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Seán Heuston

Seán Heuston

It seems Sean Heuston led a double life, by day a diligent and trusted employee of the GSWR and by night and on weekends spending his time on military training and quasi military marches in the Dublin hills. Continue reading →

Hail Mary, full of Yeats

Hail Mary, full of Yeats

McCready makes much of how Belfast in the 1950s was a cultural desert, and I wondered if, in terms of serious literary theatre, the same could not also be said of many cities in the western world; certainly ’50s Brisbane and Melbourne were not too dissimilar from Belfa Continue reading →

Move over, Flann O’Brien.

Move over, Flann O’Brien.

Here is a book to restore your faith in reading, to make you laugh loudly and often. You will be enthralled by the way words can be used to coax you into a story that is sad and funny and uplifting and engrossing, all at the same time. Continue reading →

The Origins of the Irish

The Origins of the Irish

There’s good reason that most archaeologists wouldn’t touch the subject of Irish origins with a barge pole: the topic involves a very unfashionable cultural historical approach to the archaeological record of a period of Ireland’s existence which is clouded in obscurity and entails a moras of issues that most archaeologists spend a lifetime trying to avoid. Continue reading →