Editor's Picks

There are over 400 men's sheds across the country. Here's what a random five we picked have been getting up to recently. It is truly fascinating and what a range of activities. One of the groups here is a men's and women's shed. There is bound to be one near you!

For four years now, children with additional needs have been given the opportunity to try boxing, through a programme known as the High Five Boxing Academy. It has been driven by Dubliner Paddy Dingle, who has coached Irish international teams and been involved with the sweet science since he was a boy of 12.

In existence for 35 years, Travellers’ Voice magazine looks to shine a light on issues sometimes ignored within the community, while it also acts as what editor Michael Power calls an “empowerment tool” showing Travellers who have succeeded. Travellers’ Voice - now a 48-page glossy magazine - started off in 1991 and its aim then was to connect Traveller training centres.

Based on a survey of 86 people serving as paid workers and/or as volunteers in Irish civil society, we found strong agreement among respondents on 7 out of 8 questions. Only one question received a mixed response. It concerned "leadership by the Community & Voluntary Sector in Ireland in response to the genocide in Gaza" with responses as follows: 11.2% felt it was "very good", 31.3% thought it was "about right" and 57.5% felt it has been "less than adequate".

Did you know that Changing Ireland is available in 310 public libraries - and university libraries for the record - across the country?

Today’s Ireland is wrestling with an unexpected scarcity: a scarcity of belonging. As digital life expands, the infrastructures that once offered connection - shared spaces, local rituals, everyday community interactions - have thinned out. We see the consequences everywhere, including rising levels of loneliness and anxiety experienced by young people, reflected in recent Eurobarometer research.

With a decade of broadcast experience, volunteers with Scariff Bay Community Radio were on tenderhooks in recent months, pending the outcome of their application for a full licence to allow the station to dramatically increase its level of broadcasting. Now approved, it brings to 22 the number of community radio stations in the State with a full-time licence.

Singer and activist Gemma Dunleavy is a proud daughter of Dublin’s north inner city — Sheriff Street — and Is someone whose work has become synonymous with community pride, social justice, and cultural resistance. Gemma says, “Community to me means soil — the soil my roots are planted in.” For Gemma, community isn’t just a place — it’s an identity, a lifeline, and a legacy built by generations of women who “kept the place warm with their hands” when support from outside never came.