There is an enormous ruin a couple of miles outside Bandon, on the Timoleague road. Drivers not speeding or using their phones can’t fail to see it! This was the old Allman cotton mill. When the cotton business failed in 1826, James C. Allman turned to making whiskey. Allman’s was […]
When I was young, I often sat alone by the beacon at Wood Point, looked out across Courtmacsherry Bay, and day-dreamed. The sea then seemed infinite and clean, unspoiled by Man. One day, I would sail away, over the horizon; (I never did). But now, if I can even find […]
Have you ever eaten shark? Perhaps you have, unwittingly, if you’ve tried rock salmon or huss, because they are names given by fishmongers and chippies to various species of small sharks; few people in these islands would eat them otherwise. In many parts of the world, however, shark meat is […]
Now summer is nearly here, those of us whose powers of observation haven’t been extinguished by technology will notice many more insects around. For most people, unfortunately, insects are nasty creepy-crawlies that sting, bite or buzz, and must therefore be swatted. But insects, as well as being the most numerous […]
The strong easterly winds of the past few weeks have brought in all sorts of things to the cove at the end of our lane. There was a fleet of By-the-wind-sailors (Velella velella), those strange hydrozoans that look like little blue boats with transparent sails. Some have sails that go […]
There was a piece on RTE Radio 1’s ‘Sunday Miscellany’ a few weeks ago by Hugh Wheldon, a young Irish volunteer with the environmental organisation Sea Shepherd. He was aboard the ship ‘Allankay’, in the Antarctic, and talked of icebergs and polar sunsets, Cape Horn and Drake’s Passage, orcas and […]