With Bank of Ireland half-year results duly coming in ahead of forecasts, financial shares got a badly-needed boost in Dublin. Dealers expect upgrades to the bank's full-year profit forecasts and hopefully these will stimulate interest in a sector that has had a dreadful year.

Bank of Ireland shares rose as high as €8.37 before closing 27 cents higher on €8.25 (£6.50). Other financial shares were also stronger. Irish Life & Permanent - Bank of Ireland's partner in a bid for Ulster Bank - gained 23 cents to €10.20 (£8.03). AIB - still to show its hand in the bidding for Ulster - was 16 1/2 cents higher on €12.35 (£9.73) although Anglo Irish Bank bucked the trend, falling six cents to €2.30 (£1.81).

Eircom bounced back from its low against a background of strong demand for European telecom shares, but is likely to find the going tough until next week's half-year results are out of the way. The shares closed 12 cents higher on €3.82 (£3.01), but are still trading below July's €3.90 flotation price.

CRH is another leading industrial going through a bad patch and the big gains on European stock markets did not help the stock, which drifted two cents lower to €16.98 (£13.37).

Others to lose ground included one of the food sector favourites, IAWS which lost 13 cents to €4.57 (£3.60), while Jurys was 15 cents lower on €7.65 (£6.02). Smurfit was four cents lower on €2.62 (£2.06) despite an enthusiastic report by Warburg Dillon Read on the US paper sector and on Smurfit Stone in particular. Ryanair continued its post-results gains and closed 10 cents higher on €9 (£7.09). The main feature on Nasdaq was a strong showing by Iona, which was trading over $3 higher on $31 (€29.82) at the Dublin close. Takeover talk pushed Esat ahead $1.25 by the Dublin close to over $53.25 (€52.19), while Baltimore was trading $2 firmer at over $36 (€34.64).