A Cork native has set up a smokers' rights group, with the aim of improving facilities for smokers in public places. The group, Forest Eireann, is a branch of the British Forest group and has already received over 1,150 online responses. According to the group, one of its aims is to debunk some of the myths about smoking, especially so-called ‘passive smoking.'

The amount of people in the HSE South area seeking State help for back to school costs has soared this year. There has been an increase of 4,850 in the number of those applying for the Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance, compared to 2009.

Over two hundred volunteers were on hand at St Finbarr's Cemetery in Glasheen last Saturday to help with the upkeep of the graveyard, which has fallen into disrepair. Some of the renovation work involved cutting grass on individual plots that had not been cut for months because of cutbacks and the recruitment embargo at Cork City council.

Seventy heads are wanted this month as part of a fundraising drive for Cystic Fibrosis as the Cork branch will attempt to break the world record for the most heads shaved in one hour of next month. Shave-4-Life will take place at Evergreen Bar in Turners Cross on Friday 22 October, but will launch at the venue on Monday 27 September.

Cork City will play host to the first Diversity Day on Saturday 28 August at Bishop Lucey Park to celebrate the new communities in Cork. The Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Michael O'Connell, will preside over the event, which will feature dancing from the Cork African Women’s Group and African drumming from the Cois Tine Drumming Circle.

Last Sunday visitors flocked in their thousands to the stunning surroundings of St Mary's College Gardens in Youghal for the 4th Annual Youghal Medieval Festival. Events were planned to coincide with The Irish Walled Towns Network celebrations of National Heritage Week.

An historical exhibition of photos, which will track the restoration of the promenade cast iron railings in Cobh throughout the century will take place on Sunday 29 August as part of National Heritage Week. The event is being run by Cobh's Tidy Towns group to celebrate the London-manufactured railings, which were installed at Columbine Quay over a century ago to help create the recreational area.

"I looked pathetic," says Alan Healy, one of the participants of an upcoming charity fashion show, who says pictures of himself from his brother's wedding in January brought his weight problem home to him. Weighing 20 stone then, it was March before he decided to get some professional help. "You try all the diets, you try what people say, you play a bit of football and think you can do it yourself.

The Beamish Cork Folk Festival has come up trumps again this year with the announcement that Shane McGowan and Sharon Shannon will headline this year's gigs. Organisers of the festival pride themselves on packing in some of the most exciting folk sounds of the summer and this year is no different with the announcement Irish icon Shane MacGowan and accordion queen Sharon Shannon are joining the lineup.

The Cork-based Mad Pride Ireland movement is to receive international celebrity support this month as Stephen Fry has agreed to highlight it through his social networking page. The writer and television personality has taken Mad Pride Ireland as one of the charities and causes that he will feature on his Twitter on Monday 30 August.