I often find myself thinking about my cousin Michael Brennan. He was a firefighter…

This month we remember Irishman Oliver Plunkett, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, who was hung, drawn and quartered, on July 1, 1681 at Tyburn Gallows, London. That barbaric act made him the last Catholic victim martyred as a direct result of the devious ‘Popish Plot’…

Trading Fate

Fourteen-year-old Patricia Walsh, her mother, father, and six siblings, scratched out a living in the stone fields of County Galway, Ireland. Colum Walsh supported the family as a stonemason building estate structures and repairing the fences of an…

This poem was penned after the death of King Charles I, who was beheaded outside Whitehall Palace in London on the afternoon of January 30th, 1649, exactly 368 years ago, today. 

"He nothing common did or…

When I was asked to write a series of poems for an art exhibition in Australia earlier this year, I embarked on a dark voyage of discovery into the lives of Irish immigrant children 150 years ago.

Image: 'Image Above: Falling' by Jane Theau…

On a cold, wet evening in 576 AD, a flotilla of small, wave-tossed, leather-covered boats with tattered cloth sails, came to rest on the rocky shores of Lough Foyle close to the modern-day town of…

I am surely not the first Irish emigrant to have heard these words from their heartbroken mother. Guilt at the impact of my decision to leave Ireland and grief at the loss of my beloved mother are central…

Tullaun Castle now has one room up and running: airbnb link read more on it's preservation journey from the below article in 2013.…

In the last week of July 431 A.D., Patricius left his residence at Ard Mhacha and traveled with his retinue south toward the kingdom of Midhe. He had been summoned, by royal decree, to a meeting with the reigning monarch, king Laoghaire Mac…

I’ve spent a lot of time this past year talking about guilt, about exile and return, and about mammies, and about the guilt mammies can instil in their offspring when said offspring return from self-imposed exile, which was usually to escape said mammy’s…

“Could I have come to Ireland without thought of God, merely in my own interest? Who was it made me come? For here I am a prisoner of the Spirit so that I may not see any of my family. Can it be out of the kindness of my heart that I carry out such a…

Druid Lochra’s prophecy: 

"A tailcenn (baldhead) will come over the raging sea, with his perforated garments, his crook-headed staff, with his table (altar) at the east end of his house, and all the people will…

In 431 A.D. and three days after the festival of Lughnasagh, a lone figure stood, head bowed in contemplation, next to one of five carefully positioned chairs, in the Great Assembly Hall at Tara in the province of Royal Midhe. Four of the chairs, laid out…

'You look like the wreck of the Hesperus' was a much-used phrase in our house in Loughrea, 20 miles from the sea at Galway Bay. Boys, well you know boys, they never comb their hair, never wash their hands, wear the same clothes forever. . . . You know the…

Most people today will tell you, if you ask, that there are four provinces in Ireland, namely, Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught. What many people are not aware of is the fact that in the distant past, there were actually five…

The following story tells of a seminal event that took place in Ireland during the latter half of the first century A.D., and which set in motion a chain of events that would influence and forever change the political and economic landscapes of Ireland,…

Dear John, 

You were a rebel from the beginning and could not have been any other way. You got your survival instincts from your grandparents, who were from County Down, Ireland.

After you were born, during…

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Donkey Look 26cm x 28cm…

The Irish Christmas Wreath

Have an Irish Christmas Dinner…