Despite nine named storms lashing the land in 2018, it was the uplands of the west and the bogs of the midlands that produced more grass and other herbage than usual this year, while grass growth suffered in the rest of the country.

A PAPER in the current edition of Irish Birds, The Birds of the Phoenix Park, County Dublin, gives the results of a survey carried out during the summer of 2007 and the following winter. The author is Olivia Crowe.

AMONG the more unusual names Irish parents gave their children last year were Elvis, Kylie, Setanta, Shakira and Paris.

Award winning poet Seamus Heaney wrote Beacons at Bealtaine especially to mark the historic Day of Welcomes in Dublin.