The feast of St. Michael the Archangel falls on September 29. In the old Irish tradition, Michaelmas was known as ‘Fómhar na nGéanna’ – the goose harvest. Geese, hatched out in spring, were left outside all through the summer in what can only be called truly free range and organic! […]
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This week many of you parents will have been subjected to disruption with the closures of preschools. More are planned for October and November. This article will attempt to explain why the providers have taken these drastic measures. Most readers will remember a time before formal pre-schooling. It’s not that […]
If you’ve been scrolling through your social media feeds this summer, you’ve likely come across the buzz surrounding castor oil. It seems this ancient remedy has made a remarkable comeback, touted for its multifaceted benefits, from promoting luscious eyebrows to potentially aiding in labour induction. In fact, the demand for […]
The act of picking blackberries is ingrained in the minds of most of us: We all have fond memories of carrying our buckets out into the fields and along the hedgerows to collect the luscious black fruit that hung from the brambles. It was usually sunny when we went on […]
Our garden is like a food bank, we are awash with produce. The harvest came early this year and we have been eating a month ahead of time. The heatwave in June encouraged everything along and even though we apparently had the wettest July on record it wasn’t cold and […]
Is there any other feature of the Irish landscape more iconic than a field? From John B Keane’s masterpiece to nostalgic childhood images of running through summer meadows, the field is quintessentially Irish. Sure, there’s cliffs and mountains, lakes and rivers, forests, and the wild Atlantic way; but for me […]