I feel ashamed to say it. But there is no doubt. Ireland is a two tier society. It’s a country where half of the population can sleep easy at night in the knowledge that their safe pensionable jobs can support their private health insurance, their mortgage payments and their annual holiday. Meanwhile if you live in the Ireland of low pay or . . .
The land of the free?
Dinner was to be at 7 but it was now late. I was staying in a small Bed and Breakfast on Inis Meáin, one of the Aran Islands. Guests were chatting and opening bottles of wine when our hostess came out of the kitchen almost in tears. Earlier in the day her husband had been helicoptered to hospital with a broken leg and she was simply overwhelmed . . .
After the crash
Up until “the crash” I used to work in an office in the centre of Waterford. I loved the sense of community around the city centre and throughout the boom years there was a bit of a buzz developing. At lunchtime every day the local offices would empty out into the streets. All the women in our office would take a hike across town and a twirl . . .
Lucky to have a job
Have you heard people saying “Sure I’m lucky to have a job”? It’s something that I have even said myself over the years but especially since 2009 when everything went belly-up. It’s certainly two very different worlds. The world of the working and world of unemployment. This has an even deeper meaning for me because while I have managed to hold . . .
A sideways glimpse at the Burren
I regularly witness people come to rural Ireland and begin to unravel some of the stress of their lives. Urban living for all of its convenience can lack a connection with nature and land. I've seen this with Irish people in particular, that their being is soothed by landscape. At a deep level the land and the sea bring them back to their . . .
One small thing
I was once told (in a semi naked state in the steam room in Splashworld) that unless your family had been around for at least 400 years you couldn’t possible be called a Waterfordian. After 30 years I am still here and probably will be until I’m carried out in a box, (or in my case, in a mushroom suit, but that’s a story for another . . .
Inis Turk
Postscript by Seamus Heaney And some time make the time to drive out west Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the light are working off each other So that the ocean on one side is wild With foam and glitter, and inland among stones The surface of a slate-grey lake is . . .
Out west
We head out west where the roads are small and everything takes time. We arrive in the rain of course and the van winds across the mountains of Connemara as we aim for Killary Harbour. The family are gathering with a small Swedish Grandnephew as the centre of it all. He is a smiling bundle of energy with a thing for household and domestic . . .
In the bluebells
If you bear with me and my one minute video, you will share a precarious event, somewhere along the lane to Carrickavantry Lake. What you won't see is that I have a jagged briar wrapped around one leg which left tooth marks all over my calves, and that I am trying not to breathe in case I create camera shake. I've . . .
Spring days in a sunny Republic
I'm starting to look for signs of Spring. Bluer blues, brighter whites, dazzling yellows. Soon the Spring stars of the show will have the limelight all to themselves in the dormant landscape. It's the 100th Anniversary of our Easter Rising, the Rebellion of 1916 that led to the setting up of the Irish Republic. Because many of the . . .
