ON these dulcet summer evenings, more often than not, sunlight streams down the west-facing bays of West Cork.

You can take the man out of the landscape, but you can’t take the landscape out of the man. That’s true of writer and film director Maurice O’Callaghan, who was born near Béal Na Bláth, West Cork, and has reflected its hauntingly beautiful countryside in his writings and films.

Tom Gibney, who won the 2012 Irish Grand National at Fairyhouse with Lion Na Bearnai, was on the mark at Limerick yesterday when the consistent Circe’s Island landed the Follow Us On Twitter Mares’ Maiden Hurdle.

Hundreds of notes and manuscripts, believed to be the greatest collection of work by the Irish novelist James Joyce, have been bought by the National Library in Dublin, it was announced today.