Hardy sea swimmers and seasonal dunkers — the countdown to the big one is on. The Christmas Day Swim has become a key part of the holiday calendar for so many. So if you like a jolly crowd around for your Christmas dip then check out our list of swims near you

National Park and Wildlife Service Outdoor staff in Killarney National Park painstakingly sowed 31,375 acorns, under the supervision of Horticulturalist Gerry Murphy and Gardener Stephen Moore

Some of Ireland's hedgerows date back to the 1700s and 1800s — but we are in danger of dangerously neglecting them now, says Katie Smirnova, campaigns officer at Hedgerows Ireland 

A local woman, born in 1861, passed on a verse to her grandson and it could well indicate that this is the resting place of Irish royalty

Engineers have been looking at how close to each other planes might have to fly to make slipstream fuel savings

Clearing leaves from open ground beneath trees makes very little sense: the leaf mold that they break down into nourishes next year’s growth of trees and spring flowers

Water quality analysis is welcome but may be missing some crucial factors, warns ecologist Pádraic Fogarty

The island, which has a small jetty on its north side, has a lovely canopy of oak, beech, and hawthorn trees

Roosters were shown their reflections in mirrors and then were shown images of predators. If they issued a warning call it would indicate that a cock believed the mirror reflection to belong to another rooster. But if it recognised the reflection as its own, it would remain silent

Waders are among the most threatened of all breeding birds in Ireland, with six in the red list of birds of conservation concern: curlew, lapwing, dunlin, golden plover, redshank, and snipe

A famous study trained pigeons to distinguish between paintings by Monet and Picasso by giving them food when they pecked at a button in response to works by Picasso, but not for works by Monet

As the waters rose and threatened to engulf the island, the stones of the oratory were numbered and rafted to higher ground to be rebuilt

There are fewer chaffinches and goldfinches these days — and greenfinches seem to have suffered greatly

It is projected that an estimated €100 million worth of coal products will be imported from Northern Ireland into Ireland this year alone. Despite being banned in Ireland, smoky coal continues to be brought down from Northern Ireland in substantial quantities

TCD scientists have discovered that other sharks, including the smalltooth sand tiger shark which washed up in Ireland this year, may also have warm blood

Reading about nature is a great way to connect with the outdoors on days you just can't get outside

It's a lovely two-hour hike from Belfast Castle to Cave Hill and McArt's Fort

Many of Ireland's 'Turk Islands' mean 'island of the wild boar' but West Cork's Turk Island has three graves where sailors who died of cholera are buried

Particles from car tyres and cigarette butts are of particular concern because of their toxicity

Scientists set up motion-sensitive loudspeakers playing animal and human sounds.  An elephant disliked the lion sounds so much it charged and destroyed the loudspeaker — video below

A potted sapling, gathered, sown, and nurtured by your own hand, could mark a special birthday, a new baby, an anniversary, a new home — or maybe you don't need any excuse at all

But a vanished population and a lack of oak trees here are tragic

Astrophysicists scan the galaxy for signs of life — and there's an international protocol for if and when they find it

Dredging, drilling, and pile-driving for wind-turbine installation generate noise pollution. So do submarine-detection SONAR systems and the discharges of weapons during naval exercises

This project will tap into experience gained from international culturally significant sites and the expertise of other heritage partners around the world

Better planning for how we are going to adapt to climate change is gaining urgency

Ireland is going to get a new National Park — but are we properly looking after the ones we already have, asks ecologist Pádraic Fogarty

Inishbeg in Sligo is the birthplace of Ambrosio O'Higgins whose son, Bernardo, became the first leader of independent Chile after it seceded from the Spanish Empire in 1810

And awards too for Ballyduff in Kerry which got support from the local Men's Shed, farmers and businesses 

Scientists have examined the problem-solving abilities of wild elephants using puzzle boxes and jackfruit

We have health warnings against lake swimming in dozens of locations across Ireland because of contamination with harmful algal blooms and the presence of toxic blue-green algae in the water — all boosted by artificially elevated levels of nitrogen and phosphorous in the water

The 130-kilometre Wicklow Way came about thanks to the hard work and vision of JB Malone 

Campaign 'to open up corridors to allow animals to move from garden to garden'

Some varieties of garden pea can be sown in autumn — if you’re patient enough to nurse seedlings through winter

"...the Southern Resident Group of killer whales in the Pacific has only 78 members - attacks on porpoises by these whales were dismissed as one-off freak occurrences. Since then, however, 78 such incidents have been documented..."

Little pockets of biodiversity need to be nurtured and expanded — and Hare's Corner can help farmers and landowners with a lot of the practical stuff too

In 2021 a ‘new’ bee species arrived in Ireland, the ‘ivy bee’. This bee was first spotted in Wexford... perhaps warming temperatures have facilitated the expansion of its range. Have you seen it yet?

A look at the global rise of timber as a low-carbon building material

Ecologist Pádraic Fogarty looks at how the reintroduction of brown bears to France has worked out so far

Heir Island man, John Harte risked his own life to save five people when a boat sank here, with the loss of six lives, on October 10, 1918

Seabirds such as auks, puffins and sea-parrots have tough lives at sea — but are new food shortages causing further damage to these species?

Ireland tops in Europe for outdoor amenity development — and places including Abbeyfeale Town Park, Tralee Bay Wetlands and Ballincollig Regional Park have scored Green Flag awards

The notion that humans are separate from, and superior to, the natural world is at the core of the broken connections characterising modern times

Ciaran Mullooly is a journalist and former RTÉ news correspondent. He is also a founder of the award-winning Lough Ree Access For All social enterprise project providing access to the waterways on a specially-designed boat for people with disability and mobility issues