Two weeks before Christmas, a Vatican announcement indicated that Pope Leo XIV had appointed Bishop Ronald Hicks to succeed Cardinal Timothy Dolan as Archbishop of New York.

My first knowledge of a ladybird was at a young age when I encountered the Ladybird series of children’s books. At that time ‘ladybird’ was just a word, a logo on the corner of a book cover.

January usually arrives in the west of Ireland like an uninvited spinster aunt, cold, judgmental, and determined to make you feel terrible about yourself.

With the announcement in November that the long-anticipated extension of the Western Rail Corridor from Athenry to Tuam and onto Claremorris will go ahead, attention naturally enough turned to the next stage.

My phone beeped on January 3rd. A simple text from an American friend:“Ladies and Gentlemen, We Got Him. ”It was clearly referring to the audacious seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

I return again – unapologetically, I have to say – to what has become something of a personal obsession.

2026 starts with a lot of clouds overhead. The international system is volatile and unpredictable. Our problems on the domestic front seem intractable, even unsolvable.

Every new year, like every Christmas, measures life out in manageable portions that help us to mark time. Do you remember? as the song goes, Will I ever forget? It’s what we do.

I have previously complained about proving irresistible to mosquitoes, midges and their associated winged cousins - whether bitten on my back by a cavalcade of Ukrainian insects while sleeping in a hotel in Odessa, being attacked through my clothes ...

A brilliant initiative from the Tourism Department of Mayo County Council should get us all out with our cameras this year.