Meet the local heroes keeping our beaches clean

Throughout the country, Clean Coasts volunteers are doing incredible work to protect our beautiful beaches

Aisling, Nathan and David Lawlor help out at the clean up on Banna Beach.

If there's any silver lining to be found buried amongst all the turbulence of recent years, it's perhaps just how deeply our appreciation for our surroundings has grown as a result of the upheaval.

The lockdowns at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic restricted us to exploring no more than the few kilometres around our homes, subsequently causing many of us to fall in love with our native counties all over again. Meanwhile the more recent war in Ukraine, which has seen innocent families lose their homes and entire cities to violent bombings, has forced everyone watching the news to consider just how devastating it would be if our own home turf was similarly destroyed. With all this in mind, it'd be hard not to realise just how lucky we are in terms of what's on our doorstep here in Ireland.