LAST YEAR, 2006, ended with a spate of gun killings exemplified by the shooting of criminal boss Marlo Hyland, and young plumber Anthony Campbell -- who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was a brutality on the streets that saw young men shot down in public, without any regard for bystanders or human life in general. Any expected peace in January 2007 was interrupted by several fatal shootings -- and so the year continued, as we became inured to the violence and somewhat dismissive of the loss of men who were "only" criminals.

In January, the then Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, admitted that gun crime was a "matter of huge concern for the State". And while the gardai resisted the label of "gangland killings", insisting this was nothing more than an attempt by some criminals to impose territorial boundaries, by October Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said he was considering introduction of terrorist-style courts to deal with the ongoing violence. While 2006 was a record year for gun deaths, with 27 lives lost in those 12 months, 2007 outstripped that and the lack of convictions has been due to a level of witness interference and intimidation that makes a mockery of the law.

More mockery surfaced in May, when armed robber John Daly rang Liveline from a mobile phone in his prison cell. By the autumn, Daly was dead, shot in a taxi on a night out, having been warned by gardai that his life was in danger. Daly's killer got away, while the innocent taxi driver sat trapped in his car by the dead passenger's body, terrified the shooter would come back for him. In cars, in driveways, in front doors, in front of families and children and passersby who never asked for any trouble, the killings have continued, with no sign that they will abate in 2008.

GOD SAVE CROKE PARK

By the time February 24 arrived, we were proud to hear God Save the Queen at Croke Park. Prouder, even, than the English fans who travelled to see the Six Nations match between their lads and the Irish rugby team, given how we had stoked ourselves up to receive them.

Ahead of the rugby match in Croke Park, the English rugby team were briefed on the history of the stadium. Like many of the English fans who attended that day, they were ignorant of it previously, not having learned it at school as part of their nation's colonial past. Irish children, of course, knew well how soldiers had fired into the crowd on Bloody Sunday, November 1920, and adults who had forgotten the specifics were reminded as the match approached. And then exhorted to get over it.

President Mary McAleese encouraged Irish rugby fans to give England "a welcome to beat all welcomes", a rallying cry in keeping with the spirit of rising above it all and proving ourselves a mature people. And so, we did. The crowd stood to God Save the Queen and then, we beat them. We had our pride that day, but even that was in tatters after the Rugby World Cup later in the year.

POLES DANCING AT THE CROSSROADS

In March, the results of the 2006 census showed that 10 per cent of the population were born outside Ireland. It was estimated that more than half of the immigrants were from Poland, a result that really cannot have surprised any corner of the country, where Polish food shops, newspapers and signs in windows have become commonplace. Commonplace indeed, but still something we regard as temporary, other and non-Irish.

The following month, a Sunday Independent poll stated that 23 per cent of those asked would not be in favour of automatic citizenship for children born here to foreign parents. A further 13 per cent said they were unsure what they would vote in a referendum on the issue and this uncertainty about integration is something we remain shy of debating. Integration into schools, into the workforce beyond the hospitality and construction industry, into our until-now entirely Irish families, it's happening whether we face up to it or not.

At the end of the year, the Central Statistics Office reported that Ireland has the fastest growing population in the EU, due in most part to immigration. The population has grown by more than 100,000 people in a single year and is now at its highest level since the mid-19th Century, when records were first kept. Immigration, it was reported, counted for two thirds of this growth and statistics showed that those who came here were staying. Most of these are aged between 25 and 44, people of an age to start families here, families of children who will consider themselves as Irish as any of us.

SAFE AS HOUSES?

Finally came the chance for a certain group of commentators to say, "We told you so". They'd been saying it for a long time and had been wrong a long time, but, at last, they were right. In April came the first reports of a downturn in the housing market. First, came word that house prices had not increased since February. In the 12 months before February, prices had increased 13.2 per cent in the capital and 8.7 per cent outside Dublin. By the end of April, the first house price fall in five years was reported and the PDs, in anticipation of the as-yet-unannounced election, promised stamp-duty reform by the summer.

From the "For Sale" signs that went up and stayed up all over the country through the summer, everyone understood change was afoot. Partly, people were reluctant to buy and pay their stamp duty, only to regret it later when rates were reduced or abolished. Partly, there was a lack of confidence. And we were confused. About whether stamp-duty reform would really make a difference, or whether vendors and developers would simply work the difference into the price, which would then stay the same. Further, came the worry that finally the economy was on a downturn.

In the run-up to the election, all the political parties conceded that stamp duty needed attention. Fine Gael and Labour said they would abolish it for first-time buyers, but their failure to give a time frame was characteristic of their general inability to inspire the rock-solid confidence of the electorate. The PDs also promoted abolition for first-timers and a band rate system, while FF said they would discuss the issue properly once they were back in government. In the December budget, Finance Minister Brian Cowen got rid of stamp duty for first-time buyers and reduced rates across the board. Momentum in the market is yet to reestablish itself as Cowen's hoped-for confidence boost has yet to materialise.

MADELEINE AND THE MEDIA

On May 4, the day after Madeleine McCann's disappearance from the family's holiday apartment in Portugal, her parents' plea for her return held some hope. It wasn't too late for whoever had their three-year-old to return her, Kate McCann implored, clutching the soft, pink toy we all came to know as Madeleine's Cuddle Cat. In the weeks that followed, as Kate and Gerry McCann made it their mission to publicise Madeleine's loss, we came to know the missing toddler as Maddie, her parents as sympathetic figures, then suspects, then something uncomfortably in between the two. And still, no sign of Madeleine, who cannot now simply be returned, no questions asked.

By mid-May, Robert Murat, who lived close to the McCann apartment block -- where their three children had been left unattended that night, as well as the children of the so-called 'Tapas Nine' with whom they were dining nearby -- was declared an 'arguido', an official suspect, in Madeleine's disappearance. He had shown a lot of interest in the case, mixed with the thronging journalists, translated the police interviews with the McCanns and their friends. His involvement reminded people of Ian Huntley and the case of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Murat, however, has never been formally arrested and neither have the McCanns, also declared arguidos at the start of September. Then, there was talk of a terrible accident in the holiday apartment, of DNA in their rental car, of a tragic cover-up driven by panic.

By the end of this year, however, no one has been charged in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. The DNA evidence Portuguese police seemed confident pointed to parental involvement has now been confirmed as inconclusive. Sightings of Madeleine in Morocco, Belgium and elsewhere have proved mistaken. In Portugal, "Find Maddie" posters have been taken down and in early January, it is said police have been advised to wind down their case. Now four, Madeleine remains missing, and that remains the only certainty of the whole affair.

GREEN SHOOTS OF GOVERNMENT

In June, Fianna Fail and the Green Party formed the government. While many had predicted Fianna Fail's loss of the election, few had predicted such an outcome as this. Following the election on May 24, it seemed almost certain Bertie would return for a third term as Taoiseach. There were noises about Fine Gael forming a coalition -- having performed well, but not well enough, under Enda Kenny's leadership -- but in reality, Bertie was coming back.

Given they lost six seats and won only two, the PDs were no longer a force alongside FF. Their leader, Michael McDowell, resigned from public life on the day he lost his seat and as the year ends, Mary Harney remains temporarily and unwillingly at the helm. Ultimately, Fianna Fail turned to the Greens and through six days of apparently tortuous talks, they came to an agreement. In many ways, of course, the parties are poles apart, but the Greens understood that in order to remain relevant, it was time they sampled government and as they have discovered, there's a whole lot of compromise involved in that.

Having got the coalition past the party membership, leader Trevor Sargent stood down and John Gormley became Green Party leader and their Minister for the Environment. In December, he oversaw the first environmental element in the Budget but, within days of taking his ministerial role, Gormley was forced to admit he could not stop the M3 through Tara and, in December, failed to honour his promise to prevent development of the Poolbeg incinerator. It's not easy being green, as someone once said, and even harder when you're playing with the big boys.

THE KILLER,THE LOVER AND THE TRIAL

Almost three years after his wife Rachel's death, it took a jury less than 10 hours to find Joe O'Reilly guilty of the murder of the young mother. There had been times in those three years when it seemed no one would be charged over Rachel's death, though O'Reilly had been questioned several times, and even as the trial drew to a close, there were doubts he would be convicted.

Uncertainty existed because, as some argued, it was not enough that he had behaved badly in his marriage or that evidence against him painted an unsympathetic picture. Basically, it was suggested, disliking Joe O'Reilly was not reason enough to convict.

In October 2004, Rachel O'Reilly was found dead in her north Co Dublin home. Her battered body was found by her mother, who later appeared on the Late Late Show with Joe O'Reilly, appealing for any information on Rachel's murder. From early on, however, the husband was a suspect and during the trial, it became clear why he was under suspicion. His emails to lover Nikki Pelley spoke of his two sons with Rachel as if they were children he shared with Pelley. Further, in emails to his sister, O'Reilly discussed his wife in shockingly hateful terms and friends testified that after the murder, he speculated most dispassionately and disturbingly about how she might have been killed and how her killer might have cleared up the evidence.

None of that, however, was enough to convict the man. Instead, the conviction of Joe O'Reilly rested on expert evidence that tracked his mobile phone around Dublin on the morning his wife was killed. While O'Reilly's alibi said he was working in one place all morning, the evidence suggested he had been home to the Naul, and he was convicted of killing Rachel. Joe O'Reilly's appeal, which seeks to find the phone evidence inadmissible, is expected to be heard early in 2008.

STORM CLOUDS OVER SHANNON

Maybe if Aer Lingus was moving its Heathrow route to anywhere but Belfast, there would have been greater drive to avert it. Unfortunately for Shannon, however, in the relatively new climate where we regard the North as an economic ally rather than a competitor, the shift occurred without interference. It was the measure of how things have moved forward in one way, but in another, undeniably, it was a setback for Shannon.

In August, Aer Lingus announced it was to axe its Shannon-Heathrow route and relocate those flights to London out of Belfast. It was a blow to Shannon airport staff, with speculation that up to 100 staff would lose their jobs as direct result, and was taken to signal the start of something. For now, those opposing the move insisted, it was just the Shannon-Heathrow route, but perhaps an axing of the transatlantic routes would follow, the knock-on effects of which would be far more pronounced. But, as those who protested insisted, this initial withdrawal of business would be bad enough, with hotels, B&Bs, restaurants and golf courses all expecting their business to be hit by the lack of UK tourists into the area.

Staff in Aer Lingus threatened to strike, pilots -- though they got scant sympathy -- threatened action over less favourable deals offered in Belfast, and several politicians came out in support of Shannon. The mid-west was being ignored, relegated, tossed aside, it was said and that feeling only became more pronounced as the government announced it would not intervene in the airline's decision; as it emerged that minister Noel Dempsey's department had known of the decision since June and had not seen fit to tell him; as the Dublin Airport Authority was revealed to have also been aware of, but had not shared, the information with Shannon.

In December, Belfast became Aer Lingus's first hub outside the Republic. At the launch of the inaugural flight to Amsterdam -- with additional routes to Heathrow, Geneva and Barcelona -- the airline's chief executive, Dermot Mannion, said there were "no regrets" about the move north. A month earlier, 51 voluntary redundancies had been sought in Shannon as a direct result of the route loss.

DIG OUTS AND DIGGING IN

Several months after success in the General Election, the Taoiseach found himself in front of the Mahon tribunal for the first time. In September, it was all about a lodgment of foreign currency during his time as Minister for Finance, a time in which, it emerged, Bertie's finances had been slightly unsettled. Unsettling also was the image of monies, large sums of cash, being delivered to his constituency office, lodged in the bank by his then-partner Celia Larkin, sums of money about which no one could be specific.

If lawyers for the tribunal thought their nitpicking questioning would dent the popularity of the Taoiseach, however, they were mistaken. Prolonged wrangling about what dollars or sterling would have converted to punts on the lodgment day in question began to seem excessive and irrelevant and any irritation on the Taoiseach's part at the proceedings was shared by the majority of the public.

By the time Bertie reappeared in front of the tribunal in December, the public attitude towards him had shifted somewhat. And not as result of any evidence presented to Mahon, nor the testimony offered by Padraic O'Connor that he was never a friend of the Taoiseach, nor the shifting perspectives on whether the Manchester "dig out" was a personal or a political donation. Instead, we had been soured by the October announcement of a pay rise for Bertie, his ministers and senior civil servants. It smacked of loosening their belts as the rest of us were exhorted to tighten our own, of the bad old times and a Taoiseach past and now departed.

Ultimately, the pay rise was postponed, but the sour taste lingered and it seemed the Teflon Taoiseach was tarnished, not by the smart-aleck machinations of the lawyers, but by his own increasingly injured and tetchy attitude under the microscope.

SOLICITING FOR DEBT

When the case of solicitor Michael Lynn first hit the courts in mid-October, we weren't sure which aspect was more incredible, that anyone would wish for multiple mortgages on a single property or that the banks would hand them out. After all, the banks are most complained about as fleecing the lot of us, holding our lives hostage, never giving us even the slightest break and yet, when the application to shut down Lynn's solicitor's practice was first heard, it seemed they'd given him more than a few mortgages, allowing him own more than 100 properties, owing an estimated €26m. That was October's estimate, by mid-December, news reports said that Lynn owed "at least" €30m, to "at least" six financial institutions, on a single property in Howth.

In a world of which most of us remain relatively ignorant our entire lives, the self-regulation of solicitors had apparently been an issue for some time. And the fact that the banks' penny pinching had led to the Lynn situation endeared them to us even less. It emerged that in order to save money, the banks no longer retained their own solicitors to oversee mortgages, instead relying on the integrity of the lender's solicitors and, significantly, allowing solicitors vouch for themselves. Thus, Michael Lynn represented himself with the banks, did not admit previous mortgages on his properties, ran a development company across Europe and ran up what is now estimated at almost €100m of debt.

In early December, Michael Lynn failed to turn up at proceedings against him. His wife, Brid Murphy, said she had last seen her husband a week earlier, in London, and later it was reported that removal vans had taken furniture from his house in Dublin's Sandymount. Given he had not been charged with any crime, Michael Lynn could not be considered a criminal fugitive or extradited from wherever he might be. Meanwhile, the banks look foolish and those solicitors apparently being investigated for similar shenanigans must face into 2008 a little nervously.

THE SCANDAL IN HEALTH

Early in the year, breast cancer misdiagnosis was limited to one woman, Rebecca O'Malley, who spent 14 months after her initial mammogram believing she was free of the disease. Her case was shocking, but it was in isolation, and women continued to present for mammograms confident that they were being proactive and responsible in relation to their health. Through November, however, we began to wonder if there was anyone along the chain of health care in whom any confidence could be placed.

Early that month, it was revealed that seven women initially given the breast cancer all-clear by Portlaoise Hospital had been given the wrong diagnosis. A group of 45 women had been recalled for screening and, naturally, this caused a ripple of concern that spread through the country as it emerged that the problems in Portlaoise could exist in cancer units everywhere. Ageing equipment may have been to blame, we heard, with dirt obscuring the equipment on which the screens were analysed by a consultant who then had no colleague to call on for a second opinion. We learned that up to 3,000 mammograms conducted between late 2003 to late 2007 had been reviewed and that doctors in Portlaoise had warned management a year ago that the equipment could lead to "reduced prognosis".

In late November, in response to questioning from the Opposition, the HSE admitted that 97 women tested in Portlaoise were due to be recalled. That, the Minister for Health, Mary Harney admitted, was the first she'd heard of this. The same day, she conceded that there were "issues around communication" in this ongoing scandal.

To date, nine women have had their original cancer-free diagnoses revised. In several cases, the disease went untreated for up to a year. In December, Mary Harney opened BreastCheck clinics in Cork and Galway. There, she apologised again for past errors, promised they would never be repeated and encouraged women to avail of and have confidence in the free service offered.

THE COCAINE SOCIETY

Despite the fuss over Justine Delaney-Wilson's TV documentary and book, High Society, the names of the airline pilot, nun, teacher and, most controversially, government minister, who admitted to taking the drug remain secret. Which is how it goes, for the most part, when people are cocaine users, their identities only made public when that use results in death. And, throughout 2007, throughout the country and across social classes, cocaine-related deaths occurred with alarming frequency.

There have been 46 cocaine-related deaths in Ireland since 2000, with 34 of those occurring in the past three years. In December, the Dublin County Coroner, Dr Kieran Geraghty said he had seen 26 cocaine-related deaths this year and while before 2003, there were no reported cocaine-related fatalities outside the capital, by the end of this year, we know it can happen to anyone, anywhere.

December's high-profile deaths connected with cocaine came in the middle of the fuss over High Society, a TV series that threatened to distract from its central thesis, that all sorts do the drug now. Because of its claims of a high-profile user, their identity became more interesting than the inquests into deaths of ordinary people, which were scattered through the year.

In Cork, 17-year-old Dean Freeman was found to have died from the effects of the drug, as, separately, did Robert McKenzie, 22. In April, Caitriona Coburn, 28, was found dead in her bed in north Co Dublin, cocaine, an XtraVision card and a straw beside her. There was Martina Greaney, 26, Sean Walsh, 22, Rowland Blennerhassett and David Michael Culloty (both 20), and David Doyle, 24. At the end of 2007, our minds were fixed more keenly on cocaine as result of the deaths of model Katy French, 24, and, in Waterford, of John Grey, 23, and Kevin Doyle, 21. All young, all fit and able, all certain that the unpredictable effects of cocaine on the heart and brain only happened to other people. No doubt the minister imagined the same.