Beautiful Ireland

Ireland keeps turning, as the world does. Was just taped for the radio of Canada, the Gaelic Hour out of Ottawa (can you get in?) to rant or observe. Sunny economic predictions not in the quiver, but what a run it has been through these holidays. With extraordinarily mild weather there has been an...Read more »

The crash of the Celtic Tiger has resulted in many distressing stories, with some of the misery to a not insignificant minority being  deserved. But when the heartbreak gets very local and personal and vivid it becomes more wrenching. Out in Ballyduff  just now — that parallel Waterford  universe of an Ireland of surpassing beauty with older values...Read more »

The roads less traveled in Ireland are still a balm for the eye and the spirit. The last few days have taken me to the sodden wilds of Conemara with a stay in the Leenaun Bridge Hotel on the only fjord in this island or perhaps outside Scandanavia — Killarey Bay. That kindly old...Read more »

What rain? In Fermoy today doowap music blasting from a loud speaker and maybe fifty twelve year-olds (one boy) exuberantly arms-kimbo dancing in synch on the footpaths. For old time’s sake I dabbled in the jaywalking, dug the smiles on the passing pedestrians faces. Ah so, it was drizzling and the nation is bankrupt,...Read more »

In South Tipperary there lies a region of highland fields ringed by dark mountains historically known as the Barony of Iffa and Offa. I have come here because this name sums up the Iffa and Offa that Ireland is now enduring, what with its recent arc of soaring possibility wilting back through clouds of...Read more »

The light all these new April days out here in Ballyduff is just a glory, a glory so needed and deserved in this country now. The goodness of some people shining. Yesterday I climbed into nearby hills and up a boreen of silence to meet with two of the finer characters around these parts,...Read more »