March 3, 2012: The preserved heart of Saint Laurence O’Toole, patron saint of Dublin was stolen from Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin Ireland. The culprit cut through two bars, pried the cage loose, and made off with the relic. O’Toole’s heart had been displayed in the cathedral since the 13th century. It was stored in a heart-shaped wooden box and secured in a small square iron cage on the wall of a chapel dedicated to his memory.

O’Toole is mainly revered by Roman Catholics, however Christ Church Cathedral has been a centre of worship for the Anglican-affiliated Church of Ireland since the Reformation. O’Toole was Dublin’s archbishop from 1162 to 1180 and gained a reputation as a skilful mediator between rival Gaelic and Norman factions then fighting for power in Ireland. He died aged 58 while travelling in Normandy on a peace mission.

Pope Honorius III canonized O’Toole in 1225 on the weight of many claims of miracles at his original grave site. O’Toole’s heart had been the last surviving part of his remains. His bones were reinterred in an English church yard in 1442, but were dug up and disappeared during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

Ireland’s churches have suffered several similar robberies of irreplaceable religious artifacts. Three relics believed to be fragments of the cross used to crucify Jesus were stolen from Holy Cross Abbey in County Tipperary. In a northside Dublin church a thief stole the ornate container housing the jawbone of Saint Brigid,one of Ireland’s earliest and most venerated saints. The container or reliquary was bolted down to the altar. However, it had just been cleaned and so the jawbone of Saint Brigid wasn’t inside.

May 16, 2011: An Irish militant group called in a bomb threat to London police on Monday afternoon. The group stated that it had set a bomb in central London, but did not name a specific location. The group stated it had placed the bomb to protest the visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland, set for Tuesday, May 17, 2011.

In a statement, London Metropolitan Police state that it was on extra alert for terror incidents, and that citizens should be as well. “A wide range of overt and covert tactics will continue to be used in London. Londoners should continue to go about their business as usual but we encourage the public to remain vigilant.”
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February 2011: The Fine Gael party was leading the pack as voters angry about Ireland’s battered economy ended the 80-year dominance of Fianna Fail. “This was a democratic revolution at the ballot box,” Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny told supporters Saturday night. 60 seats had been won by Fine Gael, 32 by Labour, 14 by Fianna Fail, 13 by Sinn Fein and 14 by smaller parties and independents. It takes 83 seats for a majority in the Dail, the lower house of the parliament.

Ireland’s complicated proportional representation system produced extended suspense in the remaining races. Eamon O Cuiv of Fianna Fail, for instance, clinched his re-election on the eighth round of counting in the Galway West constituency, and Labour’s Gerald Nash secured his seat in the 12th count in Louth.

Fine Gael was widely expected to form a coalition government with Labour. But with Fine Gael sensing that it might win nearly 80 seats, party leaders also talked about forming alliances with independent candidates. Kenny, destined to become prime minister, pledged to move quickly to form a government.

Fine Gael polled 36.1 per cent support with the first round of counting completed in all 43 constituencies. Labour, Fine Gael’s possible coalition partner, was running second at 19 per cent while Fianna Fail polled a historic low of 17 per cent. The Green Party, which had six seats in the Dail and was Fianna Fail’s junior partner in government, lost all its seats. Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, who resigned his seat in the British parliament to run for the Dail, was among the winners.

Fine Gael (“tribe of the Irish”) and Fianna Fail (“soldiers of destiny”) were born from opposing sides in Ireland’s civil war of the 1920s, and many see little difference between them on the issues. Fianna Fail, however, was leading the government when the property boom collapsed in 2007, and it put taxpayers on the hook to bail out Ireland’s failing banks.

Brian Cowen, the outgoing prime minister, had fallen to record low popularity and resigned as Fianna Fail party leader even before the campaign. He had wanted to hold the election in March, but agreed to hold it early in a deal to win confirmation of the hated EU-IMF bailout.

Irish voters punished Fianna Fail for 13 per cent unemployment, tax hikes, wage cuts and a humiliating bailout that Ireland had to accept from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. In elections going back to 1932, Fianna Fail had never won less than 39 per cent of the vote and had always been the largest party in the Dail.

The new government, will be constrained by the terms negotiated for the €67.5 billion ($92 billion) credit line from the European Central Bank and the IMF. The loan is contingent on Ireland cutting €15 billion ($20.6 billion) from its deficit spending over the coming four years and imposing the harshest cuts this year. Kenny has pledged to try to negotiate easier terms for repaying the loan. He has also promised to create 100,000 new jobs in five years and to make holders of senior bonds in Ireland’s nationalized banks shoulder some of the losses. Fine Gael said it would seek to balance public finances mainly through cuts, not tax hikes; it would also reform the health service and abolish 150 public bodies.

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