A MAN was recovering in hospital last night after being stabbed a number of times in Dublin city in the early hours of New Year's Day.
Gardaí said the incident happened on Lower Dominick Street at about 5am yesterday, and the victim was in a stable condition in hospital. No arrests were made but gardaí were continuing to investigate.
Elsewhere, some vehicles were damaged in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, during street clashes between groups of revellers at about 1.30am yesterday, while 16 people were evacuated from an apartment block in the centre of Tullamore, Co Offaly, after an early-morning fire in the building.
A Christmas tree in the communal hallway was believed to be the source, but further tests were being carried out yesterday.
Insp Pat Murray of Tullamore Garda station said seven people were arrested for public order offences at the apartment block in Patrick Street, while a number of others were taken to the Midlands Regional Hospital, Tullamore, where they were treated for smoke inhalation.
In Cork, gardaí described the city as much quieter than on previous New Year's Eves, with the number of arrests for public order offences down on previous years - reflecting the drop in numbers of people coming into the city to party.
The same trend was observed by Val Hanley, president of the Vintners Federation of Ireland, who reported that a shortage of transport options and lifestyle changes were causing large numbers of people to ring in the new year at home.
"Publicans don't have a high expectation of New Year's Eve any more. That's all down to cheap alcohol really, and we're just not able to compete at the levels of the large multiples."
Mr Hanley, who runs a pub in Galway city, said: "Taxis are stretched and buses can be hard to get on New Year's Eve, so some people feel they have no way of getting home. I had a reasonable crowd, but it wouldn't be anything like a regular Saturday night."
In Cork, 2009 was welcomed in the traditional way with the bells of St Anne's Church on Shandon on the northside and the bells of St Fin Barre's Cathedral on the southside ringing out the old year and ringing in the new.
Tower captain of the bell-ringing team at St Fin Barre's, Heather Heaslip, said the team of eight ringers were joined by a number of visitors as they made their way up the stone spiral stair case to the bell-ringing platform some 100 feet up in the cathedral tower.
"We started at 45 seconds to midnight and we tolled 12 dongs on the number 12 bell, which is the biggest and the loudest, to see out the old year, and then we had the leap second of silence before we came in and pealed the other seven bells to welcome in the new year."
Revellers in the city said it seemed many Corkonians had opted to go to house parties to welcome in the new year rather than venture into the city centre in search of celebrations.
"It seemed quiet, certainly compared to say a jazz festival weekend. We reckoned everyone thought the place would be mad and people wanted to avoid the craziness, but actually it was all very sane, no queuing to get into pubs and clubs - it was great," said an anonymous reveller.
Elsewhere, mobile phone operators reported that record numbers of text messages were sent on New Year's Eve and early yesterday.
Vodafone said its customers surpassed last year's figures by sending some 17 million texts, while according to O2, about 21 million texts were sent on its network between 7am on New Year's Eve and 7am yesterday.
Meteor said its customers sent 1,743,000 texts between midnight and 1am yesterday.