A number of outside parties expressed a strong interest in buying the 14 bedroom Óstan Thóraigh or Tory Island Hotel which had a price tag of €400,000.

About two years ago the R&A got in touch with some Dublin-based PR and advertising companies. They had a concern about the 2019 Open Championship that they wanted to throw some money at.

A rare chance to own not one but TWO lighthouse keeper's cottages on your own stunning island off Co Donegal has come up.

Welcome to the other Inishbofin, much smaller than its Co Galway namesake.

Turbot Island, Co Galway, has a very important place in aviation history being the first sighted land for the very first trans-Atlantic flight by John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown on June 14 and 15, 1919.

The future of island schools should be supported with extra staff and funding to attract additional teachers and students, an Oireachtas committee recommends.

It’s not every ferry from which you disembark that a king is there to meet you with a firm handshake, writes Dan MacCarthy

Andy Irvine at the Triskel (as part of Cork Folk Festival) - 4/5

THE two Irelands met a few hundred yards from each other near the South Main Street, Cork last night, where a 1,000-year-old Viking weaver’s sword was recently discovered by archaeologists at the historic site of the former Beamish and Crawford brewery.

Dan MacCarthy talks us through the Saltee Islands, named by Viking seafarers.

Observed mistily above the Sherkin hills from the Beacon at Baltimore, Cape Clear is an enticing island and by far the largest in Roaringwater Bay, writes Dan MacCarthy

IN John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, Mexican pearl diver, Kino, basks in the ‘song of the family’. On the other side of the ocean, traditional Irish singer, Seán Keane, also has a family song, titled ‘Home’.

The Supreme Court has struck out an appeal over a €46,000 valuation placed on a man’s Tory Island holiday home which "disappeared" while he was abroad over a number of years.

Sue Leonard meets Tosh Lavery, who was one of the first recruits to the Garda Sub-Aqua team and whose eventful life and times he has recorded in a new memoir. 

I recently read with dismay reports in the Irish Examiner of plans to establish a centre in Kinsale to commemorate “The Wild Geese”, which is intended to honour present-day veterans of the British, American and other armed forces.

In typical January fashion, the rain has arrived to wash away the snow, the snowmen, and the winter wonderland hopes of many schoolchildren — for now.

WE might as well get into positive mode early in the New Year.

A dangerous marine flare has been made safe on Tory Island off the Donegal coast.

The search is on for Ireland’s most loveable tree. Finalists for the inaugural National Tree Huggers Contest have been selected from across the country.

David Kronn is gradually donating his invaluable, acquired photographs to the IMMA, says Richard Fitzpatrick.

The State has recorded a huge surge in the numbers of corncrakes in Ireland for the second year running.

“THIS festival has been a beacon in the traditional music calendar,” said traditional fiddler Paddy Glackin on Monday night at the last Frankie Kennedy Winter School in Donegal.

The State sought bail of €5.8m yesterday to free one of the world’s largest fishing ships, the Dutch-owned Annelies Ilena, formerly the Killybegs-owned Atlantic Dawn.

One of the controversial trawlers in Irish maritime history was arrested off Tory Island yesterday after suspected breaches of fishing regulations.

The Navy has detained one of the world's largest fishing vessels off the Donegal coast for alleged fishing law breaches.

Five trappers are to be deployed across the country from Monday to hunt down predators, including feral mink, that are ravaging trout and endangered birds.

Traditional entertainment and dinner in Killarney

This wonderful atlas has been updated to reflect the madness of the Celtic Tiger decade. William J Smyth is impressed by the results

Islanders off the north west coast were the first to vote on the Fiscal Treaty referendum today, four days ahead of the rest of the county.

Islanders off the north west coast of Ireland will be the first people to vote on the EU Fiscal Treaty referendum today, four days ahead of the rest of the county.

Michael Fewer’s Ireland: People, Places, Walking and Wildlife

The Coastguard service is assisting the crew of a tanker which has radioed for help off the north west coast.

A CYNIC might suspect that birder and photographer Ronan McLaughlin this month choked Cuskinny Marsh of its oxygen — and consequently its marine life — as a stunt for the upcoming launch of his calendar collection of exquisite wildlife photography, and to make his images all the rarer, as he has tracked the months and the seasons on this widely-sung and justly-appreciated marsh beauty spot.

Voters living on the five islands off the coast of Donegal will go to the polls today to vote in the presidential election.

EMBATTLED Senator David Norris shrugged off continued questioning about clemency letters for his former partner and insisted that voters had moved on from the issue.

Parties will be making one final push today to woo voters ahead of polling day.

FERRIES and a helicopter carried ballot papers to the first of 2,600 island residents voting in the general election. Islanders in Donegal South-West and Mayo voted two days ahead of tomorrow’s mainland poll.

Voting on Donegal's four smallest Islands has just finished, with a turn-out of about 50% on Tory Island.