What followed next was a scene that has occurred numerous times when Irish rebels were faced with the question of what to do with an informer. Irish history and literature are replete with references to this scourge of failed rebellions. Liam O' Flaherty's character Gypo Nolan betrayed his former…

Language is a window into the soul.

This saying helps to explain why I have (unsuccessfully) tried to learn Irish Gaelic -- to better understand the Irish people. In one lesson early on, it was explained that Irish has no system to show possession. In other words, Irish has no words for "my" as in "my book," or "his" as…

DOMHNAIGH -- On November 29, 1895, Denny Lane (right), author and poet, and member of the revolutionary Young Ireland party, died in Cork. Lane was born in Riverstown, near Glanmire in County Cork, in 1818. Denny attended Trinity College, Dublin. While a student there, he met fellow student Thomas Davis, a…

Bulmer Hobson did not enjoy iconic status in the Irish history books, nor did he enjoy any real recognition in the Free State Government -- he has in fact, quite literally been confined to the margins of Irish history. Yet on all aspects of early 20th century Ireland, Hobson's name can be found in all the footnotes. He…

Where dear Sandusky’s waters glide

From storied falls, through meadows wide,

By verdant hills on either side

To seek Lake Eiries’s famous tide:

On proud Fort Stephenson

 --- From the poem “Fort Stephenson,”

by Captain Andrew…

SERVES 8

This pudding is reminiscent of an Irish “brack,” where the fruit is first soaked in either tea or whiskey. On a recent winter visit to Dublin, I discovered this version studded with rum-soaked raisins, sultanas, and holiday fruits like dried cranberries and chopped apricots. Instead of traditional white bread, it’s made with brioche. For an extra boozy…

The Last Torch is set in 16th century Ireland, where survivors of a shipwreck from the…

Dean Mulroy is the kind of guy who needs room to roam and access to the stars, which is why he lived way back in the bog behind the house I rented in Inverin. Only a certain kind of guy would want to live as he did. At the time, he was unimpressed with technological conveniences, including a telephone, and the first…

In Irish mythology, a "thin place" was a divider between the physical, tangible world and the "otherworld" of dreams, the afterlife, and other unseen but very real dimensions hiding behind the veil of reality. Thin places could be actual places or they could be seasons of change. The night of Samhain (sow-in), the Celtic…

Ireland’s Great Hunger Museum at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut, has just published four new folios of research into the period of The Irish Famine under the collective title Famine Folios.

These compelling essays take a fresh and…

Conveying Your Brand’s Irish Story ... 'Wherever Green Is Worn'

Every brand has a story, and Irish brands have a particularly compelling story for our tens of…

Wheels hit runway, and the Airbus lands on Irish soil, once again.The familiarity of the place is all around me. I make sure to go around the roundabouts on the left side and continue southeast towards Wexford and the artistic event that recently took place in that ancient city. The Wexford Festival is an annual event where opera singers and others get together in formal settings and fringe events to bring visual and musical…

So many of the stories which come to us out of Ireland are, quite simply, sad. From James Joyce's "The Dead" to Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes," we read of people who are, if not figuratively, then literally, impoverished. It is a lovely…

Picture courtesy of Guinness Archives: Left to right, back row J. Brigden, S. Geoghegan, F.West, J.Parr, L.Witz, P. Fleisher, G.H.Sayer, Swanson, G.S. Green.

Doctor Arthur Price, Archbishop of…

They say the best business is grown in a recession -- where labour, rents and expectations are cheap, but equally venture capital, support and credit is short. To straddle that gap comes the new sidepreneur -- someone who has…

Holy wells can be found all over Ireland -- and evoked in our minds, as well. As children, we would pick the daisies and buttercups, and place them by a well. Or, if we happened to be playing in someone’s garden, we would dig a well, and pour water into it, placing the daisy and buttercups by the stones we would place…

It was Monday morning and I was having trouble packing. I woke with a brass band in my head, as Jim says.  After sitting in the shower for a while, I took a panadol, drank some water and went back to sleep. I woke an hour later and slowly started to get ready to go.

It was very, very difficult. I called mum, I felt…

On March 21 1879, 143 years ago, the worlds first working guided missile was successfully tested in Hobsons bay, Melbourne, Australia by Irish inventor Louis Brennan from Co. Mayo, Ireland.…

Having taken John Murphy into custody, the Black and Tans headed back to Dungarvan, via Cloncoskoran, with a Ford motorcar preceding the tender transporting the soldiers and the prisoner.

Read Part 2, The…