Highlights

Boris Johnson: The UK’s deeply polarising next prime minister

Cherished by older Conservatives, he is viewed by others as a liar and opportunist

Darby O’Gill and the Little People: Albert Sharpe and Jimmy O’Dea in Walt Disney’s 1959 film The making of Darby O’Gill and the Little People
Garda Majella Moynihan in 1998: As senior gardaí interrogated her, she was subjected to a lay version of a Catholic marriage tribunal. Photograph: RTÉ Diarmaid Ferriter: Garda morality and policing of ‘scarlet women’
Ana Kriégel Ana Kriégel murder trial: The complete story
Timi Nicholson has reduced her family's plastic waste for the whole month to a single glass jar. Photograph: Laura Hutton Could you fit your month's plastic waste into a glass jar?
Brian Kerr: Quintessential Dubliner with a bit of Belfast in his soul
The unsolved mystery of Peter Bergmann
Thriving family business. Drogheda butcher Justin Callaghan, of Justin Callaghan & Sons. Photograph: Tom Honan Does your neighbourhood make you sicker or healthier?
John Brennan: some of Donald Trump’s behaviour has been treasonous, he says. Photograph: Al Drago/New York Times John Brennan: My trouble with Trump? ‘His dishonesty, his character’
Jackie Healy-Rae jnr takes a break from canvassing to visit his grandfather Jackie’s grave in Kilgarvan, Co Kerry. Photograph: Don MacMonagle New to politics: Hazel Chu, Jackie Healy-Rae jnr and others on their political ambitions
Seamus Mallon in 1998, when he was deputy first minister of Northern Ireland. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien Seamus Mallon: Tony Blair said to me, ‘The trouble with you fellows is you have no guns’
United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Paul Pogba after the final whistle of the Premier League match against Cardiff at Old Trafford on May 12th. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA Wire Michael Walker: The thing is, it could get worse for Manchester United
The Irish baby born today: the First World problem of ‘where will I go on my holidays?’ may be replaced by ‘where is my next meal coming from?’ Photograph: Getty A baby born today: The climate and their future
Huawei’s vice-president for corporate communications Joe Kelly: “The West is quite individualistic. China is more collective” Irish spin doctor in thick of Huawei’s battle with the West
Ireland: what do we do now, now that we are happy? Illustration: iStock/Getty Fintan O’Toole: In today’s Ireland, happiness is a tough gig
Photograph: George Clerk/iStock/Getty Before you leave a tip in an Irish restaurant, read this
The public conversation Niall Quinn has been driving began following an invitation before Christmas to the PFAI awards night in Dublin. Photograph: Tommy Dickson/Inpho Niall Quinn: ‘Who are the FAI trying to fool?’
Caroline Dwyer: ‘We didn’t get to hear anything until the following day. I was at work, and my husband rang me. He said ‘Have you had any strange phone calls?’ ’ Photograph Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times Caroline Dwyer awaits justice 10 years after son’s death in Bolivia
Party of two: if your partner is heavily intoxicated they can’t give consent. Photograph: iStock ‘So if you go out and both get drunk you can’t have sex? That’s f**ked up’
‘The school tried its best, but they were struggling and ill-equipped’: Suzanne Voakes and her son Rian (6). Photograph: Nick Bradshaw ‘My child was expelled at six. We’re in 2019... Our children are invisible’
The hair collectors: Where wigs and hair extensions come from
Statistics show that Ireland is undergoing a historic shift in its traditional pattern of home ownership. The changing face of Irish home ownership – who wins, who loses?
The food truck outside The Vines in Saltmills, Co Wexford Games, craft beer and food trucks: How the Irish pub is changing
Martina Cox pictured with her husband Sean Cox at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. Photograph supplied by family. Sean Cox: ‘He has missed so many milestones. That kills me,’ says wife Martina
Kinahan cartel: Liam Byrne heads what the Criminal Assets Bureau calls the “Byrne organised-crime group” Liam Byrne: Christy Kinahan’s lieutenant in Dublin
Seán Quinn’s daughters, Aoife, Brenda, Colette and Ciara, outside the High Court in Dublin. Photograph: Collins How the Quinns' Anglo gamble cost the State millions
Facebook’s dirty work in Ireland: ‘I had to watch footage of a person being beaten to death’
Aaron Monaghan, Garrett Lombard, John Olohan and Jane Brennan in Druid Theatre’s Richard III. Photograph: Robbie Jack The Irish Times 22nd Irish Theatre Awards: Villainy triumphs in tales for our times
Seán Bán Breathnach: “I was lucky,” he declares more than once Seán Bán Breathnach: ‘They probably saw me as . . . a showman.'
People are escorted to safety by aid workers at the airport of the coastal city of Beira in central Mozambique on March 19th after the area was hit by the Cyclone Idai. Photograph: Adrien Barbier/AFP/Getty Cyclone Idai: Those who do least to cause climate change suffer the most
Tragedy, magical thinking, and the lasting impact of grief
Photograph: Niklas Halle'n/AFP/Getty Britain’s shrinking, ageing Irish population
Fans donate food to a foodbank outside the ground ahead of the Premier League match between Liverpool and Everton at Anfield on December 2nd 2018 in Liverpool. Photograph: Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Getty Images Football fans unite to fight poverty in Liverpool
Fintan O’Toole: The Irish priest who paved way for Donald Trump
Brexit bill: something that costs €50 to buy and have sent from an Amazon warehouse today could jump to more than €65 once third-country charges are totted up. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Online shopping after Brexit: Higher prices, slower deliveries
Chelsea Douglas, Lauren Ellen Dunne, Lucinda Haines, Lynn Casey, Mark Gray and Dillon Owen who have helped develop Tusla’s website for young people. Photograph: Alan Betson ‘People think all children using social services are bad’
Illustration: Dearbhla Kelly A new map of Ireland: Honouring some of our outstanding women
Danile Mullan’s life unravelled following the lodgment of the complaint against him by an Irish victim in 2009. Photograph: Ireland International News Agency Wanted in the US: an Irish-linked paedophile who lived the high life
Rembrandt's Self-Portrait with Beret, Wide-Eyed, 1630. Photograph: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Rembrandt: the first great ‘selfie’ artist
A child gets the MMR vaccine. There are currently several mumps outbreaks in Ireland. File photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images The return of mumps: Why has the disease gained a hold in Ireland?
Drug debts: First come bullets in the post. Then the family home is firebombed
Mary Lou McDonald on the screen during the Sinn Féin special ardfheis held in the RDS. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw McDonald’s tricky first year underlines Sinn Féin’s central problem
Liam Neeson. Photograph: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty This is not a Liam Neeson obituary. It just reads like one
‘After nine years in direct provision I have never stopped living’
Dealing with a non-performing mortgage on a family home is a daily reality for 64,510 borrowers, according to the Central Bank. Photograph: Sean Gladwell/Getty Life with mortgage arrears in Ireland: I had ‘seizures from stress’
A mosaic depicting the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez (left) and Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro on a wall in Caracas. Photograph: Getty Images The battle for Venezuela – a smoking political tinderbox
Richard E Grant stars opposite Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Photograph: Mary Cybulski Richard E Grant: ‘Every day I thank God for Withnail and I’
Despite the less than comprehensive level of access, abortions are now happening across the country in hospitals and in general practices. File photograph: Getty Images Abortion in Ireland: Four weeks in, how’s it working?
When it was over and the dead and wounded lay in pools of blood, moaning on the ground, Dyer forbade his soldiers to give any aid to the injured The Amritsar massacre: a cold, callous display of colonial evil
No Child 2020: Fintan O’Toole on a new Irish Times initiative
Will the burger survive? Photograph: AP Photo/ Eugene Hoshiko Meat consumption must drop by 90% to avert climate crisis, report warns
Isis fighter: Alexandr Ruzmatovich Bekmirzaev, who was captured in Syria with Irish passport From Ireland to Isis: The life of Alexandr Ruzmatovich Bekmirzaev
Mary Dillon, Greg Kennedy and Marie Galvin. Photograph: Tom Honan The returned missionaries: ‘I’m more African than I am Irish’
Eoin Cluskey of Bread Nation. Photoograph: Nick Bradshaw 50 people to watch in 2019: Ireland’s hottest young talent
The remains of cars destroyed by the Carr Fire in July in Redding, California. No one was even vaguely surprised that Trump’s response to the wildfires was to deny that they had anything to do with climate change. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Fintan O’Toole: 2018, year of the dark new normal
From cow to cup: Brexit and the threat to your milk’s cross-Border journey
Cycling the Border, 2018: ‘At least yous are Prods, you f**kers’
Lavinia Kerwick: 'He committed a heinous crime next to murder. There’s no forgiveness for that.' Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill Lavinia Kerwick: 'My life in my 20s and 30s was absolutely destroyed, taken away'
Protest meeting in 1918 in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, against conscription in Ireland. In April that year, Lloyd George’s government had given itself the power to extend conscription to Ireland. Photograph: Photo12/UIG/Getty Images Fintan O’Toole: The 1918 election was an amazing moment for Ireland
Volunteering can have a number of personal and professional benefits Volunteering: Why and how you should get involved
John Gunning during his fighting days at the 18th Sumo World Championships in Hong Kong in 2012. Photograph: Richard A Brooks/AFP/Getty The Roscommon man who became a sumo wrestler in Japan
John West, former Ireland rugby international Trevor Ringland and John McNally in Holywood. Photograph: Colm Lenaghan/Pacemaker North Down on Brexit: ‘The DUP threatens the union more than Sinn Féin’
Ruka Adeluola: after coming to Ireland alone from Nigeria when she was 12, she is studying biotechnology at DCU. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill She was homeless at 12. In college at 20
Pa O’Dwyer from Rathkeale is the winner of Ireland and UK’s Strongest Man competition. Photo: Bryan O’Brien/The Irish Times Pa O’Dwyer is Ireland’s strongest man – the six steaks a day way
Some staff at the Ivy are unhappy about an absence of clarity about how card tips – the majority – are handled. Photograph: Getty Images Tips at the Ivy restaurant: Following the money
Gillian O’Sullivan: ‘He told me there was a lovely new hip on the market that could last a lifetime . . . I would never look back.’ Suspect device: the all-metal hip replacement that caused untold hardship
Irene Edwards: “We don’t talk politics in the shop.” Photograph: Enda O’Dowd Holyhead on Brexit: ‘When will people wake the f**k up?’
Ireland celebrate as Jacob Stockdale scores the game’s only try. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters Gordon D’Arcy: Ireland are serious contenders for World Cup
Yan’an, in the Shanbei region of China’s Shaanxi province: “the dusty birthplace of an epochal story of social change, where an agrarian, inward-looking country evolved into the world’s second-biggest economy”. Photograph: Getty Images China rising: The country is set to take its place as a superpower
President Michael D Higgins at the beginning of the presidential inauguration ceremony at Dublin Castle on Sunday. Photograph: Maxwells Miriam Lord: Michael D reinstalled with due warmth and ceremony
Rusangano Family: Straight into the mainstream. Photograph: Eric Luke/The Irish Times Una Mullally: It took a nation of immigrants to bring Irish hip hop to life
(Original Caption) 'Germany: World War I Armistice: Officers celebrate at captured German canteen.' In reality, the industrial nature of the slaughter destroyed all the notions of individual heroism and chivalry. Fintan O’Toole: The first World War is still being fought
Northern Ireland goalkeeper Tommy Wright is beaten by Alan McLoughlin’s shot during the World Cup qualifier at Windsor Park on Wednesday, November 17th 1993. Photograph: Joe St Leger ‘There was poison in the air’: 25 years on from that night in Windsor Park
Aidan Harris Lgiehon in Dublin in August 2017. Photograph: Tom Honan. Aidan Harris Igiehon - the Dubliner on the cusp of making it to the NBA
Mayor for Dublin No more buck-passing or dithering – Dublin needs a new boss
March of time: winter and summer clock changing may soon be a thing of the past. The clocks have gone back, but is it for the last time?
Rough journey?: Irish Rail had 407 complaints of anti-social behaviour last year, 117 reported incidents of intimidation and 70 vandalism complaints. Photograph: Eric Luke ‘I thought I was going to die that night’: Violence on Irish Rail
Guards at the Poland-Ukraine Border On the Poland-Ukraine frontier, ‘frictionless border’ is a joke
Vanessa Manunga photographed by Cyril Byrne I was smuggled into Ireland: Vanessa’s journey from Congo to Dublin
Lone Star state: Beto O’Rourke at a rally in Texas this week. Photograph: Loren Elliott/Getty The anti-Trump: Could this Obama-style Texan turn the tide?
Haulier Stephen Heasley at Manfreight in Portadown, Co Armagh. Photograph: Liam McBurney for The Irish Times Brexit, the truck driver and 20 tonnes of frozen chicken
Protesters in Sofia. With incomes as little as a tenth of the EU top earners, Bulgaria is the poorest member state, followed by Romania, Croatia, Poland and Hungary. File photograph: Stoyan Nenov Rich Land, Poor Land: The EU’s wealthiest and neediest members
Student rape: most research suggests that rape and sexual assault involving students – especially first-years – are a feature across third-level campuses. Illustration: Getty Images Students and sexual assault: ‘We had sex. Well, he had sex’
. Some oppose the plan because they stand to lose direct routes. File photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times The bus battle: ‘Moving routes won’t solve Dublin’s problem’
Always getting better? Michael O’Leary decided to re-engineer Ryanair by improving its customer service. Illustration: Paul Ryder Inside Ryanair: Michael O’Leary’s making of a ‘nicer’ airline
Irish prisons: warring gangs use threats and acts of violence against other inmates, their family members and staff. Illustration: Dearbhla Kelly Ireland’s prison gangs: ‘You hear a scream and suddenly a fella’s pumping blood’
Orla Tinsley: even at one moment of clear distress, when death is too near to laugh at, she imparts a motivational message to the camera Orla Tinsley: A beacon of best-life positivity through every setback
Dominic Ryan of Leicester Tigers tackles George North of Northampton Saints during the fateful Aviva Premiership match at Franklin’s Gardens on September 9th, 2017. Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images Dominic Ryan: The terrifying concussions which have forced my retirement
Leslie Buckley: The inspectors will examine suspicions that he and Denis O’Brien may have discussed “inside information” about INM. Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill Stakes are high for INM as it prepares to allow inspectors across its threshold
Dublin’s Philly McMahon lifts the Sam Maguire in front of Hill 16. “Why would we not want to win an All-Ireland? Why would we not want to win six or seven?” Tyrone. Photograph: Tommy Dickson/Inpho Dublin still out there on their own – splendid and fearsome
Ciarán Byrne and his wife, Martha Kearns,with their two children, Ciara and Leo, in Hazelwood, Sligo. Photograph: James Connolly Goodbye to Dublin: ‘I had preconceptions about people in the west before I moved here’
The buzz is back on Grafton Street. Photograph: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images Emigration in reverse: ‘Now the brains are coming back’
Pope Francis: Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano claimed the pope had covered up abuse cases involving a former Archbishop of Washington and now former cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Photograph: Andrew Medichini/AP The civil war in the Catholic Church breaks into the open
A single person earning €100,000 a year in Ireland pays almost €12,000 more in tax every year than a married person. Photograph: iStock Singletons in Ireland pay high price for their marital status
Caitríona Lucas, a 41-year-old librarian and mother-of-two, was a highly experienced volunteer with the Irish Coast Guard’s Doolin unit. ‘Caitríona Lucas could still be alive, if we had known what we should have known’
Declan O’Callaghan photographed in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon. Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons A Ballaghaderreen solicitor’s spectacular fall from grace
US president Donald Trump: his claim that immigrants “infest” the US is test-marketing of whether his fans are ready for the next step-up in language towards “vermin”. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo Fintan O’Toole: Trial runs for fascism are in full flow
Pope Francis. File photograph: Tony Gentile/Reuters Dear Pope Francis: ‘A year after John Paul II came, I was raped by a priest’
Former first minister Peter Robinson at the MacGill Summer School in Glenties. Photograph: North West Newspix United Ireland? ‘The south of Ireland doesn’t want us and can’t afford us’
The challenges of the teenage years are as normal a stage of child development as the sleepless nights, endless bodily fluids, food-spattered walls and temper tantrums of the first two years. Photograph: iStock Parenting the teenage brain: a user’s guide
Related indicates that not receiving enough likes or comments on a selfie post can result in individuals feeling badly and/or experiencing low self-esteem. Generation Selfie exposes itself to image problems
Asset classes: Residential property, deposit income, commercial investments and shares have over the years exceeded and fallen short of expectations. Which is the best investment – your house or shares?