Ireland

The alarm over potential bank runs in Greece and Spain this week has highlighted an often-overlooked fact: Europe's debt crisis is also, in many ways, a major banking crisis. In capitals such as Athens, Madrid and Rome, large portions of the sovereign debt racked up by spendthrift governments are owed to the countries' own banks, locking governments and the banks in an embrace so tight that disaster for one would almost certainly spell doom for the other. International bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal have helped to keep not just their governments but also their banks afloat, as well as financial institutions in other parts of Europe with large exposure to those nations' debts.

If you go THE BEST WAY TO BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND From LAX, connecting service (change of planes) to Belfast is available on Air New Zealand, British and United. Restricted round-trip airfares range from $1,019 to $1,139, including taxes and fees. Ulster Folk & Transport Museum, 163 Bangor Road, Cultra, Holywood; 011-44-28-9042-8428, http://www.nmni.com/uftm, http://www.nmni.com/titanic/Home/Titanica.aspx#story. Same-day admission to both museums is about $13 for adults and $7 for children ages 5-18.

Sex is everywhere. We sometimes believe that it was Freud who woke us to this thought, but, in truth, sex has always been everywhere--and everyone has always known it. From the dark, plush contours of the first human images--the exaggeratedly sexual "Venus" figures carved by Cro-Magnon--through the pale, bald lingams of the East to the many-breasted magna maters of Asia Minor, sex and sexuality have been seen as central--at least in some sense .

BELFAST, Northern Ireland - Everyone knows how the tale of the Titanic ends, but what of its beginning? The Titanic was born in Belfast, along with its sister Olympic-class ships, the Olympicand the Gigantic (later renamed the Britan¿nic). A new Titanic Belfast museum openedlast month, and there's also a year-long sched¿ule of events celebrating the Titanic's 100thanniversary that includes two exhibitions at the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum, on 170acres outside Belfast. As soon as you enter the "Designing Titanic" section, you're transported into the world of the Harland & Wolff shipyard: The sounds of crashing pipes, banging hammers and shouting workmen are heard throughout.

Ireland's president during World War II offered condolences to Germany over the 1945 death of Adolf Hitler, newly declassified government records show. Historians had believed that Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera was the only leader to convey official condolences to Eduard Hempel, the top German envoy in Ireland. The presidential protocol record for 1938-57, made public this week, confirms that President Douglas Hyde visited Hempel.

MAYNOOTH, Ireland -- The black-and-white class portraits arrayed along the nearly deserted corridor of the seminary at St. Patrick's College here tell the tale. Year by year, the group of graduating seminary students gets smaller. Slowly, the number of young men willing to replenish the priesthood of the once-mighty Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is shrinking. In the future, the priests celebrating Mass in the Emerald Isle's churches may well be from South America or Africa, not Cork or Kerry.

"The Swell Season" basically begins with a haircut. Marketa Irglova is giving Glen Hansard a trim in a hotel room some hours before they'll take the stage, the distinctive indie rock music they make together providing the soundtrack. It's an ordinary moment in this extraordinary documentary, so intimate and so natural, you feel as if you've stumbled into the room by mistake. You'll recognize the couple immediately if you're one of the many captivated by the film "Once," the tiny Irish romantic musical drama in which they starred a few years ago. Or maybe you caught them at the 2008 Academy Awards, when they gave a memorable, heartfelt acceptance speech after winning the songwriting Oscar for "Once.

Soviet forces have withdrawn from Afghanistan. Democracy is spreading throughout Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall has fallen and German reunification is imminent. And the Warsaw Pact nations no longer threaten the world with aggression. When will the British withdraw from Ireland? When will the reunification of that ancient country occur? When will the Western Bloc nations--particularly the U.S.--censure England for its aggression and bring about its end? Occupation of Ireland by England.

Voya Seaweed Baths, 011-353-71-916-8686, www.voyaseaweedbaths.com, $36 for 50 minutes for a single private room. Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery, 011-353-71-916-1534. About 2 1/2 miles from Sligo's town center.

The sky is performing its usual routine — an ever-changing mix of clouds and sunshine — as I catch up with a couple of friends at a pub a few miles south of Dublin. The sun pouring through the leaded-glass windows warms our souls nearly as well as the whisky. Then, a breeze brings brooding clouds, and we're thankful to be indoors as rain washes over Greystones, County Wicklow. As quickly as they arrive, the clouds blow out to sea. The warming solar rays return, and one of Ireland's timeless rituals continues.

President Obama donned a green tie and squired Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny around Washington for a day of meals as part of an extended St. Patrick's Day celebration. After breakfasting with Vice President Joe Biden, Kenny met Obama in the Oval Office. “Technically, it's not St. Patrick's Day,” the president said. “We like to prolong the party around here.” Turning to more serious issues, the president said he was confident Kenny would be able to “get Ireland moving again.” The next stop on the party tour was the annual Friends of Ireland luncheon with House Speaker John A. Boehner at the Capitol, where tenor David O'Leary sang.

Drew Viney scored 23 points, and Anthony Ireland had 20 points and 10 assists to lead Loyola Marymount over Weber State, 84-78, in overtime in the second round of the CollegeInsider.com tournament on Sunday at Gersten Pavilion. The Lions (21-12) advance to play at Utah State (19-15) in the quarterfinals on Wednesday at 6 p.m. PDT. Damian Lillard of the Weber State (25-7) scored 27 points and made a three-point shot with 23 seconds left in regulation to force overtime. Loyola Marymount outrebounded the Wildcats, 44-31.

It's St. Patrick's Day, so naturally we think of corned beef and cabbage. It's a dish that's as Irish as pepperoni pizza is Italian and chop suey is Chinese. In other words, not very Irish at all. The Irish writing duo of Belfast-born Peter Morwood and former New Yorker Diane Duane tackle this subject at their European Cuisines website.  People "here," meaning Ireland, "sometimes eat corned beef and cabbage," they say. But "they don't eat it all that much" -- and almost never for St. Patrick's Day. PHOTOS: St. Patrick's Day fare Some restaurants in Ireland will serve corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day -- but "almost without exception" those eating it will be tourists.

Lonely Planet often has limited-time offers for free downloads of their travel guides and apps. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, the travel guide company offers its Dublin City Guide app for free along with an excerpt from its new Ireland guidebook. The deal: The app usually costs $5.99. To get the app, folks with iPhones, iPads or iPod Touch can download the Lonely Planet Travel Guides from the iTunes store, open that app and select the Dublin guide. (Android and non-Apple tablet users are out of luck for this freebie.)

MEN St. Mary's 74, at Pepperdine 45: The Gaels dominated, scoring 30 points from behind the three-point line on 10-for-23 shooting to the Waves' zero and outrebounding Pepperdine 40-29. Matthew Dellavedova led St. Mary's with 16 points, and Jorden Page and Stephen Holt added 14 each. Jordan Baker had 14 points and Taylor Darby 10 for the Waves (7-6, 1-1 West Coast), who shot 37%. The Gaels (13-2, 2-0) never trailed. Loyola Marymount 77, at San Francisco 76: Anthony Ireland drove for a layup with 1.6 seconds left in overtime, giving the Lions a wild victory.

Facebook will improve privacy protections in Europe over the next six months after an investigation into its practices there, the Irish data protection agency said Wednesday. The agency conducted a three-month audit of Facebook's compliance with European Union and Irish data protection requirements. Facebook, the Menlo Park, Calif., company that has its European headquarters in Dublin, has agreed to give users more information on how Facebook and third-party apps handle their information, minimize how much data is collected on users when they are not logged in to Facebook and warn European users that Facebook uses facial recognition software that suggests people to tag in photos.

'This Is Ireland' Where: UCLA's Royce Hall, 340 Royce Drive, L.A. When: 8 p.m. Thursday Price: Tickets are $38 to $88 Info: http://www.uclalive.org

"The Swell Season" basically begins with a haircut. Marketa Irglova is giving Glen Hansard a trim in a hotel room some hours before they'll take the stage, the distinctive indie rock music they make together providing the soundtrack. It's an ordinary moment in this extraordinary documentary, so intimate and so natural, you feel as if you've stumbled into the room by mistake. You'll recognize the couple immediately if you're one of the many captivated by the film "Once," the tiny Irish romantic musical drama in which they starred a few years ago. Or maybe you caught them at the 2008 Academy Awards, when they gave a memorable, heartfelt acceptance speech after winning the songwriting Oscar for "Once.

Amid tanking stocks, fear of a Greek default and the risk of another global recession, a small beacon of hope shone from a quiet corner of Europe on Thursday: Bailed-out Ireland is showing promising signs of a comeback. The Irish economy grew by a stronger-than-expected 1.6% in the second quarter this year, easily surpassing European heavyweights such as Germany and France. The news fueled hope that a modest recovery is underway after three painful years of economic contraction. It was the second straight quarter of growth for the Irish economy, which despite the real estate crash that killed the so-called Celtic Tiger continues to be a magnet for dynamic multinational companies such as Microsoft and Google.