Weekend

Ella McSweeney: When acorns fall from the oak tree in autumn, a jay will hide up to 5,000 of them around the wood

Unlike the generation which has grown up with mobile phone cameras, when I am photographed I look awkward, wooden, smiling like someone who just wants this to stop now

Our recycling rate has not improved in a decade: here’s some tips on how to dispose of our waste properly

Queen’s University Belfast academic Richard Schoch says the American composer’s works are high art that explore the human condition with precision, and remain fresh for each new generation

Everything written about Alice Munroe after revelations about her daughter’s sexual abuse will record the Nobel Prize-winning author’s failure as a parent and human being

Street photographer Christopher Ward has amassed more than a million followers by capturing the wisdom of strangers in stop-and-chat videos

Some of the views Irish artist Harry Aaron Kernoff painted of Killarney while on a cycling trip with Patrick Kavanagh haven’t changed much in more than 70 years

Dublin-based English academic Mike Cronin says atmosphere at recent Ireland-England soccer match highlights lack of respect for ‘the other’ built into partition of island

The model, author and former Miss World on being a ‘guinea pig’ first-born and the challenges of getting her own young children out the door

Lt Yulia Mykytenko gives her eye witness account of the horrors of Russia’s attack in the context of Christmas and looming new year

Bank voles have become important as prey for Ireland’s barn owl population

‘We feel skint because we are skint. When financial instability is the norm, the fetishisation of wealth is inevitable’

The flaw in the Maga rhetoric about how the United States is going to do this and that to its foes is that the US is the largest debtor the world has seen at any time in human history

Éanna Ní Lamhna on fungus lining a lakeside path, a plant used as a laxative and diuretic, and unsegmented thunderworms

The flu virus spreads through coughs and sneezes and can live on hands and surfaces for 24 hours. If you reckon you have it, it’s best to stay at home

Childhood rickets is back in Britain – and it’s not because ill-health is the logical outcome of poor choices

The central pillars of the Fit Farmers programme are diet, movement, sleep and stress management for a better work-life balance

From rows about staffing, waiting lists and cost overruns to resignations of senior staff, heathcare was never far from the news headlines in 2024

Many are familiar with the static hum of white noise, but there’s a whole spectrum of coloured noises on the market that people are using to help them sleep

Despite knowing that what I was feeling was not normal, I had somehow never quite expected others to accept this as a big problem

Tending to a tree all year can be rewarding – plus it’s better for the environment than the plastic variety

While the NHS as a whole in the UK falls down the world league of health systems, here in the North we are in a league of our own – and it isn’t a very good one

There is an uncanny silence around Long Covid, no recognised recovery pathway, and a lack of meaningful medical support. But there is hope: many people are recovering and research progress is being made

I’m not entirely sedentary these days. I walk a lot. But recently I was talking to my GP and she suggested that I should also use my arms sometimes

Shocking though the devastation looked at first sight, I remembered that disturbances from storms like this one are a natural part of the woodland ecosystem

Now 20 years in operation, the Gateway peer-led mental health project in Rathmines supports people with enduring mental illnesses through creative activities and companionship

The new year is a good time to take stock and start to transition to new, healthier habits

‘I’m the oldest. It has totally defined me. I’ve been mom since I was six years old’

When I was younger, Ireland had the main newspapers, political parties, RTÉ, the church and the education system. Today, everyone is an editor

Access to consultants, private hospital rooms and reduced waiting times are some of the reasons why it can pay to have private health insurance

Éanna Ní Lamhna on the territorial robin, abundant-berry folklore and the unusual-looking but harmless triggerfish

Most families have someone missing even if the table is holly-decked and groaning

I fear our property problem will be solved in a brutal way, with a recession so severe, hundreds of thousands will emigrate again

If the 2024 election result marked stability, safety and conservatism, the biggest gig of the year underscored that same middle-brow innocuousness

Ireland heard plenty of ‘eco rhetoric’ in 2024 but there was a clear sense that political leaders have not grasped the reality of the climate emergency

The family and care referendums were soundly rejected, Leo Varadkar most unexpectedly stepped down, and there was a decided turnaround in parties’ fortunes

We also decode 12 hot-button words or phrases you might have heard for the first time this year

Winds of change howled across Britain in a year when a Labour election victory ended 14 years of Tory rule

The US president is a once-in-a-lifetime master manipulator of the unseen energies that sway the electorate

As China and Russia weigh up their options in anticipation of Donald Trump’s second presidency, horrified countries in the Global South see Gaza as an emblem of US and European double standards