For my latest blog on Irish history check out

http://www.ronangearoid.blogspot.ie/

This time I feature Isolde of Dublin, the heroine of Tristan and Isolde, Europe's most famous Love story prior to Romeo and Juliet.

The case is reminiscent of Lyons who raped a woman and got six months because he was a man of means. This kind of thing deserves international attention.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/businessman-avoids-jail-for-sex-assault-in-bb-266872.html

The 'dissident' republicans have decided to detonate bombs in the city centre of Belfast. One wonders what they hope to achieve? Murdering Christmas shoppers is not glorious. These groups cannot survive without financial backing. Unfortunately people are still willing to donate money to the cause. …

http://www.reverbnation.com/artist/artist_videos/722885

Things are taking shape with my book and anyone interested can follow me on my newly creted FB site dedicated solely to my book at: 

https://www.facebook.com/fado.book.1

General release is set for 1 November.The ebook should be ready before then.…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc1G7aCpSsI&feature=share

http://www.ronangearoid.blogspot.ie/2013/10/loftus-hall.html

http://teaandbiccies.wordpress.com/2013/03/29/fortune-tellers-angry-dwarves-and-more-than-a-few-cider-enthusiasts/

There is an interesting facebook group called friends of Merlin Woods. Merlin Woods is  a lovely green area on the outskirts of Galway city.The woods have already been decimated by houses built during the Celtic Tiger madness and now there are plans to build  a road through the woods. Galway is  a lovely city but the city fathers do not have any forward planning for anything and would not think decide about destroying this woodland.  Some nice pictures on the site and a petition that needs…

What's it all about? Is it  a day to pay homage to the father of our national beverage (although we drink his stout every other day of the week) or a clever marketing ploy by diageo, an international concern which has little or nothing to do with Ireland?

Christy Moore has written a satirical ditty about the event.

BTW how Irish is Guinness?…

SEPTEMBER 1913

by William Butler Yeats

What need you, being come to sense,

But fumble in a greasy till

And add the ha’pence to the pence

And prayer to shivering prayer, until

You have dried the marrow from the bone;

For men were born to pray and save?,

Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,

It’s with…

My book project is moving along and the publisher has just sent me the cover (Donegal Castle, ancestral home of the O'Donnell clan). Its publication date is set for 1 October. At the moment I am proofreading the proofs to make sure there are no typos or other silly…

This summer, driving through Connemara, I pulled into Sraith Salach, (Willow Stream) as Recess is now officially called, on the N59 Galway Clifden Road. All Gaeltacht villages throughout Ireland now only have the Irish name, though it caused such a furore in Dingle/ Daingean that they made an exception. The village consists of a shop, pub and marble shop. My friends were…

It seems bizarre that an Irish girl caught with over a million euros worth of drugs is being supported by the media. In interviews she seemed to think the whole thing was great craic (if you will pardon the pun) and was seen laughing. …

It is still a work in progress, but my second book is to be published in October. It deals with lesser-known aspects of Irish history. The cover is being designed as we speak and should be ready within a fortnight. Some of the chapters appear on my blogspot:

http://ronangearoid.blogspot.ie

Here is a description of my latest book on…

The Irish Central seems to think so. There are as many accents in Ireland as there are villages. …

The History Press is bringing out a folk tale series for several counties. The first one I read was ‘Dublin Folk Tales’ and while I was expecting kitsch I was pleasantly surprised. The series has several authors and Brendan Nolan, who has a very natural and entertaining story telling style, has written a few of…

It is often said that Ireland of the seventies was a much safer place than today.  “The Boy in the Attic”, the true story of Ireland’s only satanic murder dispels such notions. The brutal murder took place in 1973 in Palmerstown, County Dublin and…

The Irish book market is heavily saturated and books tend to have short shelf lives so it is often possible for good books to go unnoticed. I first heard about this book on the radio show Liveline, where the presenter, Joe Duffy was fascinated by the long forgotten about Seapoint Tragedy. In 1890 a mother and four of her children died from eating toxic mussels,…

I had occasion to visit Dan O’Hara’s hillside farm in Connemara recently as part of my work as a tour guide, work that takes me all over the country. The owner Martin Walsh, a natural born storyteller captivated the group with the story of how the unfortunate farmer ended up in New York and sang the sad song which told of his misfortune.…