It would be nice to say that it is usually employed as a term of affection and perhaps it is; but even then, there is an undertone of disparagement, a hidden adjective with its own sting. Continue reading
Filed under emigration …
Seasonal Poems
Vermeer would have made much of it Continue reading
Playing with Pennies
History tells us that when the stakes were substantial, Pitch and Toss games could become extremely serious. In Dundalk in 1914 a man died following an altercation during a game of Pitch and Toss when an argument arose as to who was entitled to the winnings. Continue reading
His First Rodeo A Chéad Róidió
He turned on his heels and walked out of sight like John Wayne at the end of The Searchers. Continue reading
St Patrick’s Day in South Australia
From the beginning of European settlement, St Patrick’s Day in South Australia has been commemorated annually as a rallying call to express Irish identity in a new land. Continue reading
Irish dust devils
My poem was written in English and in Irish, so I needed to find a suitable Irish term for a Dust Devil. Continue reading
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
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
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
The ‘Contraceptive Train’ and Dr Caroline De Costa
This brave act of defiance, with Caroline as part of the group, paved the way for discussions about access to contraception in the ROI and particularly highlighted the need to start exploratory discussions on the provision of contraception for Irish women living there. Continue reading
Tinteán 