Team portrait

The importance of diversity in teams is often highlighted. There are lots of benefits but one of the big ones for media is that with diversity comes multiple perspectives and challenges our biases. Also when teams have members that come from different backgrounds, cultures, and experiences, they are more likely to solve problems and be innovative.

One of the best ways that Irish Country Living has of bringing diversity into our team is through the students and interns that spend a few months with us each year before moving on to the next phase of their careers.

Last week, journalism student Ilka Denker, who joined us from the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG), last September, completed her internship with us and returned home to Namibia. As a leaving gift for her Irish County Living colleagues, she drew caricatures of each of us which show the diversity of our team from her perspective. Then she had them printed onto coasters. Fantastic

Safe travels Ilka

Katherine O'Leary's home management tip

Citric acid is a great cleaning agent. It is found in limes, lemons, grapefruit, oranges and other fruits. It is natural and safe to use in your dishwasher. Sometimes when you open the dishwasher even after it has cleaned the dishes, it can smell of detergent. A scum of fat residue can also build up around the edges of the door. Putting half a lemon or orange that you’ve already used for juice works wonders on keeping the dishwasher sparkling clean and smelling fresh. It also is a mild disinfectant, with the ability to kill germs.

kkoleary@gmail.com

Tweet of the week

Quote of the week

I think there is something to be said for those who lived through that difficult time – to have experienced the austerity (tax rates were as high as 60%), to have endured the ignominy of not being able to get employment, to have seen the battering rain lodge an entire crop of corn in the wet summer of 1986 and repeat the feat in 1987 – and yet came out the other side a lot stronger.

– Cormac Troy's musings

The number

the number of more leisurely walks to strenuous hikes tried, tested and recommended by the Irish Country Living team.

Growing wild

with Dr Catherine Keena, Teagasc countryside management specialist

Look out for primroses on hedgebanks, flowering before being shaded out by taller summer vegetation - its name ‘prima’ implying one of the first flowers. They have five slightly overlapping heart shaped pale yellow petals with deep yellow centres. They provide a valuable source of nectar and pollen. Only long-tongued insects can reach the nectar, including bumblebees, long-tailed flies such as bee-flies and butterflies such as the brimstone. Primroses are the larval food plant of moths such as the silver-ground carpet moth. Their beautiful scent evokes many childhood memories of gathering posies of primroses to bring to school or decorate May altars.