Well the sunset in Baile Átha Cliath is less than half-an-hour away and with it comes Samhain or the great festival marking the end of summer and the start of winter in the Celtic calendars of Irel…
Today is the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, the military contest in the autumn of 1066 which saw England and its besieged king, Harold Godwinson, fall to the Norman-French armies of W…
Lucharacháin The dwarf Otherworld race of Irish, Scottish and Manx mythology and folklore. Glossary All spelling, names and terms in Modern Irish unless stated otherwise. The modern singular and pl…
One of the more mysterious mentions of the legendary hunter-warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill in the indigenous literatures of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man is “Finn and the Man in the Tree”, a sh…
Militant atheist and secularist though I am I still respect religious beliefs as a vital component to the cultural heritage and identity of countless peoples and nations around the globe. Far too o…
Yanky Fachler, author and member of the Jewish Historical Society of Ireland, with an interesting two-part lecture on the contribution of the Jewish-Irish community to revolutionary republicanism a…
In simple terms, a crannóg is an artificial island of variable size and height, roughly circular or oval in shape, constructed on the bed of a lake or on a suitable mudbank or islet. While some exa…
How things have changed in the last 19 years – and how much they have stayed the same. In 1994 the American writer and journalist Rory Nugent was “embedded” for Spin Magazine with…
Here’s a fascinating article on the Product Design and Development website examining an archaeological project in Ireland to preserve in electronic form the earliest written examples of the Irish l…
Introduction The Gal Gréine or Sunburst flag is one of the few symbols of modern Ireland and Irishness that can claim to have deep roots in native Irish and Gaelic tradition. Also known as the Iris…
Liz Gillis ‘The Fall of Dublin’ Ireland’s Civil War of 1922-1923 must surely mark one of the lowest points in modern Irish history, an internecine conflict the meaning of which continues to d…
Tuatha Dé Danann Introduction The Tuatha Dé Danann or “Peoples of the Goddess Dana” are a race of supernatural beings in the native mythological and folkloric traditions of Ireland, Sco…
The Battle of Pettigo and Belleek in the summer of 1922 was the largest military engagement between the Irish Republican Army and the British Occupation Forces in Ireland since the Easter Rising of…
Last Monday I watched the second part of TV3’s drama-documentary series, “In the Name of the Republic”, where once again Eunan O’Halpin claimed to offer an analysis of the alleged actions of the Ir…
Way back in 1996, the Sunday Times newspaper in Britain ran an enthusiastic if awkwardly-phrased banner headline proclaiming that a “Fort discovery proves Romans invaded Ireland”. The &…
On Friday the 26th of November 1920, Patrick Loughnane, aged twenty-nine, and his younger brother, Harry, aged twenty-two, were labouring in the fields near their mother’s home in Shanaglish,…
The Irish Story features a fascinating and long overdue reappraisal of the famous Phoenix Park Assassinations, the 1882 killing of two senior British colonial officials by the Irish National Invinc…
The Leabhar Gabhála Éireann or “Book of the Taking of Ireland” is a Medieval collection of poems and prose narratives purporting to be a history of the Irish people and their island hom…
Sunset on the last day of April, May Eve or Oíche Bealtaine, is the traditional start of the Irish and pan-Gaelic festival of Bealtaine (for our Gaelic siblings in Scotland it is Bealltainn, while …
I recently purchased a copy of “Celtic from the West 2”, the follow-up volume to “Celtic from the West”, the 2012 publication edited by Barry Cunliffe and John T. Koch. Both…
The literary historian, James Shapiro, has a fascinating article in the Irish Times on William Shakespeare’s aversion to Ireland and the Irish. In many ways the 16th century English playwrigh…
Seanchas Agus Litríocht Na nGael The background to the indigenous literary traditions of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Introduction It’s generally understood that the loss of …
