-
THE KILLUMNEY INN
A quick call to the Killumney Inn on a Saturday evening in July to make sure there would be a table available and we were off and seated by 8pm. We needn't have worried about getting a table because only one other table in the restaurant was occupied and on a summer Saturday evening that seemed a little off putting.
-
THE TREES
I have to confess it was the amazing cover that attracted me to this book in the first place. It deserves to be framed and put on a wall so that every time you pass it by you can pause and see something new that appeals to your eye. Happily the novel, The Trees, actually lives up to the cover and in many ways is equally appealing on a visual level. The descriptives passages immerse you in the forest setting without distracting in any way from the story itself.
-
IRELAND: THE STAR WARS CONNECTION
The Ban Cheile* and I were fully charged and ready for our three-day adventure to South West Kerry to see if the Star Wars™ influence had changed the area in any way and also to enjoy a seriously chilled extended weekend break. If you’re a Star Wars fan you’ll know the cast and crew spent some time in and around Kerry while filming scenes for The Force Awakens and returned for the upcoming The Last Jedi. I’m pleased to report that other than an odd, and I mean odd, reference to the brief, but important, Star Wars experience (like a three foot storm trooper challenging an equally diminutive sith lord in the window of a guest house in Portmagee and a few “Skellig Wars” t-shirts featuring green-eyed puffins in Darth Vader gear) the Kerry coast has been…
-
IRELAND: VALENTIA – ISLAND AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
While the Ban Cheile* and I were on our Ring Of Kerry trip last month we based ourselves in the Valentia Royal Hotel on the small island off the Kerry coast. The island is just 11km long and 3km wide with a population of only 665 permanent residents – about the same as a very small neighbourhood in Dublin. Having said that it’s a fascinating place to spend a few days and since we were fortunate enough to have terrific weather it meant we could arm ourselves with our cameras and do the on tourist exploration of the island. Accessible only by a bridge at Portmagee (the small ferry from Reenard on the “mainland” – can you even call a bigger island a mainland? – to Knightstown only runs from April to late autumn). Valentia is steeped in history and…
-
VALENTIA ROYAL HOTEL
The Ban Cheile* and I were really looking forward to our three-day stay on Valentia Island (Kerry, Ireland). We jokingly decided we’d go to South West Cork to see if we can follow the Force as it were. All true Star Wars fans know by now that the amazing scene at the end of The Force Awakens, where Luke Skywalker makes his big entrance, was shot on a tiny monastic island off the Kerry coast called Skellig Michael. We decided it was time for us to return to the area to see what the influence of the Force might have had on the place and to treat ourselves to a chill-out long weekend in the process. We arrived early the previous day to our hotel, The Royal Valentia Hotel. We’d stayed there some years earlier when it…
-
THE GREEN ROAD
There's a short list of modern Irish novels I would describe as being privileged to have read - Amongst Women by John McGahern and The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor for example. The Green Road by Anne Enright is the newest entrant on that very short list. Anne Enright has been appointed the first Irish Laureate for Literature and this novel alone will demonstrate exactly why that role is so well deserved.
-
IT’S ALL PORK PIES…
You know the old joke: “How can you tell if a politician is lying? His lips are moving!”. We’re about to embark on three weeks of a general election campaign where a lot of lips will be moving. The last time the Irish people went to the ballot boxes to elect a new government our economy was circling the toilet bowl and about to get flushed; we were told we the people would pay billions to bail out the banks; the Celtic Tiger was fed on a steady diet of greed and subsequently died from obesity; unemployment was heading for 15%; worst of all our sons and daughters had begun to revive an old Irish tradition of emigrating to anywhere but here. At that point the voters said ‘enough’ and booted out the same old crew that…
-
CHARLES FORT
How often do you get the chance to have a day out with your Grown Up Children – especially when there are no grandchildren involved? Not too often in our case and so we were delighted when last month, The Ban Chéile* and I teamed up with GUC No. 4 and No. 6 for a trip to Charles Fort near Kinsale in County Cork. It’s less than an hours drive from the country place and we just wanted a couple of hours out in the sunshine doing what tourists do. Charles Fort proved to be a great idea and since we were all armed with cameras (No. 6 is an avid photographer and blogger – paparali.com) it turned into a bit of a “shoot out” with lots of lighthearted photos of both the fantastic fort and the…
-
A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN
Sure, a little bit o’ Heaven fell from out the sky one day And nestled on the ocean in a spot so far away And when the angels found it sure it looked so sweet and fair They said suppose we leave it for it looks so peaceful there! So they sprinkled it with star dust just to make the shamrocks grow ‘Tis the only place you’ll find them no matter where you go Then they dotted it with silver to make its lakes so grand And when they had it finished sure they called it Ireland! Okay so it’s so sweet and Stage Oirish that it makes your teeth ache but it helps me sum up how I feel about my home country. The weather changes with the flick of a celestial switch (four seasons in…
-
LE CHATEAU…DEJAVU?
Having just recently returned from France I had a stop-in-your-tracks-and-do-a-double-take moment last Saturday when strolling through Cork city. I looked up and spotted a bar called Le Chateau. My tiny mind took a minute or two to register the coincidence and make the dislocation disappear. Le Chateau had a plaque outside proudly proclaiming it was established in 1793 (34 years after the invention of Guinness) which must make it one of the oldest public houses in Cork, if not the whole of Ireland? The exterior is quaint and indeed reminiscent of a french tavern but inside the pub had more in common with Dr Who’s Tardis, it was much bigger than you would expect and went quite far back. I hadn’t the time or inclination to sample any of the enticing beverages on sale but the customers…
