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GOOD MORNING

The 9 at 9 Nine things you need to know at 9am: A week of teachers’ conferences begins, Brendan Smyth to be exhumed, and how the Irish aren’t so glum after all…

Every day, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you really need to know as you start your day.

1. #COACH FIRE: A major fire has broken out at the premises of a well-known coach operator in Rathcoole in Dublin. The blaze at the Dualway complex on the Naas Road broke out at about 5am, and up to a dozen buses have been damaged.

2. #CORK: A man remains in custody following yesterday’s house fire in which a 25-year-old woman and her nephew, 5, were killed. The Star reports that the man in custody was known to the victims – and that Helena O’Dwyer had only moved back into her family home last week after being attacked at her council house.

3. #TEACHERS: A week of teachers’ conferences begins today when the INTO kicks off its annual conference, ahead of those of the TUI and ASTI which begin tomorrow. The Irish Times reports that education minister Ruairí Quinn will tell the INTO he has no plans to close smaller rural schools, while the Irish Independent reports that over 400 people with no teaching qualifications were given at least 50 days of substitution work last year – despite hundreds of new graduates being unable to get work.

4. #BRENDAN SMYTH: The remains of notorious paedophile priest Brendan Smyth are to be exhumed and cremated – with the Irish Daily Mail reporting that the Norbertine Order, of which Smyth was a member, is unable to complete the sale of some of its lands in Co Cavan until his body is removed from the site.

5. #FAIRYHOUSE: Fairyhouse racecourse hosts the Irish Grand National today, with Tony McCoy’s mount Quantitativeeasing likely to set out as favourite – but the Belfast Telegraph reports how authorities have scrambled to cover up an anti-Royal message painted in weedkiller on the land in front of the finishing post. ‘F*** the Queen’ may have been written there in the middle of last week.

6. #CORRIB: One of the five Gardaí involved in the controversial tape recording of officers joking about ‘raping’ arrested women has yet to be interviewed by the Garda Ombudsman, weeks after the recording came to light, the Irish Independent reports.

7. #LIBYA: Allied forces have attacked the compound of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in overnight air strikes, but it is not known whether Gaddafi was present at the time.

8. #GUANTANAMO: The New York Times has begun publishing leaked records of the various prisoners who have served time at the United States’ Guantanamo Bay military prison, in a coordinated move with NPR and the Guardian. The publications make no mention of Wikileaks, which has separately published exactly the same documents. The files are thought to be the fourth major batch of documents fed to the site by US soldier Bradley Manning.

9. #WELLBEING: We might still be in the doldrums in economic terms, but Ireland has ranked tenth in the world in a study of the countries with the greatest level of wellbeing. The Gallup poll said 62 per cent of Irish residents were “thriving” in terms of quality of life, one of just 19 countries where over half the population were so positive.

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