IT was GK Chesterton who said about the Irish that "the great Gaels of Ireland, Are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry, And all their songs are sad". I don’t know about the wars, but the mournfulness of the songs is the reason I’ve never been a huge fan of Irish traditional music, if the truth be told.

THIS is the time of year when pike spawn. They usually travel considerable distances to do so, moving into very shallow water. The males and females travel separately, as the females are much larger and have cannibalistic tendencies.

WE’VE been running out of national superlatives here in Ireland in recent years: we’re no longer the richest/fastest-growing/youngest/friendliest and more island, ever since our economic bubble inflated and burst its banks.

THE list of wild mammals in Ireland has grown by an astonishing amount over the past 100 years. Some of the new additions have here all along but they were animals we never noticed and includes several species of bat.