A spokesperson for the Irish Coastguard has warned that gale force winds could impede the search for a missing fisherman off the south east coast this morning.

A man whose brother drowned in a trawler tragedy is helping to spearhead a national RNLI drowning prevention campaign in the hope of sparing others the same heartache of loss.

The 800-year-old Hook Head lighthouse, on the south-east coast, will host a centuries-old custom on New Year’s Day, when expert and amateur archers will take part in a traditional arrow ceremony.

’RED Admiral thrives despite wet summer’ runs a headline on Butterfly Conservation’s website. This glamorous insect is doing well in the UK, writes Richard Collins.

The mother of 14-year-old Aoife Winterlich, who died in a scouting accident at Hook Head, paid tribute to rescue services “who did everything possible” to save her.

The mother of 14-year-old Aoife Winterlich ,who died in a scouting accident at Hook Head, paid tribute to rescue services “who did everything possible” to save her.

Compared with the west coast, the south coast has a mere smattering of islands. From Hook Head in Co Wexford to Cape Clear in Co Cork, there are a few clusters of islands at Glandore, Cork Harbour, and Kilmore Quay, writes Dan MacCarthy. 

The first humpback whale this year has been spotted in Irish waters, with skippers capturing a photo of the magnificent creature diving off the south-east coast.

The Irish Whale and Dolphin Group (IWDG) will host its annual All Island Whale Watch at 20 headlands around the Irish coast today.

The fiancee of the skipper of the Pere Charles trawler, which sank off the Wexford coast nine years ago, has settled her High Court action over his death for €225,000.

The ladies of Innishannon ICA Guild get about. In the last decade, members have travelled the length and breath of Ireland by bus. 

A girl aged 14, who was hospitalised after a wave knocked her and three other teenagers into the sea, has died.

The Air Accident Investigation Unit is to review the circumstances of a rescue at Hook Head in Co. Wexford last Sunday.

Scouting Ireland is conducting a thorough review of protocols and procedures after two of its venture scouts were swept out to sea in Co Wexford on Sunday.

A young girl remains in a serious condition in hospital after four teenagers were swept to sea at Hook Head in Co Wexford yesterday.

Best-selling children’s author Eoin Colfer has been recruited by the South-East’s partnership of cities and towns to act as an ambassador for their bid to become the 2020 European Capital of Culture.

Last week, I wrote about the increasing destruction of habitats in marginal areas, where, in the cause of creating more grassland for more cattle to make more beef and now more milk — bedrock is smashed and removed and the land scraped of all the wild and hardy vegetation that has evolved there since the last Ice Age.

PLANNING a weekend that keeps parents and young children interested and content can be a challenge. 

Artemis Fowl creator Eoin Colfer was happy to switch to drama for a play in his hometown, writes Marjorie Brennan

Should a ferry ever be engulfed in flames off the Irish coastline with a threat to the lives of dozens of passengers and crew, those who may be involved in the emergency response have a flavour of what to expect following a major training exercise yesterday.

THE seas are rolling. You’re trying to stand still, to keep the horizons level, the camera dry, the lens in focus and to hold on.

It’s a photograph that distills the glory of the summer that’s gone — hordes of adults and children eagerly awaiting the chance to leap from the diving board in Salthill and plunge in to Galway Bay.

The “most haunted house in Ireland” is taking terror to a new level by launching an interactive tour in time for Halloween.

ANNE Doyle is guest host for the Lighthouse Keepers’ Global Gathering, a three-day programme of lectures, fireworks and music, which kicks off today at Hook Lighthouse in Co Wexford. The former RTÉ newsreader has been enchanted with lighthouses since childhood.

Three coffins; three hearses outside the church in the village of Crooke; three men who loved boats and fishing from the time they could walk.

Post-mortems will be carried out today on the bodies of three brothers who drowned when their fishing vessel overturned at sea.

IN their quest for food, humans do not recognise that all creatures are entitled to their share of Earth’s resources. Overfishing can deprive ocean predators, including whales and dolphins, of food.

IF HUMANS were programmed to hibernate, I’d happily hole up in Kilmokea Country Manor until my fat stores ran out.

KILSHEELAN TO CARRICK-ON-SUIR

The Lightkeeper: A memoir

The mother of a drowned fisherman said she was “disgusted and appalled” to discover through the media that bones found at sea in the South-East two years ago.

Budgetary constraints are believed to be preventing DNA testing of bones found off the south-east coast which may have come from some of the fishermen lost when three trawlers sank in 2006 and 2007.

Motorists were warned to take extra care after gale force winds battered the country.

BIRD-WATCHING in Morocco last week I encountered some magpies.

EXPLORATION firm, Providence Resources has increased its equity stake in the Barryroe well, off the Cork coast in the Celtic Sea, to 80%.

PROVIDENCE Resour-ces chief executive Tony O’Reilly Jnr has said that “the time has come” for Ireland’s hydrocarbon potential to be realised.

HOOK Lighthouse on the south-east coast has been announced as number one in the list of the “world’s flashiest lighthouses”.

PROVIDENCE Resources has agreed a deal with the Shell International Trading & Shipping Company relating to the sale of future oil produced from two of its assets in the Celtic Sea.

A SPECTACULAR picture of a humpback whale raising itself out of the sea off Hook Head, in Co Wexford, made it to the front page of this newspaper last Tuesday.