In the wake of the devastating mass shooting in a nightclub in Orlando, many people in the area headed straight to their local blood donation clinic.

I was home to Cork for a funeral in recent days. It was a profoundly emotional week and I was prompted to write my first ever blog post on the bus up to Dublin. It seems to have resonated with a lot of Corkonians, both living there and living abroad.

AS our correspondent Cathy Tobin reminds us today the wrench of emigration, the separation from a loved family never eases for some Irish people.