NEED TO CATCH up? The Journal brings you a roundup of today’s news.

IRELAND

Andy Sheppard (left) and his East Coast band performing at the Cork Jazz Festival. Naoise Culhane Naoise Culhane

• Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the current political structures at Stormont were “not fit for purpose”. 
• Hundreds of people attended the funeral of CervicalCheck campaigner Lynsey Bennett in Longford. 
• A man appeared in court charged with stabbing a priest “six times” in Waterford.
• President Higgins wrote to Brazil’s President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva inviting him to Ireland and praising the links between the two nations. 
• A Status Yellow rain warning is in place for Halloween night with the potential for flooding. 
• An animal rights group has criticised the “hysteria” surrounding the axing of the live crib at Dublin’s Mansion House.
• Ryanair accused DAA of ‘incompetence’ and ‘poor management’ over lengthy security queues over the summer. 
• An arson attack on an Orange Hall has been condemned by politicians and is being investigated as a hate crime by the PSNI. 
• From unfair treatment to overuse of protection regimes, Noteworthy and The Journal investigated inequality in Ireland’s justice system.

WORLD

Lula voters celebrating his victory in the Brazilian presidential election. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

#BRAZIL: Brazilian president-elect Inacio Lula da Silva has called for “peace and unity” after narrowly winning a divisive runoff election.

#LOGGED OFF: Instagram has said it “looking into” an issue which has seen thousands of users told they are suspended from the platform.

#AVIAN FLU: All poultry and captive birds captive birds are to be kept indoors under order from the UK’s Chief Veterinary Officer amid concerns over an outbreak of avian influenza.

#IRAN: Iranian authorities have said they will hold public trials for 1,000 people in the capital, Tehran, over the protests that have hit the country.

PARTING SHOT

'You're a Quinn, you're one of us': Woman adopted from Bessborough to US in 1960 finally meets her Irish family https://t.co/oJX2nLkrWY

— TheJournal.ie (@thejournal_ie) October 31, 2022

Mary Jo Sullivan is one of thousands of people born to an Irish mother but adopted by a couple in the United States.

Mary Jo’s mother, Mary Hughes, got pregnant out of wedlock in the late 1950s. Hughes moved from Dublin to Leeds in England, where she gave birth to Mary Jo.

A couple of months later, Hughes and her daughter moved back to Ireland and ended up in Bessborough mother and baby institution in Cork city.

They stayed there for about three and half years before Mary Jo was adopted by an Irish couple living in the US, Pete and Julia Sullivan.

After years of searching – and having the wrong name for her father – Mary Jo Sullivan met her family.