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 . . .
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 . . .
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 . . .
Wild Irish Hare
We watch, in hope that they will re-appear each Spring. Wild Irish Hares have become scarce in some places but there are still a few around here. As long as intensive farming is in fashion, all wild animals will be vulnerable. But this week they were back, lolling around between the warm stones and the . . .
Would you?
Would you be mad for that little speck of rainbow in the deep rain filled sky? Or this bush, with its brazen head of golden curls? And would you love how he made a fence from sawn up trees, lining them up on the ditch like children, posing for family snaps? And would you be giddy about the woolliness of those lads? How they make . . .
Photographing New York
Grand Central Station The Whitney Museum On the Highline, a walkway built on an old train track Street Art on the Highline On St. Patrick's Day Everything on the street would catch your eye, even in the rain. A big highlight was walking in the Parade with the Lavender and Green Alliance In the beginning you . . .
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 . . .
Flying free
We organised the first International Women's Day Celebration, in 1986. My baby, just a few weeks old, came with me that night. His Dad looked after him in a room downstairs while I facilitated the meeting of about 150 women. If needed he could be brought up to me for a feed.......such are women's lives, the personal is always . . .
Once in a pinkish moon
This morning, the beauty of another day. Small things, coffee, toast, silence. And how amazing is fruit? Having choice? Banana or blueberry? Egg or beans........? The sun in the east, the full moon setting in the west. The faintest pastel pink in the sky at the horizon. The same view but on a new day. A day anyone would get up out of . . .
A mile from home
Nature is not a place to visit. It is home. Gary Snyder There comes a point in every journey when you turn for home. For me it's the last twisty turn of a boreen, onto our meandering lane. This first bend of the lane is also the top of a hill and just before I set off on the last mile, I can take in the sweep of the lake, the valley and the . . .
