However, that story of liberation and democracy continues. Peter at the stockade and Speaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, was not the closing chapter. Continue reading
Filed under memoire …
What we are reading at the moment
Her interior monologues also allow for literary and philosophical references that catch the reader’s heart as the originals do…We learn that Ireland is the result of the collision of two giant rocks (chipped off from ancient continents, Gondwana, Queensland, and Laurentia, Canada) now fused together …This book held a mirror to me with its stark reminder of how lucky I’ve been to have stepped back from the precipice that I’d also found myself standing on. Continue reading
On the Good Ship Ulysses
We parked the car, grabbed our backpacks, and made our way up the passenger stairwell. In my backpack was James Joyce’s Ulysses, bookmarked at the final chapter, ‘Penelope’, which I planned to finish reading whilst on board the Ulysses, travelling to Dublin to visit iconic landmarks mentioned in the book. How meta. Continue reading
We are reading at the moment…
Most of the stories date from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and many deal with miserable school experiences. You won’t be surprised to read of Bob Geldof tormenting the priests at Blackrock College by asking inconvenient religious questions, or Edna O’Brien recounting how she sinned by the hour Continue reading
Vale Edna O’Brien (1930-2024): an Irish country girl
Edna was a fearless teller of truths, a superb writer possessed of the moral courage to confront Irish society with realities long ignored and suppressed. Continue reading
Would You Like to Write for Us?
We have subscribers in 117 countries and on every continent. Our authors have been Irish-born and Irish resident; Irish-born and Australian resident or resident in other countries; Australian-born of Irish descent; or simply interested and involved in the Australian-Irish connection. Continue reading
New activities to see in Dublin: a traveller’s tale
It had been many, many, years since my sister and I had been upstairs on a double decker bus. Just holding on to the two side bars on the steps going up was enough to bring back memories of running up those steps as teenagers and of boys using them to swing down without touching the steps, to the annoyance of the bus conductor. Continue reading
Eamonn Wall: transatlantic poet part two
Much commemorated in literature and music, the 1798 legend lives on in the town because the geography and townscape have changed little. Wall walks the same trails meandering alongside the Slaney. That is his Enniscorthy, a place of enduring pain, and ancient prayer represented here by his poem, ‘Night Heron’ Continue reading
Mary Murphy’s Christmas Pudding
As I was growing up in Edenderry, near Tullamore, in Ireland, my mother always made a Christmas pudding. The smells of the pudding, wrapped in cloth, pervaded the house with the scent of Christmas approaching. Continue reading
Poems of Rembrance by Michael Patrick Moore
Two more poems from Michael Patrick Moore reminding us of friendship and loss and love during this month of remembering Continue reading