A fitness club has used a drone to film scenic routes to liven up your spinning classes. And there’s no instructor shouting at you while you cycle, writes Roisin Burke

While most of us are opening presents, and settling down to enjoy the festivities together, many more will be putting in a busy day at work. And yet, as Áilín Quinlan discovered, Christmas is a very special day for them too.

Christmas Day worshippers in a tiny church at the tip of a remote West Cork peninsula will this year be joined by more than 1,000 emigrants from all over the world.

The Menu has long been meaning to make mention of the wonderful little Garden Café, sited in a Victorian glasshouse perched just above the heart of Blackpool, and a wonderful combination of pop-up supper and photo exhibition has given him ample reason to do so. 

BBC radio and TV presenter Graham Norton will become a quizmaster in West Cork this week to assist a peninsula community.

Irish Examiner journalist Dan MacCarthy speaks to Irish Olympic medallist and Irish Sports Council chief executive John Treacy, as well as Collins Press publisher Con Collins about his new book, Cycling Munster – Great Road Routes

If you really do want to get away from it all, the madding crowd and the beach scene bustle, then pack up your troubles, and go to Kit’s Cottage.

West Cork was one of the worst damaged regions in the country during storms over the weekend, and the county council is to seek emergency government funding to deal with washed- away roads and bridges.

From the shock of a cancer diagnosis to coping with the side-effects of treatment — a new service in West Cork is designed to provide emotional and practical support to anyone struggling with the illness.

LAURA Murphy is from Kinsale, Co Cork, and is dancer in residence at Firkin Crane. She performs in A Dance Brew at Firkin Crane on Saturday as part of Cork Midsummer Festival.

The 84-acre Fairy Valley has two modern houses, farm land, ponds and Dunmanus Bay views, says Tommy Barker.

“You couldn’t buy this type of publicity,” said James Fogarty, a senior official at Cork County Council, beaming in delight at the latest issue of the bible for cruise ship company executives.

Cork County Council is financially backing the creation of a new kayaking and canoeing trail along the River Ilen from Skibbereen to Baltimore.

THE AFTERMATH

The stormy weather which may have swept one Dutch holidaymaker to his death and resulted in another man going missing has hampered search efforts, with galeforce winds expected to batter the West Cork coast today.

The search for a Dutch tourist missing since last Saturday resumes today after the body of his friend was taken from the sea off the West Cork coast yesterday.

BERE ISLAND WALK

Up to 14,000 people could be in danger of being cut off if gale force winds and flooding were to damage the only bridge leading into a town in Co Cork.

Two popular bathing spots have been closed in West Cork after the discovery of excessive E.coli levels.

CARRIGFADA HILL, WEST CORK

What I do: Baroque cellist and virtuoso recorder player.

Symbolic fires blazed on headlands and islands along the Cork coast last night marking a timeline of the Titanic’s ill-fated maiden voyage across the Atlantic a century ago.

Symbolic fires blazed on headlands and islands along the Cork coast last night marking a timeline of the Titanic’s ill-fated maiden voyage across the Atlantic a century ago.

Two hundred new jobs and an €8m spin-off for the economy of West Cork would result from even a modest investment in the region’s walking tourism, according to a report to be launched this week.

The spectacular views are just one of great things about this Sheep’s Head home, writes Rose Martin

Children were in the frontline last night as they joined their mums and dads, friends and neighbours in a protest against Government cuts that will eke into the heart and soul of rural ireland.

You’ll earn your mince pies with a bracing walk on Sheep’s Head, says David Young

THE only ambulance available in west Cork last Friday night was stationed in Castletownbere, 85km from where 470 people gathered at a public meeting opposing cuts to the service.

MORE than 180 events are taking place throughout the country tomorrow to mark National Trails Day.

HIKING and walking are now the most popular activity pursuits by tourists in Ireland, with upwards of two million people, including home and overseas visitors, taking part each year.

SENATOR Ivor Callely has been tripped up over a number of controversial misunderstandings since he entered politics.

SHAGS, despite their prejudicial name, are elegant birds, much more attractive than their cousins, the cormorants.

IT’S amazing how smaltz songs can contain memorable lines, phrases that never leave one, no matter how saccharine or sentimental.

A LOVELY morning to wake to – for a change. Outside, the sun is lighting the garden like a stage set.

TWENTY-FOUR coffins are to be paraded outside the Dáil to highlight the number of people who will needlessly lose their lives each year if a west Cork hospital has its A&E services downgraded.

A TIGHT formation of dunlin rockets down the channel towards me, turns and disappears into thin air. Five seconds later and fifty metres away, they reappear as a sudden blink of light before turning and disappearing again.

FOR the first time in 43 days in court Martin Wanden flinched yesterday — and that was at the moment he heard the sentencing judge say “30 years”.

IT was a sophisticated international smuggling racket that came to grief off the coast of Ireland because someone didn’t know the difference between diesel and petrol.

A BOAT sank off the west Cork coast and €440 million worth of cocaine floated in the stormy waters as one man made it to a coastal farmhouse to alert the rescue services that another man was still in the sea.

FIFTY-EIGHT kilometres of rubbish — everything from black bags of domestic garbage and disposable nappies to fishing nets, ropes and plastic cut-offs.

IN auctioneering parlance, this is a ‘faller’ — the sale has fallen through on Ahagouna Cottage and it’s now back on the market again, but with a very tempting guide of €150,000.