Madlin, sing to me, oh happy trickle. Of watery song and ocean’s ripple. From Johnduffs Wood through Molaise’s haunt to Dinn Righ and Barrow’s jaunt. Just a moment, I require, before your spirits they expire. When I was but as a trickle, I splashed around, bold and fickle. Coming down the Barrack Hill, I pranced
Some of my earliest childhood memories is of the waters of Lough Foyle shimmering beautifully in the summer sunshine. Lough Foyle an estuary located between counites Donegal and Derry. The bright sunshine seemed to make its waters reflect like strings of diamonds shouting out to one and all, come and enjoy my bathing, my boating,
I prayed that the Lord would keep my children safe as I lay in the ambulance. Soon I would leave the green fields of North County Dublin behind, to enter the suburbs of the spreading city. What would await me there and why was I feeling so ill? I stared apprehensively through the window, as
I live in County Roscommon and when I was four years old my family and I went on holiday to stay in a cottage, Teach Seán, Drumaneary, Mountcharles, County Donegal, this is on the Wild Atlanitc Way. We had a Spanish friend named Maria who came with us, she was visiting us at the time.
When I need time and space to myself, I head to the beach. It’s where I traditionally do my best thinking. I’m calmer there and I seem to be able to put life’s problems and challenges in some sort of perspective. And I like it best when there are very few people around and it’s
Mines, Moss and Móin: Tales from Girley Bog Bogs are wetlands composed of peat. Their cultural and natural history are woven together, each influencing the other. Historically, they have been sites of resistance and refuge, harbouring the destitute and all manner of deviants and rebels. The British army mapped Ireland in the late sixteenth century
My fondest childhood waterway memories involve trips out on my Dad’s tugboat on Long Island Sound, a tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean, lying between Connecticut to the north and Long Island, NY to the south. My Dad, John, was a marine contractor, and his job involved building piers and docks, dredging channels, and sinking
I grew up alongside a River at the bottom of the Dublin mountains and I now live alongside a River in the Wicklow mountains, only about a mile from its source which is a tributary the start of the Liffey. It’s nature at it’s best and as an all-round angler can appreciate that this is
My Father’s wellies are making a soft rhythmic sound as they flap against the back of his corduroy trousers, it is a balmy summer evening after a light shower. I must be four or five years old. Hand in hand, we are walking back to my Grandma’s house from another fishing adventure. She has walked
It was my first day back at school and I was so excited because my class and I were going kayaking down the Blackwater river in Lismore. The instructor was waiting by the side of the river just past the Lismore Bridge with about 20 colourful kayaks shining in the sun. There was loads of
Memories & Reflections: Dew covered grass quickly wetting our sockless feet through our open toed sandals, on an early summer morning, my sisters and I made our way to the river. Located at the bottom of a neighbour’s field this was our childhood hide-away. The steep hill down too its cool water, would see us
Aged 15, stuck in an all girls’ secondary school, I couldn’t wait for the day of our GCSE Geography Field Trip. The craic. That’s all we were interested in. Getting into a river was a rare thing for Our Lady’s ladies, and a wild opportunity for the culchies to have a good laugh at us