One of the hardest beats for a Mayo sports reporter is going down to the dressing rooms and press conference area under the Hogan Stand in Croke Park after an All-Ireland final defeat.

Now that the summer is over, thoughts will turn to shorter evenings and the winter ahead. So this is a good time to think about some interesting things you could do - and places you could visit - before the year is out.

My recent piece on President Trump’s “migrant crime wave” garnered social media commentary that said less about crime and more about how we engage with the news.

Summer has come and gone and we are now into autumn.

All over Mayo, all the kids are back to school by the time you read this. Our youngest started national school yesterday, Monday, September 1. His older two siblings joined him to great excitement.

In the 45 or so years since I started writing a weekly column in the Western People, I think this is the first time I’ve returned to the same subject in successive weeks.

There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about. - Margaret J. Wheatley I am fortunate to live in a vibrant community.

During college, I spent two wonderful summers working as a tour guide at the Céide Fields Visitor Centre in Belderrig.

So there appears to be some life left in Fianna Fáil.  Following my call here two weeks ago for bland Micheál to be selected to run for the Áras, there has been the stirrings of life among the party’s TDs. Hardly a groundswell but a movement.

When they first came on stream, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter (now X) appeared like magnificent manifestations of the potential of the internet. We first got into Facebook in 2008 when we were travelling in Australia.