Everywhere Delia Murphy went she collected – from the servants at home, from the travellers in the lane, from fishermen, from the blacksmith. Continue reading
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Irish-speakers at Trafalgar
The battle of Trafalgar in 1805, in which Nelson defeated a combined French and Spanish fleet, was considered an astonishin Continue reading
The Poet and the Piper
I was expressing an interest in uilleann pipes and complained that the pipes are not well known and appreciated in Australia. They certainly are much admired in this house now. Continue reading
Sounds Irish: One Hundred Years of Around the Boree Log
Around the Boree Log is more than a source of nostalgia for parlour poetry. It is also a source that provides an insight into the language of Irish Australia in the early twentieth century. Continue reading
Women and the Irish Revolution
If ever there was a case of a favourite chapter in this book, I would choose chapter 2, Lucy McDiarmid’s ‘Comradeship’ on the imprisonment in Holloway prison of Kathleen Clarke and her two ‘tall’ comrades, Constance Markievicz and Maud Gonne, who at times tended to dispute ‘as to which of them had the highest social status’. Continue reading
Brigid: from Goddess to Saint to Poet
The poem begins with a recognition of the unbroken chain (slabhra) from the celtic Brigid to the abbess who built her own convent in Kildare, to a modern day Brigid taking care of her family, and through to the writer, the poet. Continue reading
Musical Musings by David Harris and Dymphna Lonergan
Recently he investigated a kind of mondegreen, but of a more sophisticated nature. Here are David’s musings on the macaronic song ‘Siúil a rúin’ and the ongoing puzzle of one of the line endings: Continue reading
From Rural Irish to the Queen’s English
During a discussion of the letter Q, Tocsvig said that the word quaff possibly originated in the Irish language Continue reading
Poems from Terry McDonagh
Three Mayo poems from Terry McDonagh’s forthcoming collection, Two Notes for Home: Along The Wild Atlantic Way It’s raining in Killala today.Not a day for whimperingor whinging – only a shower.Doors are still not numbered,two women share an umbrellabut there’s sunlight enough tobacklight a cat in a cosy corner. My name is non-headline.I’m a nosy … Continue reading
Fethard-born Adam Loftus Lynn, Ballarat’s first practising solicitor
An Irish lawyer practises from a tent on the gold-fields in Ballarat. Continue reading
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