Musings, ramblings and thought provoking articles from our team of talented writers - all views expressed are their own!
St. Patrick’s Day shows us just how the various strands of Irish are woven together – Irish, Irish-American and Irish in America. The history of the holiday is a story of traditions going back and forth, evolving and influencing each other. It’s not a case of tradition flowing only from the old country to the […]
St. Valentine’s Day is on the horizon, and romance is in the air. Who doesn’t love a good love story? The Irish are known for our gift of storytelling, and so it is no surprise that behind one of most popular Irish motifs is an incredible love story. The Claddagh design is iconic and deeply […]
We are past the solstice now. A pink glow appears on the horizon earlier each morning. The daylight lingers a bit longer each afternoon. At a glance, the trees look as they have all winter. Bare. But beneath their bark, they are preparing for spring. A few have buds or soon will, a visual promise […]
Ancient Irish royalty was nothing like the Disney version. The kings and queens of Irish history and myth were fierce and fearless warriors. They did not spend their time attending lavish balls. They led their troops into battle to gain more wealth and power, and to avenge various wrongs. Maeve became famous as a queen, […]
A library loaning out a book is normally not a big deal, but when the volume in question is the ancient Book of Durrow, that’s another story. Trinity College Dublin recently lent the precious tome to the British Library in London for a special exhibit that runs until February 2019. It will join other significant […]
Halloween has Irish roots. It was originally Samhain, the last day of the Celtic year. The ancient Celts believed a sort of veil separated our ordinary world from the spirit world. As the year went on, this veil got worn thinner and thinner until on the last day of the year, it was so worn […]
In October, people across Ireland are lighting fires in their fireplaces and stoves to take the chill out of the air. It’s starting to get cool, but it isn’t really cold yet. Outside of the cities, people often burn sods of turf they’ve harvested from their own plots in the bog. They go out in […]
The 2018 autumn equinox is on Saturday, 22nd September for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. On this day, the sun rises at due east, passes directly above the equator, and sets in due west. This divides the day into two equal halves of light and dark, but due to the way light passes […]
Wexford, with Vinegar Hill and its National 1798 Rebellion Centre, is the star of that particular effort to gain freedom from British rule. The county had many successes in that uprising. Insurgents captured the towns of Enniscorthy, Wexford, and briefly Gorey. The rebellion ended in Wexford in early July, but it had yet to begin […]
The Boyne Valley is home to an amazing site of Neolithic structures decorated with intriguing and distinctive swirls and spirals. It’s a must-see for visitors to Ireland, and the island’s recent drought conditions have revealed that it is even more amazing than previously known. Historian Anthony Murphy, who has written extensively about the area, was […]
