For 30 years, Brian McNeill hunted the world’s second-biggest fish from small boats off the wild west coast of Ireland. Now the species has made a recovery so rapid it has astounded scientists

The ambush was simple. A spotter on a hill would scan the sea and when he saw the big black fins approach, he would shout down to the boatmen. They would ready their nets and quickly row out to the kill zone.

When a shark got tangled in the mesh, Brian McNeill would wait a minute or two while it struggled, then steady himself and raise his harpoon. This was the crucial moment. The creature would be diving and thrashing, desperate to escape. If the blade hit the gills blood would spurt, clouding the water. The trick was to hit a small spot between the vertebrae.

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A widespread search has been sparked after Victoria Mary Clarke noticed a rifle owned by the late Pogues frontman was gone. She explains why this piece of history was one of the few possessions he cherished

OK, hands up – who’s nicked Shane MacGowan’s gun? MacGowan’s widow Victoria Mary Clarke is not happy and she wants it back now, sparking a widespread search after tweeting: “Shane’s 1916 rifle has gone missing, most likely been stolen.”

The gun is not any old gun. It’s a rifle from the 1916 Easter Rising, and was probably used in the takeover of the General Post Office (GPO) by armed groups of the Irish Volunteers and the Citizen Army, commanded by Padraig Pearse and James Connolly. It was given to MacGowan as a 60th birthday present by the singer-songwriter Glen Hansard.

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Shocked people from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria herded on to coaches as 200 tents removed and streets cleaned

The convoy arrived just after sunrise, a stream of police vehicles, council trucks, mounted cranes and coaches, ready to dismantle a tent city of migrants and refugees in the heart of Dublin that had become too big, too visible, too political.

They fenced off streets and herded shocked, sleepy men from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and other countries on to buses and began to extirpate about 200 tents, gradually extinguishing all traces of the camp, but no amount of sweeping and hosing could remove the whiff of elections and diplomacy gone wrong.

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Cian Ó Cíobháin’s show, ‘one of the most radical in the world’, has been beguiling listeners in Irish for 25 years. Others, from Warsaw to Lyon, offer similar musical adventures

In the early 2000s, trudging through the static of mainstream radio, I stumbled upon RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta, the Irish-language outpost of Ireland’s national broadcaster – and a programme that flipped the script on radio as I knew it. Presented by Cian Ó Cíobháin from the Atlantic-hugging west Kerry coast, a fair stretch from my home in rural Northern Ireland, An Taobh Tuathail (“The Other Side”) still feels like a portal to a far-flung realm.

Broadcast every weekday since May 1999, Ó Cíobháin expertly blends leftfield music: it has championed ambient and electronic pioneers such as Mexican composer Murcof and the late Japanese musician Susumu Yokota, and spotlighted the curveballing instrumentalism of Irish artists including cellist Eimear Reidy and revered Limerick producer Naive Ted. Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys is one of many artists to have hailed An Taobh Tuathail’s influence, calling it “one of the most radical radio shows in the world”.

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Prosecutors say there is not enough evidence to convict the former soldiers for the shooting of a girl, 14, and a man, 41, in Derry

Two British army veterans will not be prosecuted in relation to the deaths of a schoolgirl and unarmed civilian in two separate shooting incidents that took place in Northern Ireland over 50 years ago.

Prosecutors said that in both cases – the deaths of Annette McGavigan, 14, and William McGreanery, 41, in Derry in 1971 – the available evidence was insufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction in court.

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Prime minister dismisses potential deal with Dublin, increasing prospect of an escalating UK-Irish crisis

• UK politics – latest updates

Rishi Sunak has said the UK will not accept the return of asylum seekers from Ireland and dismissed the prospect of a deal with Dublin.

The prime minister doubled down on his Rwanda deportation plan and appeared to reject any deal with the Irish government, which is alarmed at asylum seekers entering the republic from Northern Ireland .

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Thirty years ago, Riverdance’s groundbreaking Eurovision interval performance ignited a new generation’s devotion to Irish dancing

Every Irish dancer remembers the first time they watched Riverdance. For many, that bolt from the blue struck 30 years ago when the Eurovision song contest interval act was broadcast across the world on the evening of 30 April 1994 . This sensational, seven-minute showcase of the host country’s traditional dance form would upstage the main event and inspire a new generation of jigging hopefuls, begging their parents to be enrolled in Irish dance classes the very next week.

I was one of the more unusual cases, having taken up Irish dancing lessons in my local church hall before even seeing Riverdance. My Irish dad, realising this was fast becoming a deep devotion and not a fleeting hobby, soon introduced me to the show that had changed Irish dancing for ever. “You will love Riverdance,” he enthused to his then nine-year-old daughter, born one year after the show’s debut.

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UK PM points to Irish deputy PM’s claim that threat of being deported led people to cross border from Northern Ireland

An increase in asylum seekers heading to to Ireland proves that the Conservative party’s Rwanda plan is working, Rishi Sunak has claimed.

In an interview with Sky News’ Trevor Phillips that will air on Sunday morning, the prime minister said the “deterrent is already having an impact because people are worried about coming here”.

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Kerry Condon plays a potty-mouthed IRA gang leader and Neeson is the quiet antihero in this action thriller set at the height of the Troubles

Producer-director and veteran Clint Eastwood collaborator Robert Lorenz is now saddling up for this “Donegal western”. It is an action thriller that finds the cowboy spirit in the lush rolling grasslands of County Donegal in Ireland’s north-west, neighbouring Northern Ireland but geographically sequestered from the rest of the Republic.

In 1974, at the height of the Troubles, an IRA gang led by icy-hearted and potty-mouthed Doireann (Kerry Condon) accidentally kills a bunch of kids with a Belfast bomb blast. Without especially regretting the collateral damage, she leads her crew as they escape over the border into Donegal to lie low, fetching up on the outskirts of a village that appears populated by adorable stereotypes. These include a stolid Gardai officer (Ciarán Hinds), and his best mate, widower Finbar Murphy (Liam Neeson), a quiet man who apparently makes a living dealing in secondhand books – and shyly courting neighbour Rita (Niamh Cusack).

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