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
Tá abhainn bheag thíos ón dtigh inar rugadh mé, i gCiarraí, Abhainn na Gáile, nó An Gháil. Bhí páirt lárnach ag an abhainn sin agus ar Dhroichead na hAbhann i mo shaoI agus i mo shamhlaíocht agus mé ag fás aníos. Dob é an droichead san croí-lár an tsaoil dom fhéin agus dom bheirt charad,
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
Bhíos 8 mbliana d’aois nuair a chuir Granda mé in airde ar dhrom seana-Mhaidhc. Ní raibh aon diallait air. Capall oibre ab ea seana-Mhaidhc, capall mín, capall mór, capall aoibhinn. Bhí an capall ag treabhadh leis sall an bóithrín, mise ar a dhroim agus Granda lasitar don ainmhí mín seo. Bhíosa lán do rógaireacht agus
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
English as tuppence. Changeless and brooding like an aging spinster, Drumreaske lake wore mystery like a tightly wound scarf in a cold winter’s blast. Nestled away between Monaghan’s Drumlin hills on the Scotstown road out of Monaghan town, sometimes known as Kane’s lake it was and, to an extent, is part of a small country
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
The day dawns fair. I walk out my front door and in five minutes I’m by the sea. The sky is blue and dotted with white clouds, mirrored by the blue of the sea and its ‘white horses’ whipped up by the fresh south-westerly wind. In an instant I have forgotten my cares and concerns.