With Dr Catherine Keena, Teagasc Countryside Management Specialist
Look out for woodrushes. These are grass-like plants with simple flowers. The leaves are like blades of grass with soft white hairs and clumps arranged like a bouquet. The scientific name for woodrush is Luzula and there are a number of species, which grow in different habitats including woodland, heaths and grassland.
Field woodrush flower early from March and are known as Good Friday grass. They are a positive grassland indicator when scoring fields for ACRES. Others species are heath woodrush, great woodrush and hairy woodrush, which flower a little later - all part of our native Irish biodiversity.
Protect your money from scams: Scams are more common than you might think with the latest figures from the BPFI indicating that victims were conned out of €8.6m euro during the first half of 2023.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common scams effecting people of all ages.
1. Money mules are people recruited by criminals to help in transferring stolen money from bank accounts. They target people through tactics such as fake job adverts, with no experience required bar a bank account.
2. Ticket scams have become increasingly popular as fraudsters try scam you with a fake ticket to a concert, festival or event.
3. Other scams include email fraud, phone fraud, online fraud and many more
You can avoid being scammed by stopping to think before giving any personal information, ensuring the information provided is legitimate and fact checking. If you come across a scam, report it to the gardaí.
For more information, see ccpc.ie
80% - the number of rabbits taken in by the Galway SPCS that were dumped in forests, bogs or in plastic bags.The ongoing cost for two indoor rabbits is around €80 per month.
Dr Conor Hearty points out that addiction to opioids can be very rapid. It can happen after three days and you can have a death from your very first use of an opioid, depending on the dose. That’s how dangerous they can be. Dr Conor Hearty, a consultant in pain medicine and anaesthesiology
In this week’s Meet the Maker, Grace Hanna interviews the owners of the Flowersmith Studio & Micro Flower Farm, the creative passion of Kelly O’ Sullivan and Stephen Daly.
The Spring Lamb Show by Jonathan Roth
Bang, and suddenly they appear
from nowhere
Singles, twins and triplets
The odd quintuplet, on the front
page of the local paper
Whites with black faces,
Blacks with black faces and the odd
brown, back from their holidays.
Green fields last week are green
fields with white black and brown
dots this week.
Connemara’s biggest maternity
unit is a field.
No midwives here
Just a tired shepherd’s eye with his
worn Ram book.
A man with more syringes than
the Castlebar University Hospital
Always on call to assist the odd
lady in distress, usually at 5am!
Jesus’s Easter weekend gifts from
the tomb now out of the womb,
on display and up for play.
After a few days following Mum
around, confidence builds and
the lamb field shows start:
Lots of lepping ballerinas
The puzzled tail chasers
Some confused liúdramán
suckling the wrong ewe
Sibling head butters
Four legs up sleepers
Nibblers abound
All in sight of their watchful
mother lying down in the sun.
The maternity ward’s equivalent
of tea and toast.