RTÉ RTÉ Radio 1

It’s the second day of the National Hunt Festival and punters will be looking for more of the same today, after beating the bookies yesterday.

The action got underway at 1.30 and what a start for the Irish...

RTE’s Michael Fortune joins Derek to set the scene from Cheltenham, and we also hear from Barry Orr, Public Relations Manager with Betfair. Tony O’Hehir provides the commentary.

The races that are due to take place today are:

13:30 John Oaksey National Hunt Chase
14:05 Neptune Investment Management Novices' Hurdle
14:40 RSA Chase
15:20 Sportingbet Queen Mother Champion Chase
16:00 Coral Cup
16:40 Fred Winter Juvenile Handicap Hurdle
17:15 Weatherbys Champion Bumper

For more information about all the racing at Cheltenham, visit www.rte.ie/sport/racing.

It’s a funny thing, time. A week is a long time in politics. And what a difference a day makes! But what can you do in one hour? For instance, if you had the talents of an architect for one hour, could it make a difference to your home?

Dermot Bannon says he has designed a home in that much time. He is in studio today to tell us about the Simon Open Door Initiative, where you can book a consultation with an architect for one hour for the bargain price of €50.

The Simon Open Door event takes place on Saturday and Sunday, May 11th and 12th, at architects' offices nationwide. Members of the public have to book a consultation with an RIAI Registered Architect by logging on to www.simonopendoor.ie. Consultations with RIAI registered architects are also available in furniture retailer IKEA.

People should bring the following items with them:

- plans (not the title deeds!) but if there was ever a drawing done of the house, a brochure, the estate agents drawing of the house that might have been online…

- photographs

- a good brief on what you would like - have a really good think about this before you go in…

Room To Improve will return to our screens in October - it is being filmed at the moment.  Coco Productions are looking for people with people with non-planning projects for 2013 - or for all suggestions for 2014. If interested, call Coco Productions on 01 497-0817.

Well, have you bought your leprechaun hat yet? Your lucky shamrock? And your "Kiss Me, I’m Irish" T-shirt? While we Irish aren’t as fond of the 'paddywhackery' as our foreign cousins, there is something kind of nice about wearing green and celebrating our Irishness for one day of the year.

And we’ll be joined in the celebrations this weekend by an influx of tourists. Fáilte Ireland say we will have at least 120,000 overseas visitors coming especially for St. Patrick's Day – but probably more, considering it is the year of The Gathering.

And the Emerald Isle is going to seem a lot more 'emerald' this weekend as various buildings and monuments are to be 'greened'.

The Office of Public Works are greening 27 OPW buildings & heritage sites including Leinster House, Dublin Castle, The Four Courts, Aras an Uachtarain, The Rock of Cashel, Ross Castle in Kerry, Trim Castle in Meath, Cahir Castle in Tipperary – and loads more. They’re switching them on tomorrow for 4 days.

The Temple Bar Company Ltd are switching on 2000 greenbulbs tomorrow in Temple Bar and they’re going to have an outdoor trad concert tomorrow night.

The ‘green carpet’ is being rolled out for 70 journalists who are coming from abroad to cover St Patricks Day and between them they have a reach of 112million viewers, listeners and readers. They’ll all march in the Peoples Parade on St Patricks Day, along with 8000 others.

Then, internationally, Tourism Ireland have a ‘Global Greening’ initiative where buildings and landmarks all over the world go green. This is the fourth year of it. Old favourites are the Sydney Opera House, Niagara Falls, the Empire State Building, Table Mountain – but new this year are: the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, the 'Welcome To Las Vegas' sign, the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, HMS Belfast in London, Bayern Munich’s homeground [the Allianz Arena] and the Citadel in Amman in Jordan.

And for the first time ever Dublin Airport is going green. Mooney reporter Katriona McFadden has been finding out more from Ciara Carroll, External Communications with Dublin Airport Authority.

She told Katriona how the DAA are installing two huge screens into the arrivals hall of T1 and T2 of Dublin Airport. You can have a welcome message displayed on these screens for an arriving passenger by emailing the message in advance to Ciara.Carroll@daa.ie along with the flight details of the arriving passenger.