Following on from last month, Eugene Daly continues sharing some of the legends and sayings around cats in Ireland and other countries. There are many legends of cats in other countries. In Brittany a silver or ‘money’ cat (chat d’argent) could serve nine masters and make them all rich. In […]

In part one of two-part article, Eugene Daly shares the many superstitions and stories connected with the cat in Irish folklore. A traditional Irish greeting on entering a house was; ‘God save all here, except the cat’, on account of its association with the devil. Despite this, it was believed to […]

If you missed Part I of Eugene Daly’s fascinating article on Mother Ireland (printed in the May issue). ‘Aisling’ (meaning ‘dream, vision’) is a type of Irish poem written in the 18th and early nineteenth centuries, based upon a forlorn hope that Ireland, having been destroyed in the wars of […]

At midsummer, the summer solstice, the countryside is bejewelled by our native wild flowers and herbs. Along the roadsides, brightening the hedgerows, flowers are everywhere – a blend of yellow, white, red, blue, green, pink and many shades in between. Today many of these plants are considered weeds but somebody […]