I would have known I am Irish had I been adopted at birth by a family with a different nationality. Sooner or later, I would have woken up to the fact by simply paying attention to the way I am wired. It’s the little things within us that tell us who we are, the things that we are born with, that…

(Jack Kruschen, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara & Chill Wills in McLintock! - 1963)

There are magic moments in life that give you a sense…

Once upon a time, I spent a year living on the western coast of Ireland. From my American frame of reference, it took a bit of adjustment to become accustom to the Gaeltacht of Connemara’s shores. My acclimation to the culture came in curious increments comprised of chance encounters in unexpected places, but they gave me…

The distance between Inverin and Clifden is approximately sixty kilometers. It’s a visually inspiring hour-long ride through undulating midlands with grass as soft as velvet, gray stone walls that split the landscape, and bubbling intermittent streams as you glide along a two-lane road that cuts through a…

There’s a case to be argued for genetic memory, the Jungian theory, that certain memories and proclivities are bequeathed to us at birth from our forbearers. As a Scots-Irish descendant on every branch of my family tree, it…

Claire Fullerton: Language flavors everything in writing, just as it does in life.

If one is travelling through Connemara, one of the more compelling tourist destinations is Kylemore Abbey, a Benedictine monastery since 1920, which sits majestically surrounded by wooded acres behind a tranquil lake. The…

Once upon a time, I spent a year living on the western coast of Ireland, in an area of Connemara called Inverin, which is thirteen miles up the coast road from Galway City. Last October, I had good cause to return for nine days, and had invited a childhood friend to accompany me sans…

I’ve had many people ask about the picture on my author page where I’m standing against a gray stone wall on a windswept day in the middle of an Irish field with what are obviously the ruins of a monastery behind me. Observant people have said to themselves, “Wait, there’s a ruined…

I spent ten blissful days on the western coast of Ireland last October, and I’ll tell you why I returned to the misty, velvet shores of the area where I once spent a year: my second novel is set in the area and I felt it was important to reinvigorate my standing amongst the land and its people before I embarked upon the book’s promotion. In order to do…