AIB was given an early Christmas present from ratings agency Standard & Poor's, which revised its rating outlook for the bank's debt from negative to stable and generally gave an upbeat commentary on the bank's operations.
In chunky trading, AIB shares dealt as high as €12.45 before ending 45 cents higher on €12.20.
Other financial shares were marginally firmer, with Bank of Ireland up 12 cents on €9.92 while Anglo Irish was seven cents firmer on €4.17.
First Active and Irish Life & Permanent, however, were marginally lower in thin trading.
The link-up with AHP did not help Elan shares and, although they closed 35 cents higher on €48.35 in Dublin, the real trading was in New York, where the shares were trading 30 cents lower by midday, on $43.30.
Trading in New York was sizeable, with more than 1.2 million shares having traded in the opening session.
Industrial shares were mixed, but Independent News & Media had a good day, adding 15 cents to €2.15 - the first time it has risen above the €2.02 placing price. Smurfit lost five cents to €2.43 while Waterford Wedgwood lost two cents to €0.93, bringing an end to its recent strong run. Abbey did not trade from its overnight €3.65 as Fidelity disclosed an 8 per cent stake, up from the last disclosed stake of 6.7 per cent.
Technology shares were generally weaker on Nasdaq, with both Iona and Riverdeep down more than 7 per cent. Smartforce, however, was one of the exceptions and was trading 1.5 per cent higher.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/VR3765MFOBH2NMV2QNICYDF67M.png)