Like Heaney, I too was catapulted back to the powerful impact of reading Wilde’s De Profundis, also penned in Reading Gaol, on me aged 20. Continue reading
Filed under Irish Culture …
What’s on September/October and beyond
Bacon and Cabbage Night at Comhaltas, Celtic Club events, Irish Movies, Irish Language classes in Brisbane, Bush Dance, Ulysses class and more…. 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
What we are reading, hearing, attending, watching…
Go see the movie for the breathtaking landscape and the solid acting of Gabriel Byrne and the young stars Anne Skelly, Fionn O’Shea, and Ferdia Walshe Peelo, Continue reading
Samhain Stories in Flickers of Memory
Swinging on the front gate with my brother for mother to arrive home with the fruit we only saw once a year: coconuts and pomegranates. My brothers attacking the coconuts with a hammer and chisel. Me, the youngest, given the first taste of the milky juice. Continue reading
What’s on August/September and beyond
Bacon and Cabbage Night at Comhaltas, Celtic Club events, Irish Movies, Irish Language classes in Brisbane, Bush Dance, Ulysses class and more…. Continue reading
An expensive ground-breaking book on post-1945 Irish Migration to Australia
In reviewing this important book about Irish who have migrated to Australia since 1945, I have two messages. Firstly, Patricia O’Connor and Fidelma McCorry have broken new ground with a solid and stimulating book. Continue reading
The Shanahans and the Kearns: Tipperary to Australia Part 1
No, it was not the gold discovery that brought me out. In Corrigeen, Barony of Kilmarney, where I lived, seventeen houses were burnt in one day by way of eviction. I at once made up my mind to be under Parker, our landlord, no longer, and I came out here. Continue reading
MONTO: a search for the definite article
The wicked history of ‘Monto’ spreads itself accommodatingly from the 1860s up to the 1950s. ‘Monto’ was, at one time, so it is claimed, to be the largest redlight district in Europe. It is estimated that there were at times up to 1,600 prostitutes working there. Continue reading
The Miracle of Old’s Cool
Good stories can be hard to find these days, so it is good to hear that Irishman Fergal Butler’s lost, found, and restored boat Old’s Cool is set to be relaunched. Continue reading
Tinteán 