Musings, ramblings and thought provoking articles from our team of talented writers - all views expressed are their own!
Brian O’Nolan (aka Flann O’Brien) declared the pint of plain as your only man in his famous verse The Workman’s Friend, which is in his 1939 novel At Swim Two Birds. And the classic pint of Guinness has long been iconic. The Guinness Storehouse at St. James’s Gate on the quays of the River Liffey […]
Ireland has a rather high number of saints per capita. Patrick and Brigid share duties as the nation’s patron saints. Brendan is remembered as the navigator. While the list of Irish saints is extensive to say the least, there is one other name visitors are likely to hear. It’s a name shared by many today, […]
Plenty of European countries have their twisted tales of evil stepmothers, but Ireland’s version is really for the birds. Well, for the swans anyway. With apologies to wrongly maligned stepmothers everywhere, Ireland’s version at least features a wicked stepmother who couldn’t bring herself to actually kill her stepchildren and instead comes up with another plot […]
Bastille Day is just around the corner, and while the July 14th French national holiday might not seem to have much to do with Ireland, history could have been very different. Marie Antoinette, the queen of France and wife of Louis XVI, had a chance to escape the guillotine and flee to Ireland. Despite a […]
When we think of global communications, Connemara does not usually spring to mind as a showcase of emerging technology. Connemara now enjoys a reputation as an area to get away from it all and relax free from the demands of modern life. While Galway City is famous for the Claddagh design, the area north of […]
Many readers are probably fans of the band the Wolfe Tones, but what do you know about the man the band is named for? Friday is the anniversary of his birth, so it’s a good time to learn the basics about a man who had a profound influence on the course of Irish history. For […]
Paradoxically, the stereotypical Irish-American occupation has long been police officer, but in Ireland, the concept of police came from outside. Once upon a time, Ireland ran quite smoothly and relatively peacefully without a single police officer. Between the time of the Druids and imposition of British Common Law, Ireland followed its own unique system of […]
Images of Ireland tend to show rolling green hillsides dotted with sheep, narrow country roads, colorful pubs and villages and beautiful ruins of castles, towers and monasteries. You don’t see many photos of Irish forests, largely because they mostly destroyed long before the camera was invented. Farming began in Ireland about 6,000 years ago when […]
You might think water wouldn’t be anything special in a country famous for how much it rains, but not all water is equal. Some is potable, some isn’t – and some is holy. Catholic churches worldwide have holy water fonts, but Ireland takes it a step further. We have holy wells. Used not just for […]
Perhaps they were considered piles of bricks, but typically everyone considers castles much more than that. Castles are typically made of bricks or stones, but usually castles are representative of structures that loom overhead or on the horizon in an area that is hard to get to. Oftentimes, castles are surrounded by moats or bodies […]
