When news broke in January that conjoined twins had been born to a couple in Cork, there was widespread excitement, not just in Cork but throughout the country. When pictures of Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf first arrived on newsdesks, they were gazed at (in this office at least) and oohed and aahed at, because they are not just conjoined, but two of the sweetest looking kids I've ever seen.

I'm not normally the type to randomly break into song, but I've been watching a lot of the new American show Glee recently. In that spirit: "We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig in our mine the whole day through, To dig dig dig dig dig dig dig is what we really like to do, It ain't no trick to get rich quick, If you dig dig dig with a shovel or a pick, In a mine! In a mine! In a mine! In a mine!

On my way to work yesterday I was listening to Morning Ireland on RTE Radio One; there are so many things happening in the world of politics these days that there's a genuine danger of blinking and missing another resignation. The recent wave of resignations in Irish politics has been shocking, and very exciting for those of us who see politics as the next best thing to Eastenders. But I'm not so sure about everyone else.

We've a funny attitude to the law in this country. Sure, we'll chance it. Last week I wrote about the cavalier attitude of members of the public towards Real IRA threats to murder drug dealers in Cork. Comments on our website indicate that most people still believe they are right to do so.

The activities of so-called Republicans in Cork over the last couple of weeks belittle everything that has been done to prevent this country from sliding into civil war and bitterness in the past 50 years. They pour scorn on the efforts of peacemakers, both in Northern Ireland and here in the Republic, and on the grief of the bereaved.

The generosity of Irish people is legendary, but I have often wondered just how much of is real and how much is PR. This week I came across a number of things that convinced me that behind all the bluster, Ireland is a true society; compare it with other places and suddenly a lot of what we take for granted is unique. While Government spending has been seriously curtailed e, with many services suffering cutbacks, we are still pretty well off in the scheme of things. And I'm not talking about developing countries.

Two disturbing incidents of violent crime in Cork in the past week have reminded many of us city dwellers that we may not be as safe as we feel. While Cork City and County are generally very safe places to live and work, incidents like last week's shooting in Wilton and stabbing on Pope's Quay show that violent crime is not confined to 'gangland'.

With all the problems facing Irish people these days, it was heartening to see the turnout at the Haven Volunteer evening held in Jury's on Tuesday night. Haven had hoped for about 50 volunteers from Cork, and approximately 200 people showed up in the hope that they could do something to help the devastated island nation.

The Cork Independent has recently become a convert to Twitter. The 'micro-blogging' site, on which users post 140-character updates called 'tweets', is being lauded by many as revolutionising the way we use the internet. At the moment, Twitter use in Ireland is not as widespread as other places, and it's largely used by the media and by business. But it looks like that's changing.

While 2010 is being welcomed with open arms by most of us as an escape from the unrelenting gloom of 2009, it's worth bearing in mind that we have certainly not had it worst over the past year or so. We don't need to look too far from our own shores to see how bad it could have been for this country. Only ECB membership saved us from the fate of Iceland, which has been thrown into complete turmoil by the failure of its banking system.