#northern-ireland

#northern-ireland

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was filmed across Northern Ireland. While viewers experience breathtaking scenery through their screens, it threw up a host of issues for the cast and crew. "It's very, very rainy, and the sets were so muddy", says Dexter Sol Ansell, who plays Egg - "If you stepped in the mud and stood still for more than five seconds... you're gone. You've been submerged."

So many tourists he picks up want to talk about the hit comedy and, as a fan himself, he's happy to oblige. We're stuck in traffic, which is odd for this small city on a wet Tuesday morning. It's because all the media are here, he jokes. But there is some truth to it. I'm visiting for the world premiere of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast,

Three middle-aged women may be all you need for anything. To run a business, raise a village, end a war, retool a civilisation, empty the loft. Even more usefully, you can make a great murder-mystery caper with them, as Lisa McGee (a fourth woman! If it ain't broke, don't fix it) has done with her new series How to Get to Heaven from Belfast.

Liadan Ní Chuinn was born in Northern Ireland in 1998, the year the Good Friday Agreement ended the Troubles, the decades of violence stemming from England's occupation of Ireland. Other recent fiction about the Troubles-the novels and Trespasses , the TV show Derry Girls (all excellent)-is set firmly in the last century, relegating the violence to history. Ní Chuinn's work does the opposite: Their new book of short stories, Every One Still Her e, is set in contemporary Northern Ireland.

Even unionists would struggle to object to such a move, even if the Irish Government has shied away from it Why is there no Irish passport office in Belfast? Once, such a question would only have been asked by the most ideologically committed northern nationalists. Demand for Irish passports was limited, the issue was seen as controversial and even if those objections were overcome, security considerations would have made such a proposal problematic.

The government tabled what is known as a remedial order to remove the immunity clause after court challenges said it was incompatible with the European convention on human rights. Keir Starmer told the House of Commons the change would fulfil legal obligations while protecting veterans from vexatious prosecutions. Under the last government, they passed legislation which was struck down, leaving our veterans utterly exposed. We're putting in place proper measures to protect them, the prime minister said.

Endometriosis occurs when tissue like the lining of the womb grows in other places, such as ovaries, fallopian tubes and other organs. "The pain is excruciating, at its worst it's like barbed wire inside me and clinging to my organs. I am so ill I can often spend days in bed," Maguire said. She said she is furious that she is having to go through an early medicated menopause as she awaits surgery - a wait which she has been told could take several years.

The company's overall rate of profit on these contracts is capped at around 6%, but Mears' operations across the UK exceeded that limit to the tune of 13.8m. Mears recorded its highest rate of profit in Northern Ireland, peaking at 17%. That was partly due to the fact asylum seekers in Northern Ireland don't have to be dispersed among different local authorities like they do in the UK, reducing transport and administrative costs.

The Met Office has said that for Autumn, the UK recorded 20% more rainfall than the long-term meteorological average, but of the four nations, it was Northern Ireland and Wales that saw the most rainfall, with 39% and 37% above average respectively. Only 2000 and 2011 have seen wetter autumns in Northern Ireland since 1836. England saw a clear north/south divide, with northern England recording 45% above average (its fifth wettest Autumn since 1836) and southern England 17% more than average.

It's a midweek morning in the ­early 1990s and I'm on Pat Kenny's show on RTÉ. I've been invited on along with a fellow female Northerner to talk about what it's like living in the south: she as a Catholic and me as a Protestant. It's an illuminating, deep-dive kind of a chat, covering many ­dimensions of our lives and seeking to shine a light on how our advance conceptions - and our lived realities - might differ.

It's difficult to win away in international football and that is something this team still has to develop, but I take a lot of encouragement from the performances in Cologne and Slovakia where we were challenged and were missing key players in those games. We still gave a really good account of ourselves and were in the game in Germany for 70, 75 minutes.

Northern Ireland have recorded just one victory over Italy in the 11 previous meetings between the two nations. Michael O'Neill's side face a trip to Italy in March for the semi-finals of the European play-offs for a place in the 2026 World Cup. A win for Northern Ireland in that match would set up a final meeting away to the winner of the other Path A semi-final between Wales and Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the winner of that final qualifying for the World Cup.

Leaked letter says politicians in Northern Ireland should be granted observer status

Tomas Bobcek's 91st-minute winner condemned Northern Ireland to defeat and set Slovakia up for a winner-takes-all decider with Germany in 2026 World Cup qualifying on a night when the visitors secured a play-off place courtesy of other results. Croatia's victory at home to the Faroe Islands means Michael O'Neill's side will contest a two-legged decider to reach next year's tournament in the US, Canada and Mexico because they will be one of the highest-placing Nations League group winners in European qualifying.

On a grassroots level, it could not be clearer: Irish people want to learn Irish. An island-wide Údarás na Gaeltachta study found last year that 74pc wish to improve their level.

We don't celebrate defeat, but the performance was exceptional. We have to celebrate that. I think the way in which the players executed the gameplan, we haven't conceded from open play. The first one [goal] is frustrating because I think it's really preventable from our point of view, but we'll learn from that. It's 2-0, we're still in the tie. There are improvements to be made, but, overall, I'm really proud of the group.

Mansergh, who has died aged 78 of a heart attack during a trip to Western Sahara with other retired Irish parliamentarians, was educated at a British boarding school and Oxford University yet helped shape the Irish republican dimensions of the agreement. In 1988, he was political adviser to the then taoiseach, Charles Haughey, who tasked him with opening up a secret channel of communication.

It was amazing, surreal, extraordinary and very, very special for us as a small family-run business that they wanted to come here to our farm to meet us as a family, to be interested in us as a family, and to be concerned about us as a family - particularly after Storm Amy and how it affected the farm