Highlights

Irish retailers are facing a tough Christmas with new Covid-19 restrictions closing non-essential outlets 400 – yes, 400! – Irish retailers for all your online Christmas shopping

From beauty and books to toys and tech, there’s a huge selection of homegrown companies

Child soldiers watch the inauguration of Yoweri Museveni in 1986. Photograph: William Campbell/Sygma via Getty Kony’s children: The former child soldiers of Uganda
Leaving Cert student Aoife Devlin. Photograph: James Connolly Ireland’s teenage pariahs: ‘We are really at breaking point now’
After Bloody Sunday November 21st 1920, the bodies of British officers assassinated in Dublin during the Irish War of Independence are taken back to England for burial. The men were members of British intelligence cell, the Cairo Gang. File photograph: Getty Diarmaid Ferriter: Bloody Sunday 1920 changed British attitudes to Ireland
Joe Biden pauses during a campaign speech. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Fintan O’Toole: Joe Biden is the US’s mourner-in-chief
Lara Marlowe with Robert Fisk in Kuwait, near a burning oilfield, in February 1991 Lara Marlowe: Robert Fisk, my former husband, was the finest journalist of his generation
Blueshirts: Eoin O’Duffy inspects a guard of honour in 1933. Photograph: Keystone/Gamma via Getty Without the Blueshirts, there would have been no Fine Gael
Supermarkets are happy to spend a lot of money working out the best ways to get us to spend ours. Photograph: iStock Twenty-two ways supermarkets trick you into spending more money
US president Donald Trump arrives for a rally at the Des Moines International Airport. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images Fintan O’Toole: Defeat for Donald Trump will shape our world
Martina, Seán and their son Jack before going to Anfield for the first time since the attack Martina Cox: ‘In my eyes, Seán was always coming home’
‘Loneliness and isolation are probably the main issues. We know that families are very important for people with mental health problems.’ Photograph: iStock ‘Afraid, frozen, stuck’: The mental health pandemic and how to fight it
A man wearing a face walks past a mural in Dublin on October 21st. Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Life under Level 5: Where can I go, who can I see, what is closed and what is open?
US president Donald Trump waves goodbye to cheering supporters as he departs his campaign rally at Orlando Sanford International Airport in Sanford, Florida on Monday, October 12th, 2020. Photograph: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Four more Trump years? It could all come down to the fight for Florida
Illustration: iStock 75 reasons to be cheerful – by Mary McAleese, Chris de Burgh, Sinéad O’Connor and more
The political meaning of Catholicism is right at the heart of this epic contest between Joe Biden, who identifies himself emphatically as an ‘Irish Catholic’, and sitting US president Donald Trump. Photographs: Jim Watson, Brendan SmialowskI/AFP via Getty Images Fintan O’Toole: Catholicism is right at the heart of epic US presidential election
Life after Keelin: ‘Everything else up to that one bad thing was amazing’
Youths wave German flags during the celebration of the country’s reunification at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin October 3rd 1990. Photograph: Gilles Leimdorfer/AFP via Getty Images Reunited Germany, 30 years on: ‘We have a permanent hullabaloo’
Sam Bennett celebrates as he crosses the finish line at the end of stage 10 of the Tour de France from Le Chateau d’Oleron to Saint Martin de Re. Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images Born to ride, born to win: Sam Bennett, the making of a green machine
The FinCEN files: The billion dollar a month money trail
Analysts have said conditions are ‘good’ in Ireland for the far-right to grow in popularity. Illustration: Paul Scott The far right rises: Its growth as a political force in Ireland
A passenger wears a mask on a bus in Dublin city centre. Photograph: Alan Betson Living with Covid plan: What is in each of the five levels?
With just over seven weeks to go before the US presidential election, polls show that Joe Biden is ahead, both nationally, and in swing states that typically determine the outcome of the election. Photograph: Getty Images Everything you need to know about the US election: the polls, the issues, the swing states
Ciara Fennell and Shane Linnie outside their tent in Dublin city centre. Photograph: Damien Eagers Homeless in the pandemic: Meet Ciara and Shane, Darragh and Gary
Aoibhinn Ni Suilleabhain, academic, TV presenter and former Rose of Tralee. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin: Two years of harassment at UCD
‘How accurately we view the world can have huge implications for the decisions we make’ Irish people have a distorted view of the realities of their country
The meat industry continues to deal with the fact that its customers want high-quality products as cheaply as possible, while its suppliers argue that the prices they receive make it difficult for them to make a living. Photograph: iStock How is Ireland’s meat industry handling recent Covid-19 outbreaks?
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden: Should he make it to the White House, Biden would have completed the longest marathon in US political history. Photograph: Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images Inside Joe Biden’s race of a lifetime to be US president
Aaron Brady when he was living and working in the USA. Aaron Brady, the man who said with pride he was a cop killer
Michael Dunlop is comforted on the podium by his girlfriend Jill after winning the 250cc race at the North West 200 just two days after his father Robert was killed during practice for the same race. Photo: Stephen Davison/Pacemaker Heroic insanity: When Michael Dunlop raced home in memory of his father
Bosnian Muslim woman, relatives of victims of the Srebrenica genocide, visit one of the sites of 1995 mass executions. Photograph: Damir Sagolj/Getty Images Inside Srebrenica: old scars, new wounds
showcase Are we really facing the death of the office?
The Irish team, led by flag bearer and hammer thrower John Lawlor, enter the National Stadium at the opening ceremony of the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo. Tokyo ’64 Revisited: lifelong tales of Olympic experience
Former SDLP leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume who has died aged 83 pictured in May 1998. Photograph: Gerry Penny/AFP John Hume obituary: Nationalist leader who championed ‘agreed Ireland’
Monica Hickey, 5th class teacher and Matt Melvin, school principal at St Etchen’s National School, Kinnegad, Co Westmeath. Photograph: Alan Betson Fintan O’Toole: To keep schools open, the Government needs to start learning quickly
Grafton Street: ‘It’s like a ghost town’
36 hours in Ireland’s busiest tourist town: ‘We’re missing the Americans’
British prime minister Boris Johnson. Consequences are merely boring details to the Brexiteers. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA Fintan O’Toole: If Brexit is so great, why is Britain acting like it’s not happening?
The Romans were so enamoured by urine that they taxed it, leading to the wonderful expression, attributed to the emperor Vespasian: ‘pecunia non olet’, meaning ‘money has no smell’. Photograph: iStock David McWilliams: Apple decision shows Ireland is not a tax haven
Jack Charlton waves to the Ireland fans after the quarter-final loss to Italy at the 1990 World Cup. Photo: Billy Stickland/Inpho Malachy Clerkin: Sleep well Jack, you made us all happy
Defined by his walrus moustache, John Bolton became an almost cartoonish caricature of a certain kind of American conservative. Photograph: Doug Mills/New York Times John Bolton on Trump’s presidency: ‘Every day is a new adventure’
Sensational summer food: around the world in 26 dishes
Dr Tony Holohan after he announced that he was stepping down from his role as Chief Medical Officer to care for his wife. Photograph: Collins Unflappable ‘Dr Tony’ became public face of Covid-19 crisis response
Tamilore Awonusi: ‘I’m often asked what my first encounter of racism was. The question you must ask is: when did you realise you were being discriminated against? Photograph: Nick Bradshaw ‘Where are you really from?’: Growing up black in Ireland
Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, at an event at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on June 30th. Photograph: Andre Borges/NurPhoto via Getty Images The Bolsonaro administration’s ticking time-bomb
Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin is now Minister for Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht. Who is in the new Cabinet? Members in profile
Clodagh Duffy, Recreation Manager with Dublin Mountains Partnership, Hannah Hamilton, Coillte Nature and Karen Woods, Operations Manager with Coillte at Ticknock. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times. The Dublin Mountains Makeover: Ireland’s largest ever forest transformation
‘We’ve got a real chance to reimagine our cities’: 20 ways to improve urban life after lockdown
Helen O’Donoghue: Her family were in wagons and tents next to a national school in west Dublin. No one asked why the children were not in school. Photograph: Alan Place ‘It was worse when you can’t stop it, and it’s your sister’
Micheál Martin, the ‘next taoiseach’ since 1998
Ireland’s gifted Paul McGrath – The Black Pearl of Inchicore – salutes fans at the World Cup homecoming in Dublin on July 1st, 1990. File photograph: Inpho Diarmaid Ferriter: Best and worst of times through prism of Italia ’90
Tánaiste Simon Coveney and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Government Buildings in Dublin on Monday. Photograph: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland/PA Wire Bigger role for the State in new programme – but how will we pay for it ?
Ballynahinch The great getaway: Where to stay in Ireland this summer
Photograph: Getty ‘The virus will be back’: Preparing for the second wave of Covid-19
Donald Trump outside St John's Episcopal Church. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Donald Trump’s political success is based on racism
Posters of Patrick Dorismond, seen circa 2000. Dorismond was killed outside a bar in Manhattan. Photograph: Budd Williams/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images Fintan O’Toole: The violence of racism is deeply embedded in American society
The front page of French newspaper Le Petit Journal, December 5th, 1920, depicting British police attacking a farm in Tipperary occupied by Sinn Féin members. Photograph: Leemage/UIG via Getty Images Diarmaid Ferriter: It’s still hard to rise above the emotion of the War of Independence
Positives from the pandemic: Máire Gilmartin of St Vincent's University Hospital in PPE; a climate protest near the Dáil; and traffic on the M50 in west Dublin. Photographs: Alan Betson Remaking Ireland: Five positives from the pandemic
Sam Lynch, stroke, Neville Maxwell, Tony O Connor and Derek Holland, bow. Photograph: Cyril Byrne Coming fourth in the Olympics didn’t change this fearless quartet, time did
The Green Party is demanding system change, to satisfy both the wider environmental movement and their own core membership 20 ways the Greens in government could change Irish life – and yours
Yes to equality: Panti Bliss (Rory O'Neill) in the courtyard at Dublin Castle on May 22nd, 2015. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times ‘Pure joy’: The day Ireland said yes to marriage equality
Lives lost: some of the people who have died of Covid-19 in Ireland and among the diaspora in recent weeks The opera lover, the Jesuit, the GAA star... 19 of the lives lost to Covid-19
Irish nursing home: St Mary’s Hospital, in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. Photograph: Crispin Rodwell The story of Rose Hegarty and how Ireland's nursing homes became coronavirus ground zero
8.57pm: medical staff in full PPE stand outside the entrance to the triage tent at the emergency department of St Vincent’s University Hospital. Photograph: Alan Betson Behind the scenes at an Irish Covid-19 hospital
We can do it: a mural by the artist Emmalene Blake on a gate in Dublin thanks healthcare workers on the frontline during the coronavirus pandemic. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Lifting the lockdown: What are the plans?
Grief in a pandemic: ‘Not being able to see him in his final hours was heartbreaking’
Listen to podcasts through a smartphone app, or through the show’s website. Photograph: iStock 50 of the best podcasts to listen to right now
Set a challenge: how many insects can the kids find and identify? Photograph: FatCamera/E+/Getty Nature nearby: 10 ways to discover and explore, within 2km of home
An aerial view of the Phoenix Park where the original layout was for the Dublin Golf Club. Photograph: iStock Did you know there used to be a golf course in the Phoenix Park?
An Eritrean teenager in a dormitory for unaccompanied minors in Shagarab refugee camp, eastern Sudan, in 2017. Many Eritreans stop here before travelling on towards Libya. Photograph: Sally Hayden Inside the smuggler’s warehouse: Africa’s 21st-century slave trade
Matt Doherty celebrates scoring Wolves’ third goal during the Premier League game against Manchester City at Molineux. Photograph: Clive Mason/Getty Images Premier Class: The 10 best Irish players in this season’s top flight
The Government has taken over the facilities of 19 private hospitals. That has left many of those who are paying thousands of euro each year in private health insurance wondering what they are paying for Are you due a Covid-19 refund on health insurance, school fees, travel card or gym?
Grafton street Restarting Ireland: When and how will we ‘get back to normal’?
One of the greatest challenges identified by our research participants was how to identify what actions they can take to make a real difference to the environment. Photograph: iStock Aware, confused, leaderless: How Irish people feel about climate change now
Kevin Barry. Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Irish writers on Covid-19: ‘We’re all having a shockin’ dose of the wombles’
A framed picture of Benjamin Robinson. Photograph: Kieran Dodds/The New York Times Karen Robinson Walton: I am looking at him. I say ‘Benjamin, what have we done?’
Ten-year-old Charlotte O’Brien visits her grandad Pat O’ Brien in Clontarf, Dublin. Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times Fintan O’Toole: Coronavirus has made all familiar things strange
John Wayne as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers. Photograph: AP Photo/Warner Bros Beyond Netflix: where to find Golden Age classic movies
Margaret Molloy Here’s to Ireland’s unofficial ambassadors flying flags around the world
Thousands of punters pack the grandstands at Cheltenham this week as the festival continued as normal – despite the public concern over coronavirus. Photograph: Tim Goode/PA Cheltenham's horsey set unmoved by some poxy little global pandemic
Coronavirus: a doctor in protective clothing at a hospital in Naples. Photograph: Marco Cantile/LightRocket via Getty Coronavirus: Italian doctors on how Ireland can avoid disaster
Why you should – or should not – buy an electric car now
‘Terminate the Help to Buy Scheme,’ says SJI, and use the €75 million saved to invest in homelessness prevention. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA Wire Dermot Desmond: Everyone has a right to a home. Here is how it can be done
Cathal McNaughton at his home in Waterfoot near Cushendall. “The Indian authorities said I was excluded for breaking the terms of my visa by travelling to restricted areas in Kashmir, but through government back channels we discovered it was actually because I was highlighting what was going on there.” Photograph: Charles McQuillan The Irish photographer who won a Pulitzer, then quit ‘the best job in the world’
Testing for Covid-19 at UZ Leuven university hospital in Leuven, Belgium. File photograph: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/Bloomberg Coronavirus: Everything you need to know about Covid-19
Wolf Hall trilogy: Hilary Mantel's final novel in the sequence closes the book on Thomas Cromwell. Photograph: Andrew Testa/New York Times Hilary Mantel: ‘Any nation that’s got warlords has got a Cromwell’
The MV Alta, a 77m Tanzanian registered cargo ship which had been abandoned and drifting in the Atlantic Ocean for 17 months, washed up on rocks near Ballycotton in east Cork last weekend. Photograph: Cathal Noonan/AFP via Getty Waste materials to be airlifted from MV Alta wreck
Quizzes, influencers, IRA memes: How Election 2020 was won online
Mary Lou McDonald with fellow Sinn Féin TDs at Leinster House on Thursday. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire Fintan O’Toole: The enigma of Mary Lou McDonald
Election 2020 in commuterville: ‘They built the houses and left the people in a vacuum’
Tony Owens with Arthur. How do you get bereaved fathers to talk? Bring a football
How would Ireland cope with the loss of its corporation tax bonanza? That’s just one of the big questions that will challenge the next government. Photograph: Alan Betson Fintan O’Toole: Ten big questions for incoming politicians
Catherine Cleary: when I was 19, I lived on tinned tuna and pasta for days so I could spend a week’s salary on a black swing coat with a high collar that felt like a hug. Photograph: Tom Honan Could I go a whole year without buying any new clothes?
I’ve always told my firefighter Dad 'I love you' as he leaves for work, just in case
Young boys were being used by the older gang members to deal drugs on the streets as well as for storing drugs, burning out cars as a means of intimidating others and even forcing some families out of particular areas, one garda said. Photograph: David Sleator Teenage boys and organised crime gangs: A complicated dynamic
Harry McGee’s final seat prediction for Election 2020
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs said early indications are voters see election as a choice between Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire Election 2020: Will smaller parties be sidelined in Varadkar-Martin shootout?
Baby John’s grave, in St Cronan’s cemetery in Roscrea. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill Ireland’s abandoned babies: ‘Stories of unimaginable fear’
The champion Irish gymnast Rhys McClenaghan. Photograph: Billy Stickland/Inpho 50 people to watch in 2020: the best young talent in Ireland
Marian Finucane, in studio at RTÉ Radio One, in 1999. Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill Marian Finucane obituary: A brave and trusted broadcaster
Black & Tans guarding Dublin street after a shooting on Gloucester Road. Black and Tans: ‘Half-drunk, whole-mad’ and one-fifth Irish
Fintan O’Toole: 2019 was a bit like Game of Thrones – lots of action, no climax
Ireland’s Ciara Mageean celebrates qualifying for the final of the World Athletics Championship. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho Glittering Irish day in muddled murky sporting year of 2019