There are many animals that reach a great age. Tortoises and turtles are especially long-lived. In his lovely 1948 book ‘Over the Reefs’, Cork-born writer and artist Robert Gibbings (whose father was rector of St. Multose Church in Kinsale) told of a radiated tortoise called Tu’i Malila that lived as […]
One of the highlights of any trip to China is the Great Wall. To enjoy it, you must see those sections far away from Beijing, where there will be fewer tourists and less commercialism. Unfortunately, when I first lived in China, nearly twenty years ago, my visit to the Great […]
I have a good friend who lives in Kenya – we used to teach in the same school in Mombasa. Some years ago, I stayed for a couple of weeks with her and her family in an old stone and thatch cottage right beside the Indian Ocean. Around the nearby headland […]
The study of reptiles and amphibians is called herpetology. In Ireland, unfortunately, it is a limited field – apart from the occasional sea turtle, we have only one species of native reptile, and just three amphibians. Some might blame, or thank, St. Patrick for banishing snakes and other poisonous creatures […]
For the first eleven years of my life, home was a small farm in England, where we kept pigs and chickens, goats and geese. There have always been dogs and cats, and in Ireland in the 1970s, we had guinea pigs and donkeys as well. But my adult life has […]
Have you ever looked closely at the head of a flatfish? Probably not, unless you are a fisherman or fishmonger. In Ireland, we generally like our fish beheaded; for many people, a fish is just a white fillet, or, in the words of the late, inimitable Keith Floyd, ‘an unidentified […]