Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

The name of the River Moy is derived from an old Irish word 'muad', which translates as 'noble'.  I met a group of people lately and our conversation led to a chat about the health of the noble Moy.

Fergus Campbell is a leading Irish historian and Professor of Social and Cultural History at Newcastle University.

The British Labour Party is riven, and especially at the top. They lost on both sides in their recent local elections. Reform beat them all ends up. The Greens took votes off them among the young and the urban middle classes.

We own a small patch of bog. It’s there on the land deed, matter-of-fact as a boundary wall - a stretch of cutaway outside Castlebar that came with the land, the way a bad roof or a draughty outhouse might. Except it isn’t a liability.

A District Court Judge recently refused to convict 34 drivers caught speeding on a road approaching Monasterevin in Co Kildare.

One of my favourite announcements of the year is the awarding of the Blue Flag and Green Coast Awards. The awards recognise quality at our beaches, and when the announcement comes it means the swimming season has started. Started for some, of course.

There is a little bird that has been tweeting around my house for the past two months. He is at it early and late, never giving up and always repeating that same cheery tune. His song is a chatty affair, sounding like the happiest child in the class.

It begins with an email landing in my inbox bearing some deeply ominous variation of: COURT-ORDERED NOTICE OF CLASS ACTION. Burdened by my ‘small-farmer-west-of-Ireland-Catholic-guilt’, my instinctive reaction was always mild panic.

My grandmother bought homemade country butter.