The films will include Lance Daly's Life's a Breeze with Pat Shortt and Fionnuala O'Flanagan plus Neil Jordan's Byzantium with Saoirse Ronan, along with two new BBC Television series, Ripper Street and Vexed , which will result in investment of €11m and create employment for 350 cast and crew. [read more]

Irish couples are digging deep and sparing no expense for their wedding day despite a dreadful economic state at the moment. A new survey from WeddingFace.com puts the cost of the average Irish wedding at $27,000, a surprising €1,000 jump from last year’s results . [read more]

THE SEDATE RDS Library was the setting last night for a runway show highlighting Irish fashion design and accessories. [read more]

Irish actress Antonia Campbell Hughes is in talks to star opposite Jena Malone in the film Lonely Hunter, a biopic of American author Carson McCullers. [read more]

Portraits of a Meath aristocrat and his glamorous music-hall wife whose marriage enthralled Edwardian society are to be auctioned in London [read more]

“Joey and Mary’s Irish/Italian Wedding,” a benefit for Sterling House, will be held Saturday, Feb. 11, at 6:30 p.m. Tickets, $50 per person, include cocktail hour, dinner catered by Vazzano’s Four Seasons of Stratford, the wedding show, dancing, sing-alongs, raffles and auction. [read more]

A New York Irish cop was described as ‘very,very lucky’ by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly after surviving a bullet wound to the head. Plain clothes officer Kevin Brennan, 29, was shot in the back of the head on Tuesday night after a shoot out at a Brooklyn housing project. [read more]

Irish people lack self esteem – but the country is still well worth a visit and the pub remains the focal point of life in Ireland, according to the new edition of one of the world’s top travel guides. [read more]

It’s a “shop local” drive with a difference. Bridegrooms can win a free wedding by sourcing all their flowers, cars, dresses, suits and so on in one town. [read more]

A former Irish Catholic priest appeared in court this week over a probe into sham marriages in Northern Ireland. Cleric Pat Buckley appeared in court on Tuesday, alongside 15 others in relation to the investigation into bogus marriages, money laundering and fraud. [read more]