Malachy Clerkin: Rory McIlroy is special because of his vulnerabilities as much as his victoriesNothing in sport in 2025 compared to the rollercoaster night watching the final round of the Masters at AugustaFri Dec 19 2025 - 13:07
From Tokyo to Istanbul and Croke Park: the top 25 moments of the year in women’s sportWorld and European champions, record-setters and mould-breakers, Irish sportswomen had another stellar yearThu Dec 18 2025 - 13:00
Scotstown finally win their Ulster title on the back of a phenomenal Rory Beggan display Monaghan goalkeeper scores 11 points as his team falls over the line after an extra-time battle against KilcooSun Dec 14 2025 - 12:17
The Northern Standard recorded the childhood sporting careers of me and many others. Its closure is a sad dayAfter 186 years of publication, The Northern Standard will put out its last edition next week. What a sad, grim thingSat Dec 13 2025 - 06:00
Beyond Skorts: How Ireland’s sportswomen kept clearing impossibly high bars in 2025Away from the rí-rá of the skorts debate, Irish women offered a bounty of sporting firsts in 2026Sat Dec 13 2025 - 06:00
Charlie Smyth’s foot-perfect NFL debut has put Tadhg Leader’s kicking programme on the map GAA player from Co Down’s journey to kicking for the New Orleans Saints began with a session in Carlow hosted by Leader in 2023Sun Dec 07 2025 - 06:00
Malachy Clerkin: Shameful police reaction another wound inflicted on Hillsborough familiesAfter 36 years of being lied to and gaslit, victims of the disaster deserve so much betterSat Dec 06 2025 - 06:00
TV View: Zippy Fish left trailing in second as Munster flunk scrum universityThe AFLW Grand Final was a bit of a shambles but their half-time entertainment was an idea worth stealingSun Nov 30 2025 - 21:02
From Mike Tyson to Boris Becker and DJ Carey – the best sports books of 2025It is a vintage year for biographies, memoirs and deep dives into sport’s darker sidesSun Nov 30 2025 - 06:00
Malachy Clerkin: Scrums are like Finnegans Wake – you either haven’t a clue or you spoof that you doRugby needs to do so much more to enlighten a baffled public as to why a retreating scrum concedes so many penaltiesFri Nov 28 2025 - 19:43
Malachy Clerkin: As the club industrial complex kicks in, this Ireland team has shortened the winter Transfers, form, fitness: settle in for months of obsessing over the almost 40 players with a chance of making the squad in MarchFri Nov 21 2025 - 20:14
Troy Parrott gave us a chance to be innocently happy. Whatever happens from here, that lasts foreverOver the campaign, this Ireland side showed themselves to be all the things you’d want from a team representing the countryMon Nov 17 2025 - 14:23
Malachy Clerkin: Ireland needed a get-right game and they got what they were looking forIreland finally looked in tune for the first time in the autumn internationalsSat Nov 15 2025 - 23:46
Domhnall Nugent: ‘This guy messaged to say that after I talked about addiction, he went to the GP and it saved his life’The St John’s and Antrim hurler has escaped drink and drugs and homelessness to turn his life around and win a county titleSat Nov 15 2025 - 06:00
Beating Portugal changed how people see the Ireland team. Long may it lastThe chances of making the World Cup are still pretty slim but suddenly there’s an energy that has been missing for too longFri Nov 14 2025 - 14:30
Troy Parrott scores twice to pull off a victory for the ages over Portugal ‘I think it’s probably the best night that I’ve ever had in my whole life,’ says Parrott after match-winning doubleThu Nov 13 2025 - 22:23
Ireland player ratings: Troy Parrott magnificent, Seamus Coleman heroic, Dara O’Shea defiantIreland’s win over Portugal was the outstanding result of the Heimir Hallgrímsson era, every one of his players gave the performance neededThu Nov 13 2025 - 21:57
Malachy Clerkin: Gianni Infantino inventing the Fifa Peace Prize for Trump is humiliating all roundAny child can tell the difference between a real prize and a fake one – how is the US president not dying of sheer mortification?Sat Nov 08 2025 - 06:00
The annoying and enduring appeal of Eddie Jones, the world’s longest-serving test rugby coachJapan has played a huge role in the career of the man who has coached - and won - more international games than anyone elseFri Nov 07 2025 - 15:00
‘His good name will probably never recover’: DJ Carey begins 5½ years in prisonJudge ‘couldn’t imagine a more reprehensible fraud’ than extortion based on cancerTue Nov 04 2025 - 06:00
Kellie Harrington comes out of retirement: ‘This is what I want to do. This is what has saved me’Paris was supposed to be the end for the two-time Olympic gold medallist but a year of reflection has led her to decide to get back into the ringFri Oct 24 2025 - 15:41
David Gillick’s terrific book reminds us of how little we know about sportspeopleMalachy Clerkin: We think we can read the minds of sportspeople. What a dopey conceitFri Oct 24 2025 - 14:04
Evan Ferguson’s Roma goal drought coming under scrutiny of Italian mediaThe Irish international is not the first striker to get off to a slow start at Roma but the pressure is growing Wed Oct 22 2025 - 12:15
Malachy Clerkin: All hail Pope Leo XIV, the world’s most famous sporting trash-talkerHis Holiness didn’t allow the fact that his own team is terrible stop him from zinging a Chicago Cubs fan. Amen to thatSat Oct 18 2025 - 06:00
Conor McHugh brings it all back home as he aims to win Dublin doubleNa Fianna man hopes to cap a year that has already brought a club All-Ireland, a wedding and his intercounty hurling debutSat Oct 18 2025 - 06:00
Shane Ryan on the Enhanced Games: ‘You have no idea of the shitstorm that I’ve caused’The three-time Olympian says he is willing to take performance-enhancing drugs because the money he will earn is life-changingWed Oct 15 2025 - 13:12
Ireland’s win over Armenia fails to uplift as they look timid and bereft of any clear planTigran Barseghyan’s red card was a godsend, but even then Heimir Hallgrímsson’s team made it look difficultWed Oct 15 2025 - 06:00
By joining the Enhanced Games, Shane Ryan will be a paid stooge of a doped-up circus Ryan will be a sunny, articulate spokesman for a grim plaything of tech billionaires with God complexesTue Oct 14 2025 - 18:00
Malachy Clerkin: The Jim Gavin fiasco was a long overdue humbling for GAA exceptionalism Micheál Martin had his head turned by Gavin’s football success, forgetting it’s just a sport, no better or worse than the restSat Oct 11 2025 - 06:00
Andy Farrell interview: From timid boy to leader of men, his secret is leaning into discomfortIreland head coach also places a high value on personal authenticity, as readers of his new memoir will discoverSat Oct 11 2025 - 06:00
There has never been an international footballer to compare to Cristiano Ronaldo Annoying, vain and with an ego the size of Jupiter - but there’s no arguing with the numbers he has put up for PortugalFri Oct 10 2025 - 12:59
Malachy Clerkin: If data in football is as useless as Martin O’Neill says, why does everybody use it?The former Ireland manager is surely putting on a pose when he rubbishes the statistics that have become so engrained in the gameSat Oct 04 2025 - 06:00
Irish Olympic hopefuls have won 45 senior medals worldwide in 2025. Where did it all go right?Three years out from the LA Olympics, new faces have emerged into a system that finally seems to be workingFri Oct 03 2025 - 13:00
Ryder Cup Day Three: Shane Lowry holes the crucial putt as Europe win the Ryder Cup – as it happenedHole-by-hole action from Bethpage Black as Luke Donald’s side just about hold off stirring American fightbackSun Sept 28 2025 - 23:50
Malachy Clerkin: It’s getting very hard to separate American sport from American uglinessEnjoyment of NFL at Croke Park and the Ryder Cup is disturbed by Trump-dominated backdropSat Sept 27 2025 - 06:00
Ryder Cup Day One: Europe take commanding lead – as it happenedRory McIlroy goes unbeaten as Tommy Fleetwood and Jon Rahm lead the way for Europe as Donald Trump watches onFri Sept 26 2025 - 23:55
This won’t be the last time the FAI face a Dáil committee – they need to get better at itFacing questions they legally couldn’t answer was hard but the FAI made it worse by making committee feel disrespectedWed Sept 24 2025 - 20:03
FAI officials stay quiet on Girls In Green documentary during tetchy Oireachtas hearing – as it happenedFormer Ireland manager Eileen Gleeson not included among Abbotstown delegationWed Sept 24 2025 - 16:48
Barry McGuigan: ‘Ricky Hatton was so kind and generous to others but he was very hard on himself’Boxing legend calls on sporting authorities across the world to do more to support the mental health of sportspeopleWed Sept 24 2025 - 06:00
Take bad behaviour out of the Ryder Cup and it won’t be the Ryder Cup Niggle and rancour are baked into the event’s DNA Sat Sept 20 2025 - 06:00
Preventing suicide needs everyone’s input. Here’s how the GAA plays its part ‘The reality is that people that end their own life by suicide, in most cases they’re looking for a way not to do it’Sun Sept 14 2025 - 06:00
FAI chief’s cool demeanour was at odds with an organisation groaning under the strain of debtDavid Courell deserves credit for talking to journalists, but the substance of what he said is another matterFri Sept 12 2025 - 19:09
Stephen Cluxton turns the page on intercounty playing days, but the book is far from finishedDublin veteran can remain setter of standards in new role as part of Ger Brennan’s backroom teamThu Sept 11 2025 - 17:00
How Ireland put in 47 crosses against Hungary for the return of just one goalHeimir Hallgrímsson’s side leaned on Ryan Manning and Jake O’Brien to get the ball into the box but only created six chancesMon Sept 08 2025 - 06:00
Ireland show great character but Hallgrímsson’s principles weren’t on show in the opening 15 minutesIreland v Hungary: Irish manager wants his team to be good at specific things but they failed to live up to them hereSat Sept 06 2025 - 22:43
Ireland player ratings: Caoimhín Kelleher recovers well but a nightmare evening for some Dismal first half rectified by mammoth late push from Heimir Hallgrímsson’s sideSat Sept 06 2025 - 22:05
Heimir Hallgrímsson has given Ireland hope, but now is the moment to follow throughIreland manager’s calm and logical approach sets the tone for World Cup campaign that starts against HungarySat Sept 06 2025 - 06:00
Malachy Clerkin: It will take a miracle to beat Ballygunner – maybe Austin Gleeson can conjure oneGleeson is a poster boy for the generation of Waterford hurlers who can’t get a sniff of a county medal, but everything ends eventuallySat Sept 06 2025 - 06:00
With so many captains in the Ireland squad, leadership shouldn’t be a problemSix of Heimir Halgrimsson’s 23-man panel have worn the armband at club level already this seasonThu Sept 04 2025 - 06:00
Live Ryder Cup team announcement: No surprises as Shane Lowry confirmed on Team Europe Matt Fitzpatrick, Jon Rahm, Sepp Straka, Ludvig Aberg and Viktor Hovland join Lowry as captain’s picks for BethpageMon Sept 01 2025 - 14:39
