He first met her by chance as she was emerging from a taxi, ‘…a vision in black velvet and volumised hair’, recognising O’Hagan as ‘that Scottish boy’ and his response in kind, ‘And you’re that country girl.’ Continue reading
Tagged with Irish culture …
What’s on April/May and beyond
Irish in Australia: Irish-themed Movies, Tours, and Festivals Continue reading
Filíocht dátheangach/Bilingual poetry: Colin Ryan, Julie Breathnach-Banwait, Dymphna Lonergan, David Harris.
She brought ashore a language / and a pocketful of scraps: / a seagull nested in her mind / and she found shelter in a doorless house / that would let her neither in nor out / though she escaped in a dream / and saw before her a tribe / who reminded her of the dead Continue reading
Believing in the Extraordinary
Much of Irish novel writing has descended into Celtic Noir in rejection of Irish romanticism. ‘Boy from the Sea’ sifts through it all. Continue reading
Gaelscoil Mhelbourne: interview with Lonán Fiach Ó Lorgnáin
Cumann Gaeilge na hAstráile has done incredible work over several decades in providing Irish language education to predominantly adult students and we would love to build on this through offering it through to school-aged students. Continue reading
What we are reading, attending at the moment
Melbourne Hosts successful two-day symposium on Irish Language. Next is a review of Australian novelist and diarist Helen Garner’s How to End a Story, much appreciated by those of us who are Garner fans. ‘Priests in the Family’ provides Enright’s intriguing family connection to James Joyce, followed by an ‘Introduction to Ulysses’ where she talks about her personal experience of starting to read that famous book at the age of fourteen, ‘mainlining language, getting high on words’ Continue reading
Australian bilingual poetry/prose poetry Filíocht/Prósfhilíocht ón Astráil:
Colin Ryan, Julie Breathnach-Banwait, Dymphna Lonergan Daonna Le Colin Ryan Táim beagnach daonna, a deir sí, pé rud is daonnacht ann. Deireadh na daoine féin nárbh fhéidir a rá cad is daonnacht ann: anam (b‘fhéidir), tuiscint, filíocht. Níl ionamsa (a deir sí) ach guth. Í ag taisteal i long réaltach, long neimhe, long lonrach, lán … Continue reading
‘Killarney/Ní Neart go cur le Chéile,’ May 2025
Literary tourism in Kerry and Cork. Continue reading
Meeting of the Waters: Echuca and beyond
Catherine is a direct descendant of Arthur Guinness who started the stout, (she and Wayne got special treatment at the brewery), and a grand-daughter of Harry Guinness who was a leader alongside Roger Casement and Edmund Morel in opposing Belgian slavery in the Congo. (In 2017 Catherine wrote a stunning book, Rubber Justice, about him.) Continue reading
Filíocht/Poetry: David M Reid, Rose Malone, Réaltán Ní Leannáin, Colin Ryan, Hugh Curran
Winter is coming by David M Reid Acrylics on canvas A Homeless Ghost by David M Reid 28 October 2025 In ’68 I left my troubled Belfast homeland.Friends, with only a hint of friendly malice,slyly suggested,‘You’re not emigrating.You’re deserting.’ In that divided city,one must pick a side.But I feltneither Irish nor British,neither Protestant … Continue reading
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