Colm Murphy, of a renowned Cork arts family, used to travel the world as bodhrán player with Dé Dannan, but these days he’s happiest fishing and observing bird life, writes Ellie O’Byrne.

It takes approximately twenty seconds of travel on a canal barge to seriously consider moving to a houseboat. We were on the Royal Canal, heading for a jaunt west, from Castleknock railway station to Clonsilla, and I was hooked. The heart rate slowed. I haven’t felt as one with my surroundings since the last time I had a bath.

A West Cork island could become the first crowdfunded private island in the world.

Pat Fitzpatrick spends a couple of days in Mallorca, to see if the latest Google technology can convert him to the joys of travelling with tech.

Artist and food activist Lisa Fingleton ate only foods produced in Ireland on her 30-day local food challenge. She tells Ellie O’Byrne.

The 1902 film Birth of a Flower showed hyacinths, crocuses and roses opening their petals.

A speedboat carrying 51 people has capsized off Indonesia's part of Borneo island, killing at least eight passengers, an official said.

In 1842, Queen Victoria visited London Zoo, where Jenny, a female orangutan, made an indelible impression on her, writes Richard Collins.

Bruce Parry’s new film has the former Tribe presenter seeking to reconnect us with some of the things modern society has forgotten, writes Des O’Driscoll.

From the roof of the world to its deepest caves and oceans, extreme artist Philip Gray has pushed his body to the limit for his art.

Ireland’s number one mum Esther Kelly-Keating loves a challenge but was completely gobsmacked when her daughter Charlotte nominated her for the title.

The parents of a zookeeper who was killed after a tiger entered the enclosure she was in have paid tribute to their "beloved daughter".

The sea isn’t the only thing that might go bump in the night this weekend at this West Cork seaside hideaway — approach it this Halloween Weekend, and the sight of the front door is enough to stop you in your tracks.

It was called Route 6’6”. With the stocks of tall second rows at a critically low ebb, Leinster launched the search for alternatives around about this time five years ago.

This week’s online and in the shops.

On Wednesday Dublin Zoo will open a brand new orang-tan enclosure, a new €3m forest home that will replicate their natural habitat in Borneo. Still a construction site, Rowena Walsh wears her hard hat and goes behind the scenes to take a look.

Survivors of Indonesia’s anti-communist massacres in 1965 submitted a list of what they say are more than 100 mass graves to the government after the president called for an investigation into the killings.

A baby orangutan who constantly wrapped her arms around her body because she missed her mother has been rescued by a British animal charity in Borneo.

Simon Reeve’s new BBC series has him staying closer to home than his usual locations, says Keeley Bolger

A holidaymaker on the trip of a lifetime almost lost his leg after suffering a flesh-eating spider bite.

In day four of our special report on rural Ireland we visit Ballydehob, Co. Cork.

SCIENTIFIC breakthroughs don’t always grab the attention they deserve. They are often in esoteric areas of speciality and it’s difficult for us plebs to understand their importance.

THE backpackers who got naked on the sacred mountain in Borneo aren’t a great advert for the phenomenon we call ‘gap year’.

A British woman who was convicted for stripping on a sacred Malaysian mountain will fly home today, her lawyer said.

A British graduate blamed for triggering an earthquake by posing naked and allegedly urinating on a sacred mountain knows what she did was “stupid and disrespectful and is very sorry for the offence that she has caused”, her father said.

A British graduate blamed for triggering an earthquake by posing naked on a sacred mountain knows what she did was “stupid and disrespectful and is very sorry for the offence that she has caused”, her father said today.

Boulders “the size of cars” roared down the crowded slopes of Malaysia’s Mount Kinabalu after its earthquake, a witness said, as authorities yesterday raised the death toll in the disaster to 16.

At least six Irish citizens known to be in Nepal during the earthquake remain unaccounted for.

Madeline Perry is Ireland’s most successful squash player. Still ranked 18 in the world, she retires from the world tour after today’s Irish Open 2015 final against Nicolette Fernandes at Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club at 3pm.

Forget twins or even triplets — a British zoo has welcomed a brood of 43 tiny endangered frogs.

Weather hinders divers’ bid to identify sunken wreckage

More ships loaded with sensitive equipment have arrived to search for the fuselage of AirAsia Flight 8501 and more than 150 people still missing, five days after the aircraft crashed into the sea.

Surabaya, Indonesia

Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people pulled bodies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo yesterday, prompting relatives of those on board watching TV footage to break down in tears.

Six bodies from the AirAsia flight which disappeared on Sunday have been spotted off the coast of Borneo, and three have been recovered, Indonesian officials said today.

Several bodies have been found floating in the sea near where a missing AirAsia flight was last seen, Indonesian officials have said.

Several pieces of debris have been spotted floating in the sea off Borneo island, possibly linked to the missing AirAsia jetliner, an Indonesia National Search and Rescue spokesman said.

A missing AirAsia jet carrying 162 people could be at the bottom of the sea after it was presumed to have crashed off the Indonesian coast, an official said, as countries around Asia sent ships and planes to help in the search.

WILDLIFE cameraman Gordon Buchanan, who was once nearly eaten alive by a white polar bear while filming from a Perspex box in Norway, has learnt from mistakes about how to navigate the ferocious animals he films. 

Armed gunmen fatally shot a Malaysian policeman and kidnapped another during a shoot-out at a resort on Borneo island.

A new species of a tiny, colourful bird has been found by Irish scientists in a small under-explored island chain in the tropics.

Our pick on what to look out for on the box tonight.

Aoife ní Mhaoileoin is preparing to sail 2,400 miles across the Pacific in a boat with no engine and no sail, writes Claire Droney.