HAPPY Christmas to you and your loved ones, from all of us at The Southern Star.

2023 has been another incredibly busy year in West Cork, with plenty of highs and lows experienced across the community and all of it reported on in the pages of this newspaper.

We are still living in challenging times with the ongoing war in Ukraine, Israel’s consistent bombing of civilians in Palestine and the continuing sinister rise of far-right thinking all making the headlines this year.

Closer to home the climate crisis continues to develop at an alarming rate, as seen in our exclusive on the decline of life in Lough Hyne.

But, despite the difficult days, it’s also worth noting there are myriad things to appreciate.

Here in West Cork, we are incredibly lucky to live in one of the most stunning corners of Ireland and we'll never tire of being surrounded by some of the country's kindest and wittiest people.

It has been a very tough few years for businesses throughout the region, but the power and positivity of the local people has pulled us all through.

Here, at The Southern Star, we've worked hard to deliver unrivalled breaking news, video features, podcasts, social media coverage and brilliant-in-depth reporting to the people of West Cork – which is no more than you deserve.

We were delighted to be shortlisted for five awards at the 2023 Local Ireland Media Awards, and honoured to bring home the top prize for ‘Best Innovation’ for our work on the West Cork Farming Awards.

We started the year with a podcast looking at how some beliefs associated with far-right thinking may be closer to home in West Cork than you would imagine, and have been for some time now…which made for interesting listening especially following the worrying riots in Dublin in November. You can listen back to it here.

My From A to Sea blog evolved into a podcast of its own this year, and even went international with a recent episode focused on the swimming women of Iceland – while we also released a series of West Cork is the Business podcasts featuring interviews with some of West Cork’s premier businesspeople.

It was one of the best years in recent memory for sport in West Cork, with Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy continuing their dominance with gold at the World Rowing Championships, O’Donovan Rossa ladies becoming All-Ireland champions, Castlehaven into an All-Ireland semi-final following county and Munster titles, Jack Crowley strutting his stuff at a World Cup, and so much more!

Our popular Star Sport Podcast reached episode number 258 this week, and was a finalist in the ‘Best Use of Digital’ category at this year’s Local Ireland Media Awards.

Check out some of our other video and podcast highlights from the year at the end of this email.

We will endeavour to bring more high quality productions to our readers and viewers in 2024.

2023 was also the year we made some big developments for our digital subscribers.

In June, we introduced a paywall on southernstar.ie, adding premium articles to our subscription package, while just this month we released a new update to our iOS and Android app which brings new features and benefits for subscribers going into 2024.

If you haven’t already, find out more about how you can benefit from taking out a Southern Star ePaper subscription here. We appreciate the support!

And, as we look forward to another busy year, we are curious to look back at the most popular stories, as ranked by our online readers, for 2023.

Most read stories of 2023

1. Farmer to dispose of all stock on 'one of worst farms' inspectors had visited

2. Fair City actress puts down roots in Union Hall

3. Riptide warning for swimmers as four are rescued

As we say goodbye to 2023 and look forward to another year, let us all take this opportunity to look out for each other once more, and remember that while kindness has no cost, it is an invaluable gift.

Thank you, to all our readers, subscribers, viewers and advertisers, for your continued support.

And don't forget, The Southern Star is in shops as normal on Thursday, December 28th – featuring our News and Sport reviews of another year in West Cork.

Best wishes,
Siobhán Cronin, Editor