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
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
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
Two more poems from Michael Patrick Moore reminding us of friendship and loss and love during this month of remembering Continue reading
What it really meant to be poor and how to survive it. And a book about a priest who fathered a child with nun. Continue reading
My students were full of energy, fun-loving and were certainly not vindictive or in any way mean, but they loved playing pranks… Continue reading
So much has been said, in media all over the world, interviews, music played and replayed, so many tributes. For me? the shattering realization, she’s gone. Continue reading
For the marginal outsider like myself, this book explained the geopolitical realignments that occurred so quickly and unexpectedly in Ireland between 1958 and 2018. Continue reading
The Magdalen Laundries from someone who was in one from the age of 11. Continue reading
Early one morning on my way to Rabaul with my family we did not see even one woman. However, we overtook many men on foot and on bicycles, all moving in the same direction with their bodies naked from the waist up. Each wore a bright red lap-lap or long piece of cloth knotted at the hip to form a skirt. Continue reading
Tinteán 