Columns - Irish Examiner

Damien Enright

Unforgettable whale dance at Castletownshend

I WAS gratified to hear that my grandson and his girlfriend, visiting our West Cork home from the UK, were fortunate enough to witness spectacular whale behaviour when they went on a whale watch trip with Colin Barnes from Reen Pier, near Castletownshend.

Mon, 02 Nov, 2015

Tenerife farmers smitten by the lure of red bananas

Red bananas. Waiting in the south Tenerife port of Los Cristianos for the ferry to the smaller island of La Gomera, I read in a local newspaper that a Tenerife farmer had successfully grown red bananas and they would soon be cultivated in the Canaries.

Mon, 26 Oct, 2015

Wetsuits are like wearing clothes in the bath

WE’VE done our first house swap — with one of our sons, writes Damien Enright. 

Mon, 19 Oct, 2015

Seaweed rich in nourishment and free, for now

Green weed carpets the beaches this year, as it has every year since the early 2000s.

Mon, 12 Oct, 2015

Beautiful demoiselles du Bandon River

SEPTEMBER 27 brought the advent of butterflies, the first fall or hatch we’ve seen this butterfly-less summer. 

Mon, 05 Oct, 2015

Midnight perambulations of woodlice and snake millipedes

Last Monday, as I left the house for a late night walk, a hundred or more woodlice were climbing the walls outside my front door. 

Mon, 28 Sep, 2015

Buzzing with excitement after unusual-looking species

Is it possible that your correspondent has come across a colony of mining bees of a species hitherto foreign to our shores? Unlikely!

Mon, 21 Sep, 2015

Blasket Islands provide evidence of trouble in paradise

Just beyond the breaking surf at the White Strand on the Great Blasket island, seals were standing up in the water to get a better look at us humans. 

Mon, 14 Sep, 2015