One Direction show has fans up all night
THEY came, they saw, they conquered. Dreams came true for thousands of Irish female fans as their pop idols One Direction took to the stage at the O2.
Swarms of screaming girls flocked to the sold-out venue last night as Zayn, Harry, Louis, Liam and Mullingar teen Niall Horan performed for 14,000 fans.
Devoted fans Laura Maher (14), Rachel Ballard (14) and Moia Ahern (14), all from Swords, arrived holding aloft a home-made 'Harry You Beaut' poster.
An extremely excited Rachel told the Herald: "We all got a half day from school today so we could be here early. I was crying already just thinking about the show, this is the highlight of my year. I'm going to be crying as soon as they walk on stage."
Cabinteely teens Orla Costigan (15), Terease Hussey (15), Sophie Walsh (16) and Caroline Stokes (15) sported home-made T-shirts which had pictures of the band plus their favourite member written on the sleeve.
Zoe Cunningham (20), Ciara Hogan (21), Kerry Stereo (22) and Aimee Naughton (22), all from Leixlip, also designed their own T-shirts for the night. Wearing their bright blue home-made tops, music fan Kerry admitted she previously turned down Irish hunk Niall and had regretted it ever since."I met him when he was like 15, he was support for previous X Factor contestant Lloyd Daniels. He put his arm around me but I told him he was too young then, I totally regret that now. A few years later he was on the X Factor and now I'm going to his concert, I'm even following them up to Belfast," she laughed.
It was an extra special day for one fan. Rozalin McCann, from Clarehall who turned 17 yesterday, got the best birthday gift when she spotted Harry Styles enjoying a meal in Nandos before the show.
Rozalin, who travelled with pals Casey Egan and Megan Treacy, said she burst into tears.
"I was balling crying when I saw him. He was with some bodyguards and came in and had something to eat. It was amazing seeing him in real life," she told the Herald.
Also feeling emotional at the gig were Dubliners Ria Dunleavy (15), Ella Dunleavy (10) and Leanne Hession (15). The three girls were seen holding up an Irish flag which Niall famously took off the girls on his last visit to Dublin.
Ella (10) told the Herald that Niall was nice enough to post back the flag to their house after each member of One Direction signed it.
The Herald spotted some celebrities. TV3 star Martin King brought his daughter Victoria (20). Ronan Keating's wife Yvonne was also there with daughters Marie (10) and Ali (5).
For more photos of the band and fans -- log on to the Herald's official Facebook page
Former Dubs hurler jailed over mugging
A HURLER who trained with the Dublin team has been jailed after carrying out an armed mugging in broad daylight.
Michael Joyce (25) was identified by gardai on CCTV throwing soiled toilet paper onto the walls of a fast food restaurant shortly before the mugging.
Joyce of Clonskeagh Road, Dublin 4, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two charges of criminal damage at Supermacs, Westmoreland Street, Dublin, on January 30 and January 31, 2010.
He also pleaded guilty to robbing Jonathan Byfort on January 30, 2010 and to stealing from Clodagh Leonard on February 15, 2011.
Garda Martin Doole told Cathleen Noctor, prosecuting, that the victim was on Westmoreland Street selling charity badges when Joyce approached him and said he wanted to buy a number of them.
He asked Mr Byfort to follow him to a cash machine and led him into a side street. He then pulled out a Stanley knife and held it up to Mr Byfort before taking €15 in coins.
Tissue
Garda Doole said that while checking the nearby shops for CCTV images of the attack they came across images of Joyce in the downstairs toilet.
The court heard he had gone into the premises before carrying out the mugging and thrown tissue paper covered in excrement onto the walls.
Joyce returned to the restaurant the next day and did the same thing, leaving staff to deal with a "significant clean up operation". Michael Bowman, defending, said his client had carried out a "daylight robbery".
He said Joyce had a difficult upbringing but was a "hurler of some note" and had played with the county panel to the under-16 level. He said at one point he would have hurled with some of the players on the current senior county team.
Mr Bowman said his client was sorry for what had happened and had turned a corner in his life.
Judge Martin Nolan said Joyce had committed damage to the property in a "very disgusting way" and that the robbery was "very serious".
He sentenced Joyce to a total of three years and nine months but suspended two years of the jail term.
Girl denies she beat Spaniards
A 17-YEAR-OLD girl has denied beating up two Spanish women in Dublin's Temple Bar after they refused to give her a cigarette.
The girl, who is in care, has been charged with assaulting a woman at the Central Bank Plaza, in Dublin city centre on July 9 last.
She is also accused at Dublin Children's Court of assaulting two Spanish women at Curved Street, in Temple Bar, on April 9 last year.
She pleaded not guilty to both the charges and was remanded on continuing bail pending a hearing at the Children's Court in March.
Hotel burglar
faces 10 years
A serial thief faces 10 years in prison for a string of heists at New York luxury hotels, including a theft of $250,000 worth of valuables from the hotel room of a woman from the United Arab Emirates.
James Bennett (45) pleaded guilty to the burglaries. His defence said Bennett regrets the thefts. He said his client was struggling with cocaine and family deaths. Prosecutors say about $35,000 worth of stolen items were found in Bennett's home.
McWilliams' Oz crash 'rubbish'
CLAIMS by economist David McWilliams that Australia faces an Irish-style property crash have been rubbished.
Stephen Koukoulas, a former adviser to Australian prime minister Julia Gilliard, said a housing crash was unlikely.
"Should incomes remain weak for a sustained period, house prices would likely be flat to low over that time. But a crash? That is very unlikely."
He was responding to the doom-laden predictions by McWilliams about Australia, where the econonomy appears to be thriving and thousands of Irish people have gone there in search of jobs.
Kylie celebrates
25 years of hits
POP princess Kylie Minogue is celebrating 25 years in music by re-recording some of her old hits.
The singer, who released her debut single The Locomotion in Australia in 1987, recorded an acoustic version of her 1992 hit Finer Feelings at Abbey Road Studios. More tracks will be released throughout the year.
Apple rings up 37m iPhone sales in just three months
The iPhone is taking over Apple. For the first time, the device that changed how people use mobile phones, accounts for more than half of the company's sales.
Apple said it sold 37m iPhones in the last three months of 2011, vastly exceeding analyst estimates and propelling the company to record quarterly results.
The phone accounted for 53pc of Apple's revenue in the quarter. Though it has other hit products, such as MacBooks and the iPad, they can not keep up with the iPhone, whose sales more than doubled over last year from an already high level.
The sales mean Apple is set to regain the position it briefly held earlier last year of being the world's largest maker of smartphones, ahead of Nokia and Samsung.
Apple said net income in the fiscal first quarter, which ended December 31, was $13.06bn (e10.02bn), up 118pc from $6bn (e4.6bn) a year ago.
Revenue was $46.33bn (e35.55bn), up 73pc from a year ago. Analysts were expecting $38.9bn (e29.8bn). The stellar performance could re-establish Apple as the world's most valuable company, again toppling Exxon Mobil Corp. Apple first unseated Exxon last summer, and the two have been trading places since then.
Apple shipped 15.4 million iPads in the quarter, again more than doubling sales over the same quarter last year.
Apple co-founder and long-time chief executive Steve Jobs died on October 5.
Packaging weakens children's vaccines
Food packaging chemicals can weaken the ability of vaccination jabs to protect young children, research suggests.
A study linked exposure in the womb or in the first years of life to lower immunity to tetanus and diphtheria.
The chemicals, known as perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) are widely used in manufacturing and food packaging.
Scientists analysed data on 587 children born in the Faroe Islands between 1999 and 2001.
The children were tested for immune responses to tetanus and diphtheria vaccinations at the ages of five and seven years.
Researchers also measured PFC levels in the blood of mothers and five-year-olds.
The findings, published today in the Journal Of The American Medical Association, showed that PFC exposure was associated with fewer numbers of antibodies, an essential part of the immune system.
It also increased the chances of children having antibody levels insufficient to provide long-term protection.
Doubling the concentrations of three major PFCs led to a halving of antibody levels in children at age seven.
Study leader Dr Philippe Grandjean, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, US, said: "Routine childhood immunisations are a mainstay of modern disease prevention.
"The negative impact on childhood vaccinations from PFCs should be viewed as a potential threat to public health."
Exposure to two common PFCs before birth had a negative impact on diphtheria vaccinations.
alert
A two-fold increase in levels of one, perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), reduced antibody counts by 39pc in five-year-olds.
"If the associations are causal, the clinical importance of our findings is therefore that PFC exposure may increase a child's risk for not being protected against diphtheria and tetanus, despite a full schedule of vaccinations," the authors wrote.
The trend may reflect a more general impact on the immune system's ability to fight infection, said the scientists.
Alastair Hay, Professor of Environmental Toxicology at the University of Leeds, said the research "must be an alert for all health and environment authorities".