Kya deLongchamps is mesmerised by early French glass paperweights

On these midsummer days of this (mostly) lovely midsummer weather, there’s so much to look at when one goes walking that it’s almost impossible to get any walking done.

IT WAS pleasant indeed to be rafting down the River Vltava in Bohemia in Czech Republic of a Sunday afternoon, so pleasant that some of us said that, one day, we’d paddle all the way to the Elbe and across Germany to the North Sea, writes Damien Enright

Richard Collins has discivered an educational comic book with a millenia’s old story and he’s here to tell you all about it.

HERE, on the coast, we have sometimes had fog for days, while inland the sun is shining out of china-blue skies. 

THE scent of mown hay, kicked up after we emerge from the dappled woods and cross the baking fields to reach my son’s workshop in a huge and ancient barn deep in the Czech Republic countryside, brings back memories, as if the nose can remember the sweet smells of long ago.

THE ARTIST David Hockney thinks gay people today are boring because they “want to be ordinary — they want to fit in.” 

Ukraine’s citizens are fighting bravely against a ruthless aggressor and have been betrayed by the West who has abandoned them to their fate, write Petr Kolar and Juraj Mesík.

On 12th of this month we saw cattle standing knee-high in the river cooling off.

Kya deLongchamps believes browsing through smaller collectables can bring its own rewards.

CRANBERRY, ruby or gold ruby glass will not be ignored. You can set a single piece on a mantle, or crowd it at the back of a glazed cabinet.

Sugar & Spice is a wonderful cooking competition& open to all ages and all levels of experience in aid of the very excellent Cork-based Hope Foundation charity, which works with deprived street children in Kolkata, India.

Despite the passage of time, there are many parallels between the German Sudetenland and Crimean crises,writes Bobo Lo

WHEN my wife and I crossed Wenceslas Square in the beautiful city of Prague on St Stephen’s Day, there was no snow on the ground, crisp, even or otherwise.

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Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich

MY youngest grandchild, Luca, aged three, visiting us from Bohemia in the Czech Republic, delights in feeding our adopted heron which stands as tall as himself.

GUSTAV Mahler has had many champions since his death in 1911, from conductors Bruno Walter through Leonard Bernstein right up to today and the likes of Claudio Abbado.

AS we drove east from Munich after a comfortable flight from Cork with our national airline and its ever courteous staff, we crossed a range of heavily-wooded hills relieved by golden meadows: the gold being dandelions packed as tightly as pixels in a photograph.

Two teenagers have been charged with conspiring to attack a suburban New York high school on the anniversary of the Columbine attacks after a chilling journal and videotape surfaced in which one teen identifies several potential victims by name, authorities said.

A group of mourners on their way to a family funeral have been involved in a fatal crash with a lorry in the Czech Republic.