She warns that this once friendly country, often so friendly that visitors imagined us insane or intrusive — or occasionally both — is less engaging, more remote, and far colder than it once was.

There’s a revealing story well told by the writer Alice Taylor about the day a neighbour gave a present of a poached salmon to her family.

Four people who assisted the recovery of a man who was without a pulse for a half-hour after a cardiac incident were honoured at a community awards ceremony in West Cork at the weekend.

Cervical cancer campaigner Vicky Phelan says HPV vaccine campaigner Laura Brennan’s legacy will be that she saved thousands of lives.

Ms Phelan said she did not think she could have achieved the same impact as Laura because she was so young.

There’s gallops on the strand, music in the air and heavenly gardens on display. And that’s just among some of the activities in West Cork this weekend.

The blackberry is very much part of folk and rural traditions, writes Donal Hickey

Linda Kenny tells Colette Sheridan about her upcoming singalong show of classic hymns.

1 Walking Tall 

“Up the airy mountain, down the rushing glen,we dare not go a hunting, for fear of little men.”

Great but ordinary, and often forgotten, Irishwomen are celebrated in a new book by Alice Taylor.

As World Book Day comes around and concern mounts that children aren’t reading because of technology. Jonathan de Burca Butler talks to well-known faces about why reading made them who they are.

2014 has been a remarkable year for Irish writing by any standards.

A former Cork teacher who left his job to pursue a writing career is set to launch his first book.

IRELAND has surely changed massively since Alice Taylor was a child and her best-selling book, To School Through The Fields, describes a world that has long since disappeared.

* The award-winning garden of Gertie and Maurice O’Donoghue at Dromboy, Carrignavar, will open this Saturday and Sunday from 2pm to 6pm in aid of the Friends of Marymount.

Though her heart has been broken, Margaret Jennings finds author Alice Taylor, aged 76, still has a passion and openness towards life

The sun shone on my journey from Cork to Skibbereen recently. May blossomed in the hedgerows.

Repair work on an historic 600-year-old West Cork tower is now complete — and the ancient edifice and its surrounding Huguenot graveyard will soon be handed back into the care of local residents.

The Gift of a Garden

Author Alice Taylor has criticised Environment Minister Phil Hogan for what she called his “high-handed intervention” in altering the European funding model for rural projects.

“Nothing prepares us for the ferocity of grief,” writes Alice Taylor at the start of her book on bereavement. “Someone who was part of your world is gone, and has taken a chunk of you with them.”

Author Alice Taylor lauds the community spirit that comes into its own this time of year, says Colette Sheridan

Repair work on a historic 600-year-old West Cork tower is finally set to begin after a determined campaign by locals which has lasted for more than a decade.

My advice to any would-be writer is to simply stop thinking about it and do it.

It is one of the busiest tourist routes in West Cork — but litter-pickers have found everything from a disused fridge and a broken dishwasher to old election posters lying on the roadside.

A best-selling author has urged communities to unite on April Fools’ Day to bring litter louts to book.

A NEW film steps back in time to celebrate a West Cork village’s historic status as the sole gateway to the region.

THIS is the artist’s sketch of the spectacular €35,000 sculpture of a cloaked rider soon to be unveiled in the West Cork village of Innishannon.

GEORGE Hook’s doused the fires of hell creeping around his feet by telling him sex was normal.

DONEGAL’S Inishowen peninsula is set between two loughs, Swilly and Foyle, while Cork city’s Inishowen is set between two schools.

IT’S A bestseller in shops across the country, but it seems Dan Brown’s new book, The Lost Symbol, is causing more damage to the book industry than good.

IN this, the age of the iPhone, YouTube and e-book, it is no wonder the traditional print and ink, bound and leather book is suffering.

RONAN O’GARA was back on winning form last night when he scooped a prize for his autobiography at the Irish Book Awards.

WITH reference to Ailin Quinlan’s article, “Drive for funds to save tower ahead of winter” in your October 28 issue, I wish to make the following comments:

A new painless way of paying a house purchase deposit, called an Exchange Bond is a feature being introduced by builders Fleming Construction.

Damien Enright enjoys a new book on a famed Cork region.

LEGENDARY storyteller Alice Taylor has come face to face with herself at a ceremony to recognise her achievements.