Check out this cheese-board set, we love the mix of ceramic and wood. 

Esther N McCarthy melts over all these lovely Irish candles. Perfect for setting the scene for cosy autumn evenings at home.

Tracy Ryan uses edible ingredients in her Bia Beauty natural skin-care products, because the skin absorbs 60% of what is put on it. Her business began in her spare room and now sells to 100 stores nationwide.

The founding premises of homewares specialist store, Meadows & Byrne, in Cork City’s Academy Street will only be vacated and leased to restaurant chain, Nando’s, if planning is secured for change-of-use.

Hands up — who has a cardboard box under the stairs full of unwanted Christmas gifts going back several years?

Each week, Esther N McCarthy scouts around for interesting bits for your home. This week, she suggests some gifts for Mother’s Day.

The Blarney Woollen Mills Group is “trading successfully” and recorded “substantial” earnings last year.

Momentum has gathered at the Fota Retail Park, coming up on the first anniversary of the arrival of Ballyseedy Garden Centre there last June.

A PRE-TAX loss of €128,055 incurred by a subsidiary of Blarney Woollen Mills contributed to the group making an overall loss last year.

Liam Casey saw a potential gap in a rapidly developing market. Now the Cork-born entrepreneur employs 1,200 people across the globe, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

WHAT? Cork is spending money at the Shanghai Expo to boost tourism from China (Irish Examiner, March 3).

UP to 100 jobs are to be created at two new emergency call handling centres in Donegal and Meath while Co Cork is set for 36 new posts as Mallow firm, Masterlink Logistics invests more than €5 million in a new facility.

BOUGHT on a honeymoon visit to Ireland almost 40 years ago, Dereen House still has all the trappings of a more romantic era.

IT TOOK nine fire crews more than an hour to bring a huge fire at a disused Cork hotel under control last night.

BLARNEY Woollen Mills is investing €2 million in a venture which has been hailed as Ireland’s answer to Abercrombie & Fitch.

THE Kilkenny Group, will open a shop adjacent to Cork Opera House this November.

CORK County Council has issued a warning letter to a wealthy businessman who travels from his home by helicopter about an alleged unauthorised hangar-like building on his land.

One hundred and twenty jobs are to be created at a new €15m retail complex being developed by the Blarney Group in Co Tipperary.

BLARNEY Woollen Mills has denied its decision to take the company private has anything to do with paying tax to the Irish exchequer.

TOM and MICHAEL BAILEY, the controversial builders criticised at the Planning Tribunal, have applied to re-register their company as unlimited.

SUSTAINING the Family Business was the theme of the first national conference organised by the John C Kelleher Family Business Centre at UCC.

FORMER Environment Minister Martin Cullen brought in his €1,200-a-day PR adviser, Monica Leech, despite the department already employing one of the country's biggest PR companies to work on a major project.

TRANSPORT Minister Seamus Brennan is expected to press ahead with the appointment of three new Aer Rianta boards this Wednesday — despite the refusal of three current members to resign.

EMPLOYERS who are heavily dependent on the US market are already counting the cost of the threat of war on Iraq before battle begins.

TWO pioneering business courses for people managing family companies were launched in University College Cork yesterday.