We are the robots.

Robot wars clicked, blinked, and whirred into the lives of 500 Cork schoolchildren this week, their months of hard work culminating in 19 of their specially-created robots doing battle on the grounds of Cork Institute of Technology.

There is more than glory for their schools spurring on student teams preparing to do battle with their robots later this week.

AFTER 20 years as postmistress in the north Cork village of Lombardstown, Catherine Anne Healy is on the verge of quitting, ending a family link with postal services in the area which reaches back across three generations.