AS she prepares for her inaugural Loop Head Summer Hedge School, from July 10 to August 18, Carmel T Madigan cannot be accused of failing to have an intimate knowledge of her peninsula environment. Born and reared next to the Bridges of Ross, the Barefield-based artist, who also works out of her studio just outside Cross village, remembers blithely hurtling down local cliffs without a second thought. “We used to skid down the cliffs and things like that,” Carmel says while making tea and unearthing scones on a breezy June morning in Cross. “Since then I’ve seen the earth fall in. There’s coastal erosion going on there. It wasn’t exactly a sound thing to do but that’s what we did. Our parents were constantly worried because they didn’t want us around the cliffs at all. The environment was our playground, even if we didn’t understand it very much, but that didn’t stop us and our neighbours getting together. We got …

HE MIGHT have caricatured himself as an ‘old scarecrow’ but William Butler Yeats, the antediluvian gentleman of our Leaving Certificate years, was, it appears, anything but.

THE Irish Seed Savers’ Association in Scariff is inviting the public to their first plant swap event this weekend.

Active Ennis Leisure Complex has been presented with the prestigious White Flag Award for Disability Provision.

A working group is literally pushing out the boat to achieve Blue Flag status for the popular bathing and recreational amenity at Ballyalla Lake, on the outskirts of the town.

Diners tucked into yet another culinary delight at Cassidy’s Pub in Carron recently, unaware that their succulent goat stew had been prepared by Aussie celebrity chef Lyndey Milan.

PRIOR to last weekend, Phil Mickleson had an unenviable record in the US PGA Open Championship. He had finished runner-up on five occasions. Unfortunately for him he has now stretched that record to six.