I took a language course then and learnt a lot of Gaeilge. There were classes with eight levels available from beginners, to intermediate to fluent. There was 35 hours of contach (Teaching) available. Continue reading
Filed under Education …
Kitty Parker: Transnational-Composer and Concert Pianist and her Irish Rebel Ancestry
Here is a brief snapshot of Kitty Parker’s rebel ancestry: Michael Dwyer’s sister Sarah married Hugh Vesty Byrne, Dwyer’s Lieutenant. They had fourteen children. In 1825 a daughter Catherine Byrne married John Keirghan also a currency lad, or child of the convict Patrick Keirghan transported on Marquis Cornwallis, 1796, who married convict Catherine Kitts in Sydney. John Leary, convict on transport Prince Regent 1824, married convict Catherine Jones in Sydney 1825 Continue reading
Bishopites versus Therryites: an unholy 14-year war in Tasmania
This was the start of a 14 year war, which divided the Irish community. Enormous efforts to resolve the matter by many parties occurred at a high legal cost. Continue reading
‘Hear the echo from the barn barrel’: learning Irish in Newfoundland
Class took place on Monday night around the kitchen table, and it was always a relaxing cultural evening. Afterwards the chat continued often to near midnight. Indeed, there were times I felt transported to a farm house in the Donegal Gaeltacht of the 1960s and that I was not in Canada at all. Continue reading
Exploring ‘Neurodiversity’ in ‘How to Build a Boat’
Jamie’s intimate inner thoughts are pell-mell, associative, obsession-driven, literal, and culturally well-stocked. Continue reading
What we are reading, hearing, attending, watching
Her final words are to the homeless and to those who become so because home is not safe: ‘To anyone trapped in a place that does not feel like home, and anyone who has ever been asked the question ‘why don’t you just leave?’ This book is for you. Continue reading
I Leave My Schooling Behind: a memoir
I had longed with all of my heart to be one of the girls taking the Leaving Certificate, exchanging ideas with the nuns, listening, considering, and being part of Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained. But that was not to be. Continue reading
The Brothers O’Shea: becoming stardust
We are struck by the extent of the brothers’ influence on both their adopted countries. They made a difference. They added to the community and to the culture. Continue reading
Creative Writing: poetry
Another drink, said the Pooka, with the bark of a foreign tree entangled in his horns, an exile in the southern region of the mind, burnt by a strange sun, leaping between skyscrapers, dancing in a pub, drinking bitterness. Continue reading
Food and Drink Invented by the Irish
There is controversy about who invented the spirit drink called whiskey, uisce beatha in Irish, but we do know that the world’s oldest licensed whiskey distillery is Bushmills. Continue reading
Tinteán 