I see that a website describes the call of Canarian cory’s shearwaters as ‘waca waca’. It’s a mad, hysterical call, uttered when the parent birds arrive to feed their nestlings.

Wood and turf smoke is just as bad for human health as coal smoke.

The Cork Puppetry Festival returns this weekend. Siobhan Howe meets the man behind it – Dowtcha founder, Cliff Dolliver.

Irish-Italian actress Aisling Franciosi has been dubbed by Vogue as the Breakout Star of this summer's independent film, 'The Nightingale'.

Bangor-born blogger Jonny Blair has been travelling the world since 2003.

In recent weeks, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar expressed a new commitment to confronting climate change.

Australia sweltered through its hottest month on record in January and the summer of extremes continued with wildfires razing the drought-parched south and flooding in expanses of the tropical north.

Ruth O’Connor discovers Margaret O’Connor’s mischievous street art millinery popping up in some unusual spots.

I don’t do favourites. I have no favourite colour, book, song or wine. However, if I have noticed that in recent years I am drawn to fresher brighter red wines — Mencía from Spain, Blaufrankisch from Austria, Pinot Noirs from almost everywhere, and Nebbiolos from Piedmont.

On February 8, I wrote to the history educational officer and the NCCA history curriculum development unit, regarding Strand 2 Learning Outcome 2.3 of the new Junior Certificate history course.

An Australian state parliament has legalised voluntary euthanasia 20 years after the country repealed the world's first mercy-killing law for the terminally ill.

Wow, the food is fantastically good in Australia. I’ve just come back from a two-week trip to promote my new book Grow Cook Nourish. A whistle-stop tour where I visited Sydney, Melbourne, Byron Bay and Tasmania.

Another Australian politician said he may have to quit Parliament because of dual citizenship, days after a High Court ruling was thought to have ended the crisis.

The Tasmanian Devil was simply snuffling in the snow beneath the bedroom window of the guesthouse where our friend was sleeping somewhere in  upland Tasmania, last month. 

"There’s a yearning for live performance that’s absent from gaming and animation, and ultimately there’s an opportunity for puppetry there.”

Businesses and governments around the world are counting the cost of a software epidemic that has disrupted ports, hospitals and banks.

Operations at a terminal at India's busiest container port have been stalled by the malicious software that has crippled computers globally, an official said.

Some Australians refuse to believe in this, almost mythical, creature’s demise, writes Richard Collins.

Ciara McDonnell has the lowdown on this season’s top movies – and the destinations they showcase.

Dev Patel and Nicole Kidman star in the amazing true tale of an Indian boy adopted to Australia, who used Google Earth to find the family he had lost at the age of five, writes Helen Barlow

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.

Australia is to allow gun owners to hand in illegal firearms without penalty next year as concerns grow over crimes involving such weapons, a federal minister has said.

While Fassbender and Vikander started their own real life romance on the film and they aren't the only new loves who will be in Venice.

 

Kya deLongchamps celebrates the heroic and unlikely life of Thomas Francis Meagher (1823-1867) nearly 150 years since his mysterious disappearance.

A surfer was seriously injured as he repeatedly punched a shark that mauled him off the Australian east coast, less than a week after a fatal attack, police and a witness said.

A surfer was seriously injured as he repeatedly punched a shark that mauled him off the Australian east coast, less than a week after a fatal attack.

I have been rather neglectful of Australia in recent months so this week I want to focus on one of the great icon estates of Australian wine as a way of showing that there is more to this country than big blowsy Shiraz and Chardonnay.

A new series on RTÉ One tomorrow looks behind the scenes of the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney.

Two chubby marsupial species that would literally die for sex (albeit 14-hour sessions) have been discovered, researchers report.

In Waterford, President Michael D. Higgins recently launched the Thomas F. Meagher Foundation for 2016 Flag Week, which will be held from March 10 to 17: the national flag will be given to schools around the country.

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia and its name, in the Amharic language, means ‘new flower’. 

The Great Race

JOHN CREEDON presents a music show on RTÉ Radio 1 weeknights from the RTÉ Cork studios, and also the Fleadh Cheoil series on RTÉ One television on Fridays at 7.30pm.

Irish Illustrator Niamh Sharkey’s cute character is more popular than ever, writes Ed Power

With an app for just about everything these days, it is no surprise to discover there are many to assist parents, says Ed Power.

ANITA Reeves, who stars in a new production of the hit play Little Gem, jokes that she has been threatening to retire from her stage career for 20 years. 

Australian author Richard Flanagan has won this year’s Man Booker Prize for his novel The Narrow Road To The Deep North inspired by his father’s experience as a prisoner of war on the Thailand-Burma death railway.

KIDS without role models often default to heroes. But heroes —whether rock-stars, sporting greats or You Tube sensations — are one-dimensional and of little use. So the young person becomes disappointed — even disillusioned.