Ireland’s foreign service is relatively small, with 80 representations, and comparatively thinly spread, with an average of one to two people in each post. But it is talented, flexible and normally led by generalists well able to represent the State in a great variety of international settings.

Ireland is to donate another €778,000 to Sierra Leone to help fuel a fleet of ambulances and burial vehicles in the Ebola-hit country.  It brings Ireland's total contribution in the affected countries in West Africa to over €18m in 2014. 

An OECD report has commended Ireland’s aid programme in tackling hunger and poverty in the developing world. Minister of State Sean Sherlock explains why Irish Aid is so successful.  Ireland excels at delivering aid that is effective and reaches those who need it most, the OECD said this week in a major review of the Government’s overseas aid programme, Irish Aid.

Over 400 producers and chefs from all over the country have gathered for the Food Summit which is being run with Good Food Ireland at this year’s conference.  “What we are doing at the Food Summit is not just important for each individual business, but for the reputation of the whole country as a food island.”

Ireland’s overseas aid programme has come out top in an international comparison of how richer countries help poorer nations. Irish Aid’s performance was declared a “stand-out” after earning top four places in all categories under which the programme was evaluated. It was ranked first under the heading of fostering institutions which means supporting recipient countries to strengthen their state institutions and structures so that they can better nurture their own development as a way out of poverty.

Seomra ranga - "classroom", in Ireland's indigenous language - reads a cardboard sign tacked onto a door. A little further down the hall, a leabharlann is filled with books. It is a very Irish scene, but in a very unlikely place: East Belfast Mission on Newtownards Road. Across the street, a mural commemorates the Protestant paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force. Union Jack flags fly from lampposts in the shadow of the shipyards that built the Titanic.

This week’s curator for the @Ireland Twitter account, Conor Neylan, will accompany Ireland’s President, Michael D Higgins, on his historical Irish State visit to Britain. The @Ireland Twitter account is managed by Irish Central since we took over WorldIrish.com.

In a sign of the warmth of relations between two countries with a troubled history, Ireland’s president, Michael D. Higgins, is to arrive here Monday for the first state visit to Britain by an Irish president.