Moving back to the UK from Ireland isn’t just about work and family. A few things about living in Ireland made this an easier decision. Living in Ireland: the bad side 1. The damp and the un-light One of my partner’s first observations about Ireland was that when (American) tourists say how green it is, […]
We’re moving back to the UK! The contract is signed, the movers booked, and Layla has her crate for the ferry. After three years in Ireland, there’s lots to love and a little to loathe. Here are my top five good sides of living here (with five bad to come after). Living in Ireland: the […]
August 1st marked the festival of Lughnasadh (loo-nasser if your mouth mangles those Irish phonemes). It’s the beginning of harvest season and a key date in Blood Point, my Irish Nightmare Vacations novel. Named after the pagan god Lugh, it’s another of those Irish festivals that sits between a solstice and an equinox. The big […]
I took an unexpected Spring break from blogging at the beginning of April, heading down to the Cork coast. There’s no grand reason for this hiatus, just a combination of factors that took me away from the keyboard. The long Easter weekend coincided with a friend’s request for help with urgent deadlines on their own […]
TripAdvisor’s top Dublin museums might include Guinness, whiskey, and Kilmainham Gaol, but no writer or lover of good stories should visit the city without a stop at the National Leprechaun Museum. Ireland’s storytelling tradition goes back to the dawn of Irish history, and the National Leprechaun Museum is a tribute to the nation’s wild oral […]
Mission accomplished! I have photographed the Kinnitty Stone. It’s an ancient Irish artefact uncovered during the extension of St Finnian’s Church, Kinnitty, in the early 1800s, more than 1,000 years old. It’s also almost impossible to find pictures online and it’s been a challenge to see the real thing. On Saturday evening, with the help […]
Irish folklore is horrible, and I mean that in the best way. Violence, sex and the supernatural entwine in epic tales of ancient history and everyday stories of ghosts, fairies and ordinary folk. Wry humour and dark twists are never far away. Despite Walt Disney’s best efforts, there’s nothing twee about Ireland’s fairies. There are […]
If 2021 was a year of change, 2022 was a year of new adventures: I published my first novel. I got to grips with living in a new country. I started a new business. I turned 50 (that still hasn’t sunk in). And I became a doggy daddy. Writing a novel is hard, publishing is […]