The man wore a New York Yankees cap, a beard and an oversized shirt, and he strode purposefully towards me while I stood on the pavement, watching the protestors gathered outside the Glendale Hilton Hotel.  As our eyes met, my heart sank.

Before any blood is spilled in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, his razor-sharp dialogue delivers a masterclass in character and cultural commentary - all over breakfast.

A friend of mine gave me a few cabbage plants in recent weeks. I planted them, and despite the recent drought, they survived and are doing well.

When I was a boy, we were all taught that the Irish saved civilisation. It was a history everyone learned, a story set after the Roman Empire fell in 476AD when the last western emperor was deposed. Europe slipped into the Dark Ages.

The continuing decline in priest numbers in the Catholic Church – with the future heavily weighted by a phalanx of elderly priests – has created a mathematical certainty that within a few years a cliff-face is approaching when numbers will plummet.

At 9:39pm on Tuesday, May 20th, while most of Ireland was settling down to the evening news, a Gulfstream jet touched down at Shannon carrying eight men who had become inconvenient to America.

It’s hard to know where to start. Captain Boyle in O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock got it correct over 100 years ago when he announced that the whole world “is in a state of chassis”.

When we met Billy and Frances McNicholas in the Silverbirch Hotel in Omagh, the well-known Mayo GAA coach told the five of us that we had brought to 62 the number of Mayo fans he had spotted since arriving in the town ahead of the Tyrone game.

Beech, common (Fagus sylvatica). Monumental, majestic, home to rare wildlife.   Beech is an enchanting species and known as the queen of trees.

As the rapids of Covid-19 fade into memory, is Ireland truly ready for the next deluge? Where do we stand on pandemic preparedness as an administration is still drying off from the last flood?There's something inherently Irish about our approach to ...