From the air, in the dark 5:00 morning, Dublin is nothing more than a sheet of lights floating on water, glowing like a Christmas tree. I press my face to the glass, feeling the cold seep onto my forehead. The first time I saw Dublin, the sun was rising over the Irish Sea. The water was glossy and sugary pink, a confection for…

On the morning of the 19^th, George Plunkett, the ranking officer that night, visiting from GHQ, no doubt aware of the withdrawal from Durrow and other engagements due to want of ammunition, recommended a return to the ambush site to secure supplies possibly left from the night…

Above, this map shows the spread of the 'Black Death.'

A silent, unseen killer, born on the arid plains of Central Asia, attached itself to the rampaging Mongol armies, and traveled with them purposefully, along the Silk Road, arriving in the Crimea in 1343. The killer then boarded the myriad of…

Steamed Cranberry Pudding

Serves 8–10

You can start making your fig and fruit-laden Christmas pudding now, but for…

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…

LUAIN-- On Nov. 16, 1814, Michael Kelly Lawler, general in the Union army during the American Civil War, was born in County Kildare, Ireland. Lawler…

If you're looking for great Irish books, CDs or movies, please have a look in The Wild Geese Marketplace Bookstore -- there are all kinds of great Irish books on History, Genealogy, Travel and Military History. If you are looking for Irish films and documentaries or great Irish music, there is…

Renowned Irish carver and gilder Patrick Coffey is holding an exhibition of his works, "1916 and Irish Tribal Art," at the Consulate of Ireland in New York City, Monday November 9 to Friday November 13, from 10 AM to 2 PM. To make arrangements for a viewing, please call (718) 651-7336. A reception for the artist will be held…

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…

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…

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…

DOMHNAIGH -- On November 8, 1987, in one of the most widely condemned actions of the "Troubles," an IRA…

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…

Edward Joseph Flanagan was born in 1886 in Leabeg, County Roscommon, to John and Honoria Flanagan, both fluent Irish speakers. He was the eighth child in a family of eleven children.

Pictured, above, a scene from the "Boys Town" movie with Spencer Tracy as Father Edward Joseph…

This is the prologue to the following posts about my trip to Ireland to present my musical "The Last Torch" at the Celtic Fringe Festival, Sligo. I have been writing them backwards as things are best understood this way. It means the reader can read…

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…

Oh dear, it’s been such a long time since I wrote anything for The Wild Geese … I didn’t realise how long until I re-entered the site. Why? I moved house (or 'flitted' as we call it in Northern Ireland). I moved to a house that looked great on viewing but proved otherwise when we got in. With all the furniture removed and no one there, the extent of what needed to be done swiftly became all too clear.…

I'm new here as of today! I tried uploading a profile picture to no avail. It turns out that Windows 10 was my problem and after switching to Chrome, there was no problem.

I thought this might be helpful to some.

We are always looking for a fight.

When the Irish county councils introduced the concept of the wheelie bin we opposed them tooth and nail.

How would people manage them?  Weren’t we grand with the regular bins? Why did we need to change? How would people living in flats (apartments) manage? What about…

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…