The heritage council defines traditional buildings as those constructed before World War II. There are estimated to be 270,000 traditional buildings in Ireland that were built prior to 1945. A traditional building doesn’t necessarily indicate that the property is of particular architectural or historical merit (i.e a listed or protected […]
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Have you ever eaten shark? Perhaps you have, unwittingly, if you’ve tried rock salmon or huss, because they are names given by fishmongers and chippies to various species of small sharks; few people in these islands would eat them otherwise. In many parts of the world, however, shark meat is […]
This month West Cork Branch committee members Fiona O’Neill and Damaris Lysaght share their ‘best bird experiences’. Fiona’s best experience in Ireland was In the winter of 2017/18. “During the autumn of 2017, small groups of Starlings began to meet up over farmland near Timoleague, before roosting for the night […]
In the second part of his article on the efficiency of design, Ruairi Kay focuses in on the gold standard for low energy building, Passivhaus. Passivhaus, or Passive House in English is a standard for low energy building that originated in Germany but is now recognised worldwide. The standard rewards […]
The strong easterly winds of the past few weeks have brought in all sorts of things to the cove at the end of our lane. There was a fleet of By-the-wind-sailors (Velella velella), those strange hydrozoans that look like little blue boats with transparent sails. Some have sails that go […]
This month we are focusing more on new build, looking into the efficiency of house design and how this can influence our energy use. If you are thinking about building a new home from scratch, it’s not just the insulation and heating system specification that will dictate how much energy […]