'Miasma' - a play about an ambitious doctor has been performed in the most obscure of places - from a room in Leinster House to a drug rehabilitation centre and various community settings. It attracted science funding to reach a wide audience and has gone down a storm with community groups - and now they can even stage the play themselves if they wish to.

A new guidebook called ‘Doing Community Research’ by Dr. Maura Adshead was published in May and it cuts through jargon to provide straightforward advice...

Mary McKeon, Public Participation Network (PPN) co-ordinator in Co. Leitrim, reminds us of the benefits of joining your local network.

We're one of the few EU countries with a dedicated community-based, anti-poverty and social inclusion programme that is co-funded by the Government and the European Social Fund - the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme (SICAP).

Ireland's presidency of the EU runs from July to December, which means that officials from the 27 EU-member countries will be attending meetings here. So let us remember what we excel at when it comes to social inclusion and supporting communities. Some government programmes in these areas also receive EU support. Take volunteering:

Irish social enterprises can do wonderful things for the country, if only the appropriate supports from the State are allowed to flow. That’s the view of former Fine Gael cabinet minister Richard Bruton, who was named the new chair of Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland (SERI) last year.

Given the title 'The Mammy of Irish boxing' by double Olympic champion Kellie Harrington, Limerick's Anna Moore feels her sport gets a bad press too often. "I get very angry sometimes when you see someone who might have been a boxer for two years, and maybe five or six years later they are found guilty of something and the reports says 'boxer found guilty'. "It wouldn't be said about anyone in rugby or athletics.

Currently, just 12 of Tipperary County Council's 40 councillors are female, reflecting the gender imbalance in political representation around the country. An event held...