The Irish market had a fairly featureless and uninspiring day, but still managed to outperform several of its European peers. The Iseq added about 0.5 per cent to finish a lustreless session just below 2,900.
?It was a typical Monday for the Irish market,? a Dublin broker said, adding that international markets failed to provide any inspiration.
One of the best performers amongst the leading stocks was low-fares airline Ryanair, which traded up 1.3 per cent to €3.91.
Building materials group CRH recovered a little from a ?very bouncy week", a broker said, and added almost 2 per cent, or 29 cent, to finish just below €15.82.
The stock had been quite weak after releasing a trading update last Wednesday and volumes remained light enough today. There was nothing ?fantastically exciting? going on behind today?s jump, one trader noted. ?It was just people positioning themselves ahead of quarter three,? he said.
Packaging group Smurfit Kappa touched a daily high of €7.33 at one stage, but lost most of its gains to finish at €7.15.
Elsewhere, AIB and Irish Life & Permanent softened slightly, shedding 2 cent and 1 cent respectively to finish at 91 cent and €1.56. Volume was light in the banking sector, with the exception of Bank of Ireland, but despite strong activity in the stock it closed unchanged at 73 cent.
Oil and gas exploration company Providence Resources provided a technical update on its Frontier Exploration licence, but although this was positively received by brokers, the stock was flat on the day at €1.95.
Software firm Norkom announced that its financial crime risk management solution has been ranked highest in its industry for "completeness of offering", by analyst firm Chartis Research, but nonetheless it slipped 3 cent to €1.25.
Across Europe, the UK's FTSE 100 climbed 0.7 per cent, France's CAC 40 gained 0.4 per cent and Germany's DAX increased 0.2 per cent.
Additional reporting: Bloomberg