It is easy to forget that the world’s Covid-19 problems have been in place for two years, so our additional wish for a happy New Year is more than formula Continue reading
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Posted in December 2021 …
My first Christmas in Australia
by Eda Payne My first Christmas in Australia was spent in 1959 in Renmark, a South Australian town on the River Murray. We erected a big marquee in the middle of a paddock. The heat was intense, every fly in Australia had settled there and the food was spread out in abundance on the groaning … Continue reading
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‘A very jolly spree’: Irish Contraceptive Laws in the 70s
I have never smuggled anything over borders before or since and I was extremely nervous, but our car was not searched on the way over. The return trip was a different matter. Continue reading
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Ghosts of Irish Australia: Catherine Scullin
Caroline Chisholm had worked hard in Australia for the families of convicts to be reunited. No one knew we had been rejected from the list of travellers. Continue reading
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Declan O’Rourke, singer, songwriter, and now novelist
by Gill Kenny The critically acclaimed Irish singer/songwriter Declan O’Rourke is well-loved for his deep and meaningful lyrics – especially those contained in his album Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine which was released in late 2017. In 2018, one of its songs, ‘The Great Saint Lawrence River’, was nominated in the Best Original Song … Continue reading
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Snow in Alberta, Canada
The sun slips behind the black silhouettes of the Rockies.
Fingers and ears chill with disturbing speed.
Faster than in an Irish winter dusk. Continue reading
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Recognition for Irish Australian poets on Imram
We send ‘comhghairdeas’ to both for this important recognition of their work. Continue reading
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From the Papers and What’s On
Royal Dublin golf club…
Celebrate a Centenary of Ulysses with Love’s Bitter Mystery at Villa Alba Continue reading
Completely Different
New Books reviewed by Frank O’Shea. Continue reading
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New non-fiction
Book Reviews by Frank O’Shea UNSETTLED. By Rosaleen McDonagh. Skein Press 2021. 111 pp. $30 The farmstead of the grabber is hungry as a stone,But the little homes of Kerry will give us half their own.(The Ballad of the Tinker’s Wife. Sigerson Clifford) We knew them as ‘the tinkers’ when I was growing up in … Continue reading
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