I was fortunate in recent times to be asked to provide images for a 2026 calendar. The calendar is being published by the Mill Community Cafe in south Sligo and features as its theme, 'Wildflowers of the Ox Mountains'. It was a labour of love.

I came across an RTÉ archive recently, Gay Byrne no less, interviewing a 93-year-old man sitting in a television studio in Dublin, his hands still, his voice steady as a metronome. Jack Campbell. Dubliner. Last of the Old Contemptibles.

This article marks ten years of writing for this newspaper, with my first piece being published on November 23rd, 2015.

It was one of the best uses ever of an All-Ireland ticket. The year was 1951, and John ‘Twin’ McNamara was restless. He had just finished three years of second-level school in Achill and wanted to make for England.

Who Shot Kim Kardashian?My wife recently asked me - very sweetly, very innocently - if I’d join her in watching the new Kim Kardashian legal drama, All’s Fair, created by Ryan Murphy. Now, I’m a supportive husband. I’m open-minded.

During November I visit cemeteries. In Ballycastle cemetery, where my parents are buried, I spend time moving meditatively along the headstones and reading the spare words that attempt to record lived lives.

There's a particular grimness to discovering that Ireland has developed its own strain of far-right extremism.

I’m not sure why I found some of the media coverage of the crimes of the disgraced hurling icon, DJ Carey, so distasteful.

Tilly Norwood is a young, pretty actor who is causing a storm in Hollywood. She has great headshots, a resumé and apparently genuine interest from the TV and film industry. Her appeal is obvious.

The death last month of Frank Durcan in Spain brings the curtain down on the life of a man who was one of the most colourful and controversial political characters in Mayo.