Brand Ireland

BREAKING: Reuters won the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting for a series of stories revealing how social-media behemoth Meta knowingly exposed users, including children, to harmful AI chatbots and made billions of dollars from fraudulent ads reut.rs/4d24nFh

You might be familiar with the phrase 'No Irish need apply'. It's a phrase which once accompanied job advertisements in England and the US. This phrase is now the title of a new exhibition in Dublin's immigration museum EPIC. Our Dublin correspondent Gabija Gataveckaite reports.

Have witnessed this several times in the last few years at GAA and LoI matches, seems to be on the increase - a symptom of the 'new' macho masculinity we see across society.

Journalist Brendan O'Brien has died at the age of 82 rte.ie/news/ireland/2…

May the fourth be with you

Tonight we're exploring the 1926 census returns - with four historians who've been looking up their families, and people they're interested in from their own research. Myles is joined by Liz Gillis, Mary McAuliffe, Cormac Moore and Marc McMenamin Tune in to @RTERadio1 from 6PM.

Today, in 1921, the Government of Ireland Act came into effect, carving this island into two jurisdictions, Northern and Southern, each with its own parliament and administration, its own uneasy claim to legitimacy. We call it Partition and it's been a disaster for our people. The idea of Home Rule had been corroding British politics for over three decades. The First Home Rule Bill was proposed in 1886, defeated in the Commons by thirty votes, the killing blow delivered not by Ulster unionists alone but by a faction of Gladstone's own Liberal Party who broke ranks rather than risk what they saw as the dismemberment of the Union. Ulster's Protestants cheered the result. For them, Home Rule meant Rome Rule, a Dublin parliament run by Catholic majorities, threatening their faith, their industry and their identity. It was a fear they would carry, and weaponise, through every compromise and conflict to follow. The 1920 Act, often called the Fourth Home Rule Bill, was Westminster's latest attempt to square an impossible circle, placating nationalist aspiration while soothing unionist anxiety. The solution was blunt: two parliaments, one in Belfast for the six north-eastern counties of Ulster, one in Dublin for the rest of the island. A Council of Ireland was bolted on as a constitutional fig leaf, promising future unity with a view to the eventual establishment of a parliament for the whole of Ireland. Even at the time, few took that promise seriously. Fewer still noted that the nine county Ulster originally proposed by Westminster's own Long Committee, which would have balanced the religious demographics more evenly, was quietly dropped at unionist insistence. Six counties it would be, enough to guarantee a permanent Protestant majority, not enough to be troubled by the three Ulster counties left behind. Both entities remained within the United Kingdom. Southern Ireland's parliament never functioned, boycotted by Sinn Féin and drowned out by the fire and fury of the War of Independence. Only in December 1922, with the birth of the Irish Free State, did the constitutional map shift decisively. On the 7th of December, Northern Ireland, just a day into a new world, formally opted out of the Free State and reasserted its place within the United Kingdom. The border, once theoretical, became permanent. Partition was a bitter compromise, resisted in Dublin and Belfast alike, and for very different reasons. De Valera, speaking in the Dáil in August 1921, warned his colleagues that if they failed to recognise the rights of northern unionists, they would be making the same mistake with that section of the population that England had made with Ireland. He went further, suggesting that if the Republic were recognised, he would be in favour of giving each county the power to vote itself out. Consent, not conquest, was the Republican way. And yet what followed was not peace but a century of tension, conflict, inequality and cold borders. The legacy of the 3rd of May 1921 still reverberates, from the smoke and blood of the Troubles to the cautious hope of the Good Friday Agreement, which revived the same questions first posed by that Fourth Home Rule Bill. With courage and vision, we will be a 32-county nation once again. Buy the Dublin Time Machine a pint and support the DTM Book ko-fi.com/buchanandublin…

Cost of living concerns surge in today's poll and is the biggest issue. A year ago (the second chart) it was the third most salient issue for voters. It's more than curious that the government does not address concerns about immigration - consistently among voters' top three concerns - by saying it will limit student and worker visas owing to capacity constraints, housing, healthcare etc. The constituency in favour of continued high rates of immigration is likely to tiny - language school owners, some employers and fringe, open border ideologues.

"The 'documentary' alleged a Muslim was involved in running a trafficking and drug operation in Clonmel. The footage was almost entirely generated by AI." How Irish 'slopaganda' is making extreme political messaging cheap and viral. jrnl.ie/7027893t

The Sundays via @DSMooney

3rd May 2026

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Trebor, 1987

A new highest score for both Independent Ireland and Aontú in this weekend's Ireland Thinks/Sunday Independent poll, on 9% and 7% respectively.

@DSMooney @Independent_ie @ireland_thinks @rtetwip @rtenews Dread to think of the mish mash and turbulence ahead

While many will focus on the party support levels in the latest Sunday @Independent_ie @ireland_thinks poll… the really important data is Govt Approval/Disapproval

New Order practicing Blue Monday in 1984.

Bank of Ireland U-turns on move to scrap paid ‘marriage leave’ after staff pushback businesspost.ie/banking/bank-o…

A 45-year old man is occupying the top of Washington’s Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge to protest the war on Iran. Guido Reichstadter spoke to Al Jazeera from atop the structure - here's what he had to say.

Rory is not wrong on this 👇

Central Bank director set to take on lead finance role with RTÉ irishexaminer.com/business/compa…