The starting point for Michael West’s new play, in this joint production by Corn Exchange and the Abbey, is an alternative, though highly familiar, 1970s Ireland. You know, elections every few weeks, bad suits, wide ties, and a seedy nexus of politics and property development.

When the Mary Celeste, an American brigantine, was discovered adrift and deserted off the Azores in 1872 it opened a mystery that remains unresolved.

If the two main parties acknowledged that there is no policy difference between them, they could form a coalition and agree to rotate the office of the taoiseach, writes Ryle Dwyer

A 1989 official visit by the then Taoiseach took place in the midst of a major corruption scandal — and yet it proved to be a highly successful mission for the Irish, writes Ryle Dwyer

State papers revealed justice minister and Limerick TD Gerry Collins had become aware in November 1980 that the well-known manor and estate in Adare, Co Limerick, was due to be sold.

State papers show a senior official has sought an undertaking from Mr Goodman as the chief executive of AIBP in January 1989 that there would be no further false declarations as well as an explanation for such breaches.

The Department of Finance accused several companies that had set up in the new Irish Financial Services Centre in Dublin in 1987 of abusing its rules for the benefit of foreign banks.

One could hardly imagine a more traumatic political time to visit Japan than late April 1989, when Taoiseach Charles Haughey arrived there

Records from his office reveal he was concerned about the deployment of the UDR in Catholic areas.

An interdepartmental group on national security expressed concern at the Government’s decision in 1989 to sell a terrace of Georgian houses in Upper Merrion Street, Dublin 2, because of the potential for snipers to access them to target politicians in Government Buildings on the other side of the road.

Ireland’s foreign minister privately told the British home secretary that the controversy surrounding the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four cases was “seriously affecting” the relationship between the two nations, state papers have revealed.

The Irish Government raised concerns over claims made by a British Conservative minister that some lawyers in Northern Ireland were “unduly sympathetic to the IRA”, weeks before Pat Finucane was killed.

The Taoiseach wants to see the abandoned building where schoolgirl Ana Kriegel was murdered demolished.

His work spanned biography, poetry, Irish history, drama and literary criticism.

There is a famous dolphin in our midst — Spirtle the sunburned Scottish dolphin has made her way down the east coast of Ireland and is now swimming off the Cork and Kerry coast.

No man is an island. And only the privileged get the deeds to their very own isle. Sometimes the purchase is the goal. Then once the high wears off, it’s time to stampede back to the

A wave of Independents were swept into power in the last general election. The country was in recovery mode.

Ireland lost two significant, well-respected figures this week — albeit voices from very different ends of the social milieu. Both men died after short illnesses.

The Irish people can no longer be bought with their own money. That’s a “take-away” from last Friday’s poll.

Being the son or daughter of a politician can get you elected, but may be an unfair point of comparison once you are in office, says Political Correspondent Elaine Loughlin.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe professes to be very proud of his rainy day fund and it is surely good that our Government has a sinking fund from which resources can be drawn should the national roof fall in, or fiscal dry rot develop.

Marriage proposals from men seeking good wives; butter, milk and potatoes as part payment of wages - such are the anecdotes that populate the pages of a new social history documenting the colourful history of the country's first nurses' trade union.

When the FAI — or rather John Delaney, since they remain one and the same thing, at least for now — declared on Saturday night that they were creating a new position for him, it transformed a mere theory we had last November into an obvious truth.

Des O’Sullivan casts an eye over the paintings at de Veres sale.

Former Fianna Fáil TD and Minister, Michael Smith, has settled a defamation action he brought over a newspaper article.

Taoiseach Charles Haughey told British prime minister Margaret Thatcher that the Irish government was ‘constantly ballyragged’ by the British and received ‘no credit’ for the work they had been doing, writes Seán McCárthaigh

Everyone’s favourite substitute history teacher, Reeling in the Years, just never gets old.

Gerard Howlin believes a major cultural change is coming to Áras an Uachtaráin in September.

The pushing and shoving over who really wants an election is the tribal violence of ward politics in a student union setting.