Ireland
Journalist, researcher, wanderer, nature lover. Contributor to The Irish Times and others, including BBC, France 24, The Sunday Telegraph, Lonely Planet and India Today. Former Foreign Editor and China Correspondent at RTE, Ireland's public broadcaster.
Interested in climate, energy, wildlife, migration, women's rights, travel. Love butterflies, French, goldfinches, dolphins, islands and trains.
Climate and Energy
For most of her life Dina Leiba got up in the dark, and went to bed in the dark. If she needed to get up to look after a sick child, she reached for a torch - if she had money for batteries.
Bosnian war criminals, green energy in Nicaragua, Inuit identity, Kashmir's Tibetans
The vineyards at Weingut Huster were converted to organic production 25 years ago and produce a fine Riesling. Here on the hills between the Rhine and the Moselle, the sun not only helps the grapes to grow, it powers the winery through dozens of solar panels installed on the roof.
Nature and Wildlife
Most people walking alongside the restored pond on the Castletown estate in Co Kildare would barely notice the tiny purple wildflower beneath their feet, but for butterfly recorder Pat Bell it provides an important clue to what we might see next.
Peig had to face many challenges crossing to and from the Great Blasket, but I'm fairly certain this wasn't one of them. I'm standing on a wall, with my hands gripping the roof of a car. Below is a steep drop to the pier at Dunquin.
Two yellow brimstone butterflies led us down to the shore at the northeast end of Lough Carra in Co Mayo. As if on cue, the sun came out just as we reached the water's edge.
Migration, Health, Women's Rights
2020 IS THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE NURSE AND MIDWIFE, AND THE PRESSURES ON THE PROFESSION HAVE NEVER BEEN GREATER When the World Health Organisation designated 2020 as the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, they could hardly have imagined that nurses would face the most challenging pandemic of their lives, with many dying around the world.
"Watch out! That wire is live." We duck under a tangle of electric wires hanging over the door, and enter a tiny concrete room in the Manila slum of Marabon. Nineteen-year-old Zia is sitting cross legged on a bare board that serves as a bed, a pink towel around her neck.
Malasiqui, north of Manila, October 2018 Jollibee is a red and yellow fast food joint with a branch in every town. Everyone around me is eating fried chicken, though it's only 10am. I'm waiting for a small boy who hasn't seen his mother since he was two years old.
Shakila Zareen's fingernails are painted in alternate colours of rose pink and glittery blue. She's wearing a vividly embroidered red dress and gold pumps, pink lipstick and bronze eyeshadow. She's 24, and sitting on a sofa overlooking the Vancouver waterfront she flashes a beautiful but lopsided smile.