In Short

Other stories in brief.

Other stories in brief.

Gormley likely to be elected Green leader

Minister for the Environment John Gormley is expected to be formally unveiled as the new Green Party leader tomorrow evening.

The Dublin South East TD should be well ahead of the only other candidate in the race, former MEP Patricia McKenna, when votes are counted tomorrow afternoon.

READ MORE

The deadline for completed ballot papers from party members is noon tomorrow, and officials will begin counting afterwards.

"There could also be a late surge by members personally handing in ballots," a party spokesman said.

Former leader Trevor Sargent stepped down as leader last month after party members overwhelmingly voted to enter government with Fianna Fáil.

The Dublin North deputy had made a pre-election promise not to lead his TDs into power with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's Fianna Fáil.

Ms McKenna, who served as an MEP from 1994 to 2004, voted against entering government with Fianna Fáil. A joint Programme for Government was later endorsed by a 86 per cent majority at a special delegate conference in the Mansion House last month.

New Carlow-Kilkenny TD Mary White has already been re-elected unopposed as deputy leader of the party.

Postal ballots were sent out to all members with voting rights earlier this month.

The party returned to the 30th Dáil with a tally of six seats. Finance spokesman Dan Boyle was unsuccessful in Cork South Central.

Stamp to celebrate National Anthem

The centenary of the National Anthem is to be celebrated with the issuing of a 55c stamp.

Amhran na bhFiann was originally written in English by Peadar Kearney in 1907 before being translated into Irish by Liam Ó Rinn.

The stamp shows a girls' choir from Coláiste Iosagain in Stillorgan, Dublin, alongside an illustration of the national flag.

Peadar Kearney, along with Patrick Heeney, also wrote the music for The Soldier's Song.

The song consists of three verses and a chorus, but it was the chorus that was formally chosen as the National Anthem in 1926, replacing God Save Ireland.

The Irish Volunteers had adopted the song in 1914 but it was not until 1916 that it became known when it was sung in the GPO during the Easter Rising.

The English version was first published in 1912 in the Irish Freedom newspaper, and in 1923 the Irish version appeared, for the first time in the Irish Defence Forces' magazine An tOglach.

Volume by Irish poet shortlisted

The latest volume by Irish poet Eavan Boland is among the books on the shortlist for this year's Forward Prize for Best Collection.

Boland and five other poets are in contention for the £10,000 prize, the United Kingdom's most valuable poetry award.

Boland's Domestic Violence joins a shortlist that also includes John Burnside for Gift Songs; Sean O'Brien, a previous winner, for The Drowned Book; Adam Thorpe (Birds with a Broken Wing); Luke Kennard (The Harbour Beyond the Movie ) and Jack Mapanje (Beasts of Nalunga).

The Dublin-born poet published her first book in 1967.

Since then she has published over 10 books, poetry collections and numerous journal articles. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Lannan Foundation Award in Poetry and an American Ireland Fund Literary Award.

She was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 1994 with In a Time of Violence (Carcanet).

She teaches in Stanford University, where she is director of the creative writing programme, and she divides her time between California and Dublin.