A glance at the week that was
Snowed under
It snowed this week in most of the country, and some parts of it were practically buried under the white stuff.
The south-east was particularly badly hit. with roads closed, schools shut and carrots in short supply as kids made an army of snowmen.
As the week went on, there was further snowfall, and it led to chaos in the North and the closure of Dublin Airport for most of Thursday. As the snow fell, Met Eireann confirmed that it had been the coldest winter in the capital at least since 1991. The cold spell is set to continue.
Bird brain
In a gift to compilers of weird news stories, an Australian man was stopped at customs in Melbourne and was caught with two pigeons stuffed into his trousers.
The birds were wrapped in padded envelopes and squeezed into a pair of tights below his trousers for his long-haul flight from Dubai.
This picture of the bizarre crime has since gone around the world. Officials disclosed that they had also seized some seeds and an undeclared aubergine from the 23-year-old.
Seriously, that is not a joke.
The numbers
327,861The latest number of unemployed in the Republic
61The percentage of Irish landline customers who have now blocked direct marketing calls
15,000Estimated number of students who protested in Dublin against the reintroduction of third-level fees
We now know
- A Killarney restaurant, Vanilla Pod, is asking customers to pay only what they think their meal was worth
- Google Earth will now feature Google Ocean, with maps of the seabed
- The Indian government has been funding development of a supposed $10 (€7.80) laptop
- A "bus-only gate" will be put on Dublin's roads in July and a congestion charge is likely within three years, according to the Government