Posters promoting tourism to Israel have been defaced in Cork, Ireland. The adverts, urging people to “Visit Israel”, were placed in bus shelters in the city last week, but a number were vandalised within 24 hours.

Irish musical legend Van Morrison was among those at the funeral of Belfast jazz and art aficionado Solly Lipsitz — known affectionately as Mr Jazz — who died at the age of 92 following a short illness.

The Irish Defence Minister may have created a potential domestic dispute with government colleagues after suggesting it was “not valid” to differentiate between Hizbollah’s political and military wings.

Alan Shatter appeared to depart from government policy by questioning the separation of the Iranian-backed terror group’s wings by a number of European governments

Irish TV channel TV3 has been ordered to apologise live on air after its presenter Vincent Browne called Israel a “cancer”.

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has upheld a complaint against the well-known TV host of Tonight With Vincent Browne, who said on an October show that Israel was “the cancer in foreign affairs”.

Ireland has shed its reputation as a hotbed of anti-Israel activism, according to the republic’s only Jewish minister.

Alan Shatter, Minister of Justice, Equality and Defence, and one of Israel’s most outspoken defenders in Ireland, said the public hostility of recent years had now been replaced with a pragmatic realism, giving Israel supporters cause for hope rather than despair.

An El Al flight en route from Tel Aviv to New York made an emergency landing in Ireland after passengers said they had smelled something burning.

The 747 Boeing aircraft, carrying more than 300 passengers and crew members, was forced to land at Shannon Airport on Monday.