOUR Irish players have now turned their backs on Australian Rules football.
The fact that they have quit in or around the same time has led to speculation in Ireland that the Australian ‘experiment’ is over.
Certainly, coming on the back of the AFL’s shameless decision to pull out of the International Rules series it might seem [...]

Next weekend, the Irish government will host the first Global Irish Economic Forum.
A new initiative, it laudably sets out to harness the power and creativity of the Diaspora to come up with ideas to help Ireland out of its economic malaise.
“I believe that the Global Irish Economic Forum has the potential to be an extremely [...]