Musings, ramblings and thought provoking articles from our team of talented writers - all views expressed are their own!
As you carve the pumpkins, hang the fake spider webs and stock up on candy for trick or treaters, you probably are not thinking about romance. But the Celts of old were. Halloween’s roots are in Samhain, the pre-Christian Celtic New Year. People believed that a veil separated this world from the spirit world, where […]
Galway is known as the City of Tribes, but who were those tribes? Are you descended from one of them? Today we use the phrase ‘city of tribes’ in many ways to include all of the people of Galway and to celebrate the city’s history. But long ago, it referred specifically to 14 families who […]
The wet and cold are settling in. September’s mix of rain and surprise sunny days is over. Farmers have gathered their last harvest, and by now everyone has their turf in for winter. Fires are lit at night, filling the air with the smell of burning turf. Young people eager for Halloween are stashing away […]
Bogs, a particular type of land, play a quiet but central role in Irish life. It is quintessentially Irish that we would see a substance that is 90% water as burnable fuel and be correct. Bogs shape our language and cultural views. City dwellers jokingly refer to their rural counterparts as ‘boggers’. In small towns […]
In August, summer is in full swing in Ireland. The weather is changeable, of course, but most years it is mostly warm and dry. Well, warmer and drier than the rest of the year! We’re past the summer solstice. The days are shorter than in July, but it is still light until after 10 pm. […]
Ireland is full of amazing destinations that are rightly famous around the world for their beauty and charm. The Cliffs of Moher. Blarney Castle. Dublin’s Temple Bar. Newgrange. No visitor is ever short of must-see sights in Ireland. But sometimes you want something different. Sometimes the joy of travelling lies in discovering something that not […]
We don’t get our fair share of sunshine in Ireland. The island is famous for rain, for the endless soft drizzle that gives us our 40 shades of green. So when summer comes and we do get some sun, which isn’t guaranteed even in summer, we tend to celebrate it. This isn’t new. Our ancient […]
If you are not quite certain exactly what color alexandrite is, you aren’t alone. Many of those born in June are Geminis, and this birthstone perfectly suits their dual nature. Its color appears to change in different lights. It ranges from the red end of the color spectrum to the green/ blue end, depending on […]
Does creativity require a bit of solitude? Consider the stereotype of writers toiling away in an attic somewhere. Virginia Woolf said women need a room of our own, and long before man caves men were retreating to workshops to create all sorts of wood crafts. Our Irish ancestors had this figured out. In fact, they […]
A lot of people think that wedding bells are only rung on your wedding day. But an old Irish tradition says otherwise. Ireland has two wedding bell traditions. Church bells are rung, of course. That started because people believed that the sound of bells scared off any evil spirits lurking around. (You’ll have to provide […]
