What did the Romans ever do for Ireland? Not a lot, it seems.

Two spectacular stained glass windows depicting a series of historical and cultural ‘turning points’ over some 700 years in a West Cork town, have gone on display in the local church.

Sorting out Cork people for ages...

Illustrated by Richard Mills, this compendium by Jo Kerrigan takes us on journeys some may never have known existed. It’s a historical travelogue that will inspire explorers, writes Majella Flynn

A Confederate flag is on sale on Amazon advertised as an "Ireland South Cross Flag".

I’ve just been writing a letter to a German painter whom I met on a long trip outdoors last February; some readers may recall my dispatches from Namibia and the Kalahari Desert, writes Damien Enright.

This book is not just another book explaining why we do not speak our own language, and why we should, and how we might. 

THROUGH the late summer and autumn a cock pheasant has been feeding in the field outside my study. He’s a big bird with a long tail and fairly elderly, writes Dick Warner.

 

A new book documents the history of the Irish pub, how times have changed it, and emerging challenges. Author Kevin Martin talks to Noel Baker

A weekend of jousting, banqueting and story- telling is marking the medieval roots of Tralee, Co Kerry, this weekend.

Gyles Quay is on the outskirts of Waterford City, but located in the more dominant hurling stronghold of Kilkenny. 

The general election offers a gorgeous insight into the importance of the county boundary in modern Irish life.

Mick O’Dea is steeped in the traditions and lore of the turbulent period around Easter 1916, writes Richard Fitzpatrick

THE history of the Norman conquest is threaded through the forthcoming New Ross Piano Festival. The Ros Tapestry shows how the Normans were invited by Dermot MacMurrough, whose daughter Aoife married Strongbow.

Kilkenny hurling supremo Brian Cody is not in the habit of co-operating with the likes of Waterford and Wexford, but has made an exception to join in the south-east region’s bid to become European Capital of Culture.

It was once dubbed by locals as the worst-maintained street in Ireland.

Remains of a 17th century house have been discovered during a €2.47m upgrade of a town’s main street, which has been dubbed “the worst in Ireland”.

THERE is a strange and extremely unscientific prejudice embedded in the heart of the environmental movement. It is the prejudice against what are usually described, in distinctly emotive terms, as ‘alien invasive species’, writes Dick Warner

THE Twentieth Century fox moved to the city and is prospering. Now the 21st Century rabbit is following suit. 

The Dawn Chorus

Kissing under the mistletoe is not a tradition in Ireland, partly because the plant is not native to this country, but also perhaps because kissing is not such a big tradition, and indeed may itself have been imported in the first place.

According to tradition Richard Lionheart, returning from a crusade, brought the first mute swans to England. Later, the Normans took them to Ireland.

Pheasants are not native Irish birds. We don’t know exactly when they were introduced here but they were brought in by the Normans and were certainly present in considerable numbers by the year 1600.

WE take the road across from the pier, between the Marine Hotel and the house opposite it.

The World Cup still dominates the schedules, but Donal Skehan does begin a new show on the previous generation of top Irish cooks

I SPEND a lot of my time on or around water and because of this I have regular encounters with swans.

THE Cork and Kerry mountains were golden with gorse when we drove west last weekend, not Irish dwarf gorse, which displays its glory in September, but French gorse, the tall fellow which Goldsmith described, in The Deserted Village, as “blossom’d furze unprofitably gay ... ”.

BY THE time we had got three-quarters of the way to Westport, our phone sat navs were locked in battle.

I WENT out to feed the hens the other day and was confronted by two rabbits.

SOME puppet show. There are moments when you despair for this country. One of those moments was when I heard Minister for the Arts, Jimmy Deenihan, thus describe on RTÉ Royale de Luxe, the theatre company whose proposed visit finally broke the relationship between Limerick City of Culture’s board and artistic director, Karl Wallace.

The Irish history I was taught in school differs considerably from Professor Paul MacCotter’s version (Irish Examiner, Dec 30).

Gaelic clans were involved in bloodthirsty ethnic-cleansing when they murdered, raped, pillaged and burned with such brutal ferocity it forced Norman settlers to abandon large parts of rural Cork and cower behind the walls of the city for many years.

If your surname is McCarthy, O’Riordan, Twomey or Kelleher and your forebears came from the Lee Valley then they were probably a bloodthirsty bunch involved in ethnic cleansing in the 14th century.

CELLMOUNT LOOP, DROUMILLIHY WOODS, CO CORK

The people of Buttevant are hoping to unveil a huge mural which will showcase the town’s historic past.

THE sycamores have come into flower. Dangling yellow tassels high up in branches that are still bare of any leaves.

The Lightkeeper: A memoir

At Home in Ireland

Rabbits in the big field behind my house can again be seen since the wheat crop was harvested.