THAT enfant terrible of the Labour Party, Dr. John O'Connell, has fought with his colleagues in the party throughhout his career in politics. He has done so with relish and resourcefulness, and though on several occasions there have been murmurings about expullsion, and about even worse things like promotion to party office, he has managed to hold on.

A chip off the old chip:

IT PROBABLY escaped the attention of all but the most rabid of Irish racing fans that a certain Wally Swinburn won his first race in England the other day. The Swinburn in question is not, of course, the same Wally who appears to have a mortgage on Ireland's flat-racing jockey's championnship. Instead, it's Wally junior, a l7-year-old stripling who weighs a mere six stone. That may seem fairly light but Wally senior only tips the scales at eight stone seven pounds.

TEN YEARS AGO, even in Dublin's rather ratsy version of Bohemia, it wasn't really acceptable to 'sleep around' (that strange euphemism) parrticularly if you were a woman, That's all changed. Virginity, our most previous gift so the nuns told us, is now disspensed with as soon as posssible. As Cass, a nineteen year old, explained: "Like I was quite old really, I was sixteen and I knew all about draw and dope and acid and stuff, but I'd never had sex. All my friends had done it and I felt really naive".

AIB, Bank of Ireland, Donal McAleese the IDA, Bord Bainne, Kerry Co-op and CRH's Scottish takeover

This month's Music and Film.

Jack Lynch commands the almost unanimous respect of the Irish people, with 86% believing he is doing well as Taoiseach. This is the most startling result of Magill's opinion poll on Fianna Fail's first year in office.

WHEN IAN BROAD moved the 1972 Dublin Arts Festival into the Liberties area he achieved two major developpments in the Irish arts scene: "arts" and "community" found common ground, and 'festival' took on a meaning which it had probably not deserved since the early days of the Dublin Theatre Festiival.

HOW TO STAY alive can be a depressing business. You can jog to your heart's content, eat plenty of fibre to keep you motile, avoid polyunsaturated fats etc. All good things to do but they may be of no use.

Haughey clear favourite, O'Kennedy the dark horse.

Here we examine the two major industrial disputes now afflicting the country. In the Aer Lingus dispute we analyse critically strikers "strategy, and in the P & T dispute we examine the underlying issues.