Minister receives petition over Irish language education policy: A petition of 12,000 signatures calling for an integrated education policy for the Irish language was presented by campaigners to the Minister for Education Joe McHugh in Dublin on Thursday. Read more here.
UCD president: 'Employers nowadays want more rounded graduates': If there really is a funding crisis in higher education, you wouldn't know it to look around UCD's sprawling campus at Belfield, south Dublin. Cranes on the skyline are a sign that thousands of new student beds are under construction on campus. Read more here.
UCD plans to expand and become Ireland's 'largest' third-level institution: UCD is planning to enrol thousands of additional students and hire more than 500 academic staff over the coming years under expansion plans which, it says, will make it the largest third-level institution in Ireland. Read more here.
Man walks into a bar and hands Boris Johnson a majority: If British politics has been a bad joke for the last three years, there's comfort of sorts to be taken by the fact that it literally started with a man walking into the bar. Read more here.
Denis Bradley: Loss of a majority will have a deep impact on unionism: The old republican mantra that England must withdraw from Ireland should be updated. It needs replaced with one that calls upon Ireland to withdraw from England. Read more here.
Fintan O'Toole: Johnson's win gives stable majority to a very unstable character: A line from the old gambler's lament takes a whole new twist: "Wherever I roll the dice/ The blues run the game." Boris Johnson is an opportunist and a gambler. Read more here.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – 'It's a war to do a movie like this': JJ Abrams knows what audiences think of him. "I've never been great at endings," the film-maker says, just hours after delivering a finished version of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. With some hesitation, Abrams added, "I don't actually think I'm good at anything, but I know how to begin a story. Ending a story is tough." Read more here.
