Hey everyone! My name is Zainah Syed, and I’m an aspiring romance author and lover of all things literature! As a writer living in one of the biggest cities in the world, I’m often exploring the city. Thankfully, I also live near an F train station, which, in my opinion, is one of New York’s most iconic trains. We just had a few major sporting events here, with the New York Knicks winning the National Basketball Association championship and the World Cup Final, so we’re all super festive this summer. I love seeing the specially wrapped World Cup trains roll through the stations even though it’s been a few weeks since the final. Now, exploring the city wouldn’t be complete without me going to some bookstores to see which new Penguin Random House classic or romance novel will be appearing on my TBR list. There’s nothing I love more than love because, after all, who are we without it? I have spent much of my teen years trying to recreate the same love I’ve spent my whole life fantasising about and, as an avid reader and writer of romance novels, I was absolutely relentless in my pursuit. I wanted something akin to Lara Jean from ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ or a love story straight out of a Lynn Painter book. Life imitates art after all, right?

On rainy days, I love to walk through Central Park with a friend, watching the streams, climbing the rocks uphill, and watching the cardinals fly by. I’m also a major history geek, so the Metropolitan Museum of Art is honestly a second home. I’m really drawn to Byzantine and Medieval European art, and there’s always something new to discover at the Met. Of course, when I’m not lost in fairytale-land, I love exploring the concrete jungle. In Manhattan, I love walking through Rockefeller Center or Fifth Avenue, all while pretending I’m Andrea Sachs from ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ (I aspire to be just like Miranda Priestly when I grow up). Or perhaps like Empress Theodora, who found her perfect match with Emperor Justinian.

My quest to find my own Justinian has certainly been…eventful, but I’d never call it unsuccessful. I’ve had a few crushes, as we all have had, I’m sure. I was once met with what I certainly thought was the love of my life, when a cute boy who I was friendly with started flirting with me. He claimed we were just friends, but the flirting meant something to me and I felt a pang whenever I remembered it was fake. Alas, I pushed on, trying to be as close as possible to him, even when he didn’t reply to messages. In the end, he was definitely not a fan of me clinging to him! (Not the first time, you guys should’ve seen the disaster of a crush I had just a couple of years ago. I tend to cling when I think I like a boy.) Whew, I don’t think I’ll be making that mistake again. I definitely jumped the gun too early and while I think the great love I’ve been searching for does exist, perhaps now is not the best time. Now is the time for teenage crushes and experiencing who I become when someone else enters the labyrinth that is my heart. We grow as people as we live, and right now, we are still in the early stages of who we will become in life. I am still only the first version of myself, after all. I’ll never stop believing that love exists, and for us teens, it’s a bit hard to navigate. I myself am still stuck in the stage where it’s ‘bad’ to have your crush know that you like them! I’ve learned, though, from some of my crushes, and I’d be more than happy to help you all too!

After six years living abroad in Australia, New Zealand and Spain, Mia Connolly returned home to West Cork expecting the move home to be easier than emigrating alone to the other side of the world. Instead, settling back into life at home proved far more challenging than anticipated.

People often talk about how difficult it can be to leave home and build a life abroad, but far less is said about how difficult it can be to come home again. Having started from scratch several times around the world, Mia was surprised to find there was something uniquely challenging about doing it where she had grown up. Coming home meant finding her feet again and working out where she fitted in, as life had moved on in her familiar surroundings.

That period ultimately became the starting point for several new ventures.

With a background in IT, systems and business operations, Mia launched SEOL Consulting, helping local businesses make their systems simpler and more effective. The name SEOL, Irish for ‘set in motion’ and ‘to sail’ is a nod to Mia’s connection with sailing at home and abroad.

The idea came from recognising that many small businesses are excellent at what they do, but often lack the time or resources to keep pace with the rapidly changing digital world. SEOL focuses on practical improvements rather than technology for technology’s sake, helping businesses to work more efficiently and reducing unnecessary hassle behind the scenes.

At the same time, Mia was experiencing another challenge personally: how difficult it can be as a single adult to meet new people naturally, in a dating culture increasingly dominated by apps.

This is what led to Plus None, a new singles social community for West Cork. Unlike speed dating, Plus None is not built around timed conversations, formal matchmaking or any expectation of a particular outcome. The idea is simply to create relaxed opportunities for single people to meet in real life, without pressure.

Someone might meet a potential partner, but they might equally meet a new friend, running buddy or future wingman or wingwoman.

The first Plus None social took place in Clonakilty in August, with around 30 people attending,  a strong indication that people locally want more natural ways to meet and connect. Attendees thanked Mia for being “the brave one” to organise it.

“There can be so much pressure around dating now,” she says. “I wanted to strip all of that back. Come along, meet new people and enjoy yourself. If something romantic comes from it, brilliant, but that isn’t the only measure of whether the night was worthwhile.”

Future Plus None socials will take place around West Cork and can be followed on Instagram @plus_n_one.

Although SEOL Consulting and Plus None may appear very different, Mia sees a common thread between them: both came from recognising something that could work better and deciding to do something about it.

“This is my home, these are my people, and it feels like the beginning of a completely new chapter.”

My daughter Suzy lives in Berlin, which is very handy for me, as there is always an excuse to visit. The fact that she is a great organiser is an added advantage, and her well-planned itinerary usually starts at a local wine bar, the perfect landing pad after a late flight.

Berlin is a surprising city, especially if, like me, your preconceptions of it are of gritty, graffiti-enhanced walls, fairly ugly communist-era architecture and a wild and free all-night club scene. Those are there alright, but there’s so much else besides. Berlin throws up new and unique experiences every time I visit. 

It is a city with a very interesting, complicated and often tragic past, which is not what I’m writing about here, but it is well-documented in the many excellent museums, installations and events throughout the city. This is about Berlin today, a creative, diverse, inclusive, quirky, fun, friendly and exciting place in which to spend time, whatever you’re into. Oh, and really great food and wine. 

Berlin is one of Europe’s greenest cities, with a myriad of parks and open spaces. An old,  disused airport? That’s turned into the Tempelhofer Feld skateboard park. A closed-down train station is repurposed as the family-friendly Park am Gleisdreieckan, with rolling lawns and an outdoor dance floor. We watched the iconic 1927 parable ‘Metropolis’ in the outdoor cinema in Volkspark in the Freidrichshein district. A live pianist provided the atmospheric soundtrack, and a kiosk sold beer and pretzels. 

Beside a half-sunken boat on the Spree river (which transforms into a club at weekends), is Badeschiff. Accessed through what looks like empty buildings, in an old bus depot, you arrive at a man-made sandy beach, deckchairs, beach bar and pool built out into the river. (Suzy points out though, that they are not vacant. It’s all used for events and workshop spaces and studios. It’s hard to find abandoned space in the centre of Berlin that isn’t being used by artists).

It’s the most extraordinary perspective of the heart of the city, swimming in this blue patch of water, at a junction between river and canal. This is one of my favourite places to spend a sunny afternoon, cold beer in hand. 

Just outside the pool area, in the Kreutzberg district, you can choose to eat Lebanese, Georgian, Turkish, Vietnamese – there’s an endless list of ethnic food options all over the city. 

Berlin also has a fantastic contemporary food scene, and I’ve added some of my favourites below, along with cocktail bars and wine bars I love to visit, having been scoped out by the diligent daughter.

Berlin Is a treasure trove of vintage clothes and homewares. It’s probably a blessing that I usually only have the airline 10kg, as I could furnish my house with the mid-century gems found everywhere here. Clothes are another matter, easily squished into the suitcase, and I have trawled the €2 bargain basements, spendy designer joints, and wildly inventive upcycling workshops.

Fleamarkets always feature on Berlin weekends. Regular shops close on Sundays, and flea markets pop up in the city’s streets and parks. Mauerpark, for example, offers an enormous collection of bric-a-brac, clothes, furniture, food, music and general Sunday chilling-out. The other weekend activity is of course, clubbing. This is not restricted to the early hours – many clubs open from Friday night till Monday morning straight, so you can go for an evening dance and still be in bed by 10 o’clock. Most clubs also have open-air dance floors for summertime dancing in the sun, giving a mini festival experience. 

For a light taste of club life, I love Krunkerkranich, an open air bar/restaurant/club on the top floor of a shopping centre. It’s great fun to bring someone there for the first time, take the lift,  and emerge into a lush rooftop garden with pumping tunes and a 360 degree view of the city. 

On another scale, Donau 115 is a tiny jazz bar in Neukölln, where you’ll sometimes hear Scottish trad played by local and visiting musicians. 

Coffee is an essential Berlin experience. There are heaps of coffee roasters, and really good coffee is available on every street. It’s hard to pinpoint the style of decor in these cafés, but it is distinctly ‘Berlin’ – lots of 1950s relics, industrial chic, upcycling and street art. The vibe is casual and friendly, with a regular crowd, each neighbourhood being like a small town. Nob Murphy’s, the café where my daughter works is my morning hang-out when I’m visiting, sitting on pallet furniture on the street, supping great coffee, borrowing bikes from neighbours and making plans for the day. 

Those plans involve cycling everywhere, as Berlin is very flat and has plenty of cycle paths. If we had more time, a trip by train and bike to one of the many lakes surrounding the city would have been on the agenda, but that’s grand, that’ll be on Suzy’s itinerary for my next visit. 

Details:

• Volkspark Friedrichshain (Berlin’s oldest park/outdoor cinema)

• Tempelhofer Feld – large outdoor space for skateboarding,  cycling or just catching the sunset

• Park am Gleisdreieck – 30 acres of outdoor urban space

• Badeschiff – outdoor pool and beach bar

• Restaurants and wine bars:

– Michelberger Hotel – very cool decor with great restaurant and tasty snacks,  close to Warschauer Str. train station,  great location for accessing the rest of the city. 

– JaJa Wein Bar – describes itself as ‘Naked wine and seasonal food’ – excellent food and wine. 

– Ezsra Bistro – ‘farm and forests to table’ philosophy,  low-tech wines 

– Vin Aqua Vin – wine shop and wine bar with dark wood,  mismatched furniture and stay all evening vibe

– Nathanja and Heinrich – really excellent cocktails, great street terrace 

– Klunkerkranich – exuberant rooftop bar

– Balance Wine Bar – Italian wine bar,  delicious arancini, our local, where Daniele guided us around the wines of Italy. 

– Donau 115 – higgledy-piggledy jazz bar, great music, great drinks. 

– Bob Murphy’s coffee shop – great coffee,  great staff, great neighbourhood vibe 

I’ll take a minute to acknowledge that it hasn’t exactly been great for everyone. Some farmers have had to use their winter stocks of hay early because the fields are so parched. Hosepipe bans and water restrictions have also been a plague in some parts. 

Notwithstanding the problems, for many of us summer 2026 was pure bliss. I will admit that I loved every single sunny day.

I have never got into the ocean as often – not even in 1995! I have discovered new beautiful places to swim in West Cork. In fact, it is almost impossible to believe that on the first weekend of June 2026 we were huddling in our winter coats as the rain drenched us out in Allihies! It hardly seems possible that this is the same summer. The balmy days, bright blue skies and appealing Atlantic Ocean make West Cork as gobsmackingly beautiful as any beautiful place of Earth – and better than many. I am the lovely light brown colour that is my ethnic heritage (Spanish/Italian), instead of the sickly pale green, grey of winter. I have enjoyed terrace life for three months. We sit around outside before and after dinner and on sunny afternoons. Even the nights when it felt a tad too hot have been delightful. Sleeping with all the windows open and just a light sheet is great, and I pity those of you who cannot enjoy it.

What can I say – I’m a Mediterranean who relishes the heat. Or at least the Med of my childhood. While we have mostly enjoyed the good weather here, in other parts of Europe it has been Hell.  An official heatwave in Ireland is declared by Met Éireann when a weather station records five or more consecutive days at 25 degrees Celsius or above. A higher temperature would rarely be met in Ireland due to its maritime climate. In fact, despite climate change, it is unlikely that we will ever see consistent temperatures of over 40C. A run of 26 degrees Celsius or more, as we had in July, is a genuine heatwave in Ireland, even though it would barely register in Spain. In fact, it would be welcomed as a “fresh” day.

The same heat dome that gave Ireland its 2026 ‘heatwave’ pushed temperatures past 40 degrees Celsius across Spain, Portugal, Italy and southern France. The UK was also roasting. I grew up in Belgium, which used to have a quite similar climate to Ireland with perhaps more sun in the summer and more snow in the winter. This summer Belgium has been sweltering with several heatwaves of 36C. When I was a child 28C was a major heatwave. People suffer because the buildings are not made for the heat, rather they are built for cold winters.

For travellers trying to escape extreme heat, Ireland sits firmly in the comfortable zone, which is why it works well as a cooler-summer alternative. I keep meeting Spanish and Italians who love the lower temperature of our wild Atlantic shores. After staying indoors in the dark during the day for most of the summer, our visitors from the South relish our cooler climes. I even met some who were deliria with a sudden downpour.

I got a taste for what they were talking about when we popped over to Spain to visit a cousin for a few days. When we arrived it was over 36C. Thankfully the temperature dropped a bit after that. After living in West Cork for over thirty years 36C is tough. At least most bars restaurants and other public spaces have AC. Terraces in the shade abound and there are lots of lovely drinks to keep you hydrated. I found myself using cold water bottles as a cold compress on my neck and wrists to cool down. One thing for sure, we weren’t going to be walking around during the day. Or standing in a queue for that matter. Apart from visiting with my cousin and a lot of bar and restaurant hopping – we did very little. It was just too hot. It was lovely to get back home to 22C and even a spot of rain. Our goldilocks weather this summer truly hit the sweet spot – long may it last. Before you know it, we’ll be back to dark afternoons, huddled by the fire as the wind and rain lashes around the house!

After a scorching summer, Clonakilty Film Club invites us to cosy autumn nights indoors with a carefully chosen selection from the best that world cinema offers. The club opens its autumn season on Tuesday September 22 with ‘Primavera’, an astounding feature debut by acclaimed opera director Damiano Michieletto. ‘Primavera’ is a fictionalised account of Antonio Vivaldi’s time as resident composer and violin teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, where he composed most of his major works, told from the perspective of one of his most talented female students.

18th Century, Venice: The Ospedale della Pietà is a refuge for orphaned and abandoned children. Here, girls study music, and the most talented among them are placed in a special orchestra renowned as one of the best in the world. This orchestra performs for Venetian high society and wealthy patrons of the orphanage. While their showcases raise money for the orphanage, they also help secure marriage proposals for the women.

Among this orchestra is 20-year-old Cecilia, an extraordinary violinist betrothed to a wealthy soldier upon his return from battle abroad. Though music has opened her mind, the doors of the orphanage remain closed until she is married. Her world is disrupted when a wind of spring awakens something within her: the arrival of a new teacher, composer, and maestro di violino, Antonio Vivaldi. His mentorship forever changes her, allowing her to envision a different future and embrace her art.

Michieletto’s film is an exceptional example of centreing a woman’s story in a historically patriarchal society, modernising a tale never previously told.

All are welcome. The film starts at 8.30pm (doors open at 8.20pm). Admission €10, cash at the door.

Clonakilty Film Club will screen its second film of the season on October 6. The full Autumn line-up will appear in the October issue of West Cork People. You can also follow Clonakilty Film Club on Facebook for updates.

‘Ní hé lé na báistí’ (the day of the rain is not the day of the children). Anyone who has ever tried to entertain young children when it is too wet to go outside – especially on holidays – will appreciate the accuracy of this proverb. There is hardly anything like relentless Irish rain to achieve the twin feats of dampening people’s spirits and increasing their irritability.

Talking about the weather is a constant theme when Irish people meet. In a metaphorical sense, people speak of ‘being under the weather’ when they feel unwell or of ‘making heavy weather’ of a task when it proves to be unexpectedly difficult. The misery of working in inclement weather has long been recognised in Irish folk wisdom. For example, an old saying warns us of ‘the four worst things – ploughing in frost, harrowing in rain, making a ditch in summer and building a wall in winter’.

Nevertheless. climatic adversity has inspired many Irish writers. The damp tapestry of Frank McCourt’s early life is evoked in his book, ‘Angela’s Ashes’, in a vivid account of how ‘great sheets of rain gathered to drift slowly up the river Shannon and settle forever in Limerick’, thereby creating ‘a cacophony of hacking coughs, bronchial rattles, asthmatic wheezes, consumptive croaks’.

It is notable that certain Irish weather phrases are very poetic and rich in imagery. For example, a cold morning has been described as one which causes people ’to kiss their kneecaps’ (ag pógadh na gcopán) or to curl up in bed with their knees underneath their chins. We are preoccupied with the subject because Irish weather is quite capricious and unpredictable. Supporting this view, an Irish phrase describes the many different weather conditions the one can encounter on any given day. ‘Lá na seacht síon – gaoth mhór, báisteach, sioc agus sneachta, tintreach, tóirneach agus lonrú gréine (On the day of seven weathers, there is high wind, rain, frost and snow, thunder, lightening and sunshine).

Some people are never happy with the weather even when it is pleasant. Consider the old Irish saying ‘Dá mbeach soineann go Samhain, bheadh breall ar dhuine éigín (If fine weather lasted until November, somebody would be complaining).

In the interests of economical survival, people, especially fishermen, sailors, farmers and shepherds have tried to anticipate impending weather conditions through careful observation of a variety of natural phenomena. Long before the advent of scientific weather forecasting, changes in the appearance of the sun, moon, stars, clouds and waves were studied to forecast weather. These observations were passed down from generation to generation, often termed in rhymes and easily remembered sayings. A common weather saying ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning’ dates back to biblical times.

The significance of red skies is echoed in several Irish phrases: ‘Dearg anuas, fearthainn is fuacht,’ / ‘Dearg anoir, fearthainn is sic,’ / Dearg aníos, fearthainn is gaoth,’ / Dearg aniar, soineann is grian.’

(‘Red high up, rain and cold,’ / ‘Red in the east, rain and frost,’ Red low down, rain and wind,’ / Red in the west, fine weather and sunshine.’)

The sun and the moon were significant omens for the ancient Irish. In the pre-Christian era, the sun was portrayed as a god of the heavens, which lay down in the evening. Perceived in this way, the sun’s long rays were interpreted as its legs. Certain weather signs could be detected from the position of these ‘legs’. For example, we hear ‘Togha na haimsire chughainn – cosa na gréine suas ar maiden ages síos tráthnóna (the best of weather is coming – the sun’s legs are up in the morning and down in the evening).

The appearance of the moon was a good indicator of the weather. For example, bad weather was likely if the moon appeared to be lying on its back. The harvest moon in September (nearest to the Autumn equinox) is the brightest of the year. ‘Gealach na gcoinleach is gile sa bhliain (the moon of the stubble field is the brightest of the year). A similar phenomenon occurs around mid-October and is known as the hunter’s moon.

Other weather signs that feature in Irish folk sayings come from the wind, mist, the sea – the appearance of the sea and the sound it makes. The following saying distinguishes the different types of wind: ‘Trí bríos gala,’ trí gála feothan,’ trí feothan stoirm,’ ‘trí stoirm airic.’ (‘Three breezes make a gale,’ ‘three gales make a winnowing wind,’ three winnowing winds make a  storm,’ three storms make a hurricane.’) These winds were sometimes described in graphic terms. For example a harsh east wind was regarded as one that would ‘skin a dogfish’ – ‘Gaoth a bhainfeadh an craicreann difhíogach’.

Strong winds were often attributed to the movement of the sí or fairies. A whirlwind in summer was called a ‘sí gaoithe’ (a fairy wind), which was also known as ‘deamhain aeir’ (demons of the air). Another cause of the windows a mythical being called ‘Beartlaí na Gaoithe’.

In line with the theme of this year’s West Cork Creates exhibition, ‘Listen to the Land Speak’ – a tribute to the ideas and philosophy of Manchán Magan (1970 – 2025) – Owen will submit a number of pieces, including two stitched books attempting to illustrate the same ancient stories and the land that Magan wrote about.

A stitched sculpture of a tree with a standing stone atop tells the story of the coming of man and the impact on the land while a scroll stitched onto frayed denim tells the story of the interaction of the people and the land through motif and symbolism. A set of four stitched sculptures feature the elements fire, air, earth and water and his series entitled ‘Odd Balls’ embraces the inner child.

Since he was very little, Owen’s work has always told a story, much of it related to his own life. As his first wobbly stitches grew neater on the old school skirt his mother gave him to practice on, the names of close friends began appearing, sometimes also joined by small motifs they had drawn. A few years later places and events of special significance in his personal life were added – Glastonbury 1987, a trip to China with the Irish Special Olympics team, the birth of each of his children, an old 2p coin when Ireland transferred over to the Euro. When there was no room left for stitching he added a waistband, creating a finished skirt that holds over 50 years of memories. The skirt finally had its debut worn by one of Owen’s daughters at a recycled fashion show in Ballydehob.

While the many firsts – first exhibition piece, first podcast, first viral post – are all fun highlights in Owen’s embroidery journey, the pieces that he remembers with most pride are those created especially for people: a lady’s favourite hat stitched for her after she lost her hair from chemotherapy; a small red denim jacket stitched for a little girl recovering from a brain operation; a badge stitched for a mother in memory of her daughter shot by a terrorist. “Being able to comfort, to communicate, to console, and bring a little piece of joy or beauty or hope, however small, into someone’s life, is a privilege, and the messages and photos I’ve received in return are very special to me,” shares Owen.

“I should also mention Seamus O’Comanssy,” he adds smiling. Owen stitched this playful tiny globe-trotting character after realising that his own travelling days were behind him. Seamus has his own Facebook and Substack page where he shares tales about his adventures around the world. “Seamus is currently on a yacht moored off an island in the South Pacific with a couple of ‘nomads’ who are helping out at the Women’s Resource Centre in the village of Lamap,” shares Owen, who says the “wee man” has brought so many strangers together over the years.

West Cork has been home for Owen since 1987 when, after selling his business in the UK and looking to escape the constraints of Thatcherism, he decided to follow his roots back to Ireland. Considered a math prodigy as a child, his interest in art was “gently discouraged”, so his career path took a very different route towards mathematics and economics. In West Cork, he found the freedom to express his creative side.

Aside from embroidery, wildlife gardening, photography and storytelling are his passions. After completing a horticultural course at West Cork Campus in 2018, he enrolled the following year on the Art and Printing course there, which offered a very small module on embroidery. While he doesn’t feel that the course influenced his own stitching practice, he says that “being in that learning and creative environment was very motivational” subsequently prompting him to expand his approach and take his work more seriously.

Although he has over 50 years experience in embroidering, it’s really over the past five to six years that Owen’s talent has taken on a life of its own. Social media has played a big part in this, bringing his work to a wider audience and with that an ever-increasing number of orders, commissions and requests for tutorials.

Hand embroidery is an inherently slow process with each piece requiring incredible patience. “I only managed to stitch eight full denim jackets last year,” he shares.

Last year, he was invited to contribute a piece to ‘The Dream Project’, a collaborative exhibition that toured Australia, America, and Scotland. Although several galleries have approached him since about staging a solo exhibition, this has proved challenging, as the majority of his embroideries are created on commission and are now dispersed in collections around the world. As a result, he has rarely had enough work available in one place to mount a comprehensive exhibition of his own.

For the past two years he has been working on a piece that he’s dubbed his ‘Quantum Quilt’. Made up of 100 hand-stitched panels, it will measure 12ft x 4ft when finished, and hopefully be ready for exhibition next year.

Interested in history, mythology, and folklore, Owen draws particular inspiration from Ireland’s rich tradition of storytelling. These ancient stories, together with the work of the late Manchán Magan, inspired his contribution to the ‘Listen to the Land Speak’ exhibition. His visual influences span a wide artistic spectrum, from the psychedelic poster art of Rick Griffin and Mouse and Kelley, to the illustration of Albert Uderzo, the comics of Carlos Ezquerra and Robert Crumb, the fantastical worlds of Roger Dean, the Celtic imagery of Jim Fitzpatrick and George Bain, the intricate visions of Hieronymus Bosch, and the vibrant designs of Alan Aldridge. He is equally inspired by the intricate ornamentation of medieval manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, as well as the decorative philosophy of William Morris and the embroidery of his daughter, Mary Morris. Beyond Europe, his influences include Otomí, Suzani, Vyshyvanka, Tatreez, Kantha, Kuba, Shisha, Hmong, and Kashmiri embroidery.

Rather than focusing on the end product, each stitch for Owen is part of a personal journey. Embroidery is a meditative process that brings great calm to the artist, who loves nothing more than getting swept up in his own work, taking the little observations from his daily life and drawing upon his memories and imagination, all in the act of creating. 

For more information on Owen and his work visit www.slavetothestitch.com.

“I was born and raised in Clonakilty. My father was from Clon and my mother from Leap so am well rooted in West Cork,” she says.. “I now live in Cork city but find the pull west very strong. If I haven’t walked Inchydoney Strand in too long I get angsty.”

Oonagh’s path to becoming a professional artist was unconventional. After a 13-year career in physiotherapy, she returned to study art, having always maintained a love of drawing and painting through evening classes and art courses.

“With the ‘cushion’ of leave of absence, I went back to art college and graduated from Crawford College of Art and Design in 2009 and have been painting since.”

Her career has since included solo and group exhibitions across Ireland. She secured a solo exhibition at Wexford Arts Centre in 2011 before beginning to exhibit with Catherine Hammond Gallery in Glengarriff in 2014, followed by a solo exhibition at Hammond Gallery in Skibbereen in 2017. She exhibits regularly with Blue House Gallery in Schull and held a solo exhibition there in 2023. She has also shown with the Lavit Gallery in Cork and has been exhibiting with West Cork Creates since 2023.

Among the highlights of her career was receiving the Percent for Art commission for Cork Opera House in 2020, where her large-scale painting remains on permanent display.

“The Percent for Art award for the Cork Opera House commission was very welcome in 2020 and my large painting can be seen for posterity,” she said.

Her ‘Women Unremembered’ portrait series was exhibited through Cork County Council’s Arts Office programme at County Hall in 2022. The exhibition explored forgotten women’s stories and generated a particularly strong public response.

“The responses of the viewing public were particularly moving, especially comments from local women’s groups like the ICA,” she says.

Her portrait of Ellen Hutchins, Ireland’s first female botanist who lived and worked in Ballylickey, led to an invitation to speak at the West Cork Literary Festival in 2023. The painting was subsequently acquired by UCC for the Ellen Hutchins Building.

Oonagh’s creative practice centres on memory and its elusive nature.

“My work is mainly figurative, investigating the processes of remembering and forgetting,” she explains. “I typically gather images that evoke the notion of memory for me. They are often of mundane, incidental moments from my personal photographs, media images, stills from my father’s old Super 8mm films.”

Her painting process reflects these themes.

“I pour layers of different colours of paint on canvases on the floor, tilting and tipping the surface, encouraging the flow of paint drips in varying directions. I also use tools to smear the paint or wipe it off, leaving variations in density and texture. Once dry I choose how my composition will sit on this underpainting and allow some areas exposed while concealing others, the whole process mirroring how memory behaves, fluid and open-ended.”

In recent years, her work has increasingly explored women’s lives and overlooked histories.

“Over time my interest in forgotten women’s stories and of the unseen and unacknowledged load of women in the domestic sphere, prompted by the 2024 referendum on woman’s place in the home, led to my solo exhibition ‘The Weight of Love’ in Signal Arts Centre, Bray.”

The exhibition, consisting of ink-on-paper works, confronted traditional expectations placed on women.

“‘The Weight of Love’, depicted with humour and despair, confronts outdated narratives of a woman’s place in the home, highlighting the absurdity of the domestic load that women bear.”

She believes her work reflects wider concerns beyond the personal.

“My work intersects with my life on many levels. Through the prism of womanhood, motherhood in such an unstable world, many of the rights women have gained are being chipped at and challenged. Our Earth faces unprecedented threat and our connectedness to the earth needs to be understood.”

Like many artists, sustaining a creative career has not been without obstacles.

“Challenges for artists are invariably financial and of course the early years of parenthood eat into time. Finding studio space has been challenging over the years.”

Alongside her exhibition with West Cork Creates, Oonagh’s work will also feature on the cover of the latest edition of Swerve magazine, the literary and arts publication produced in Skibbereen.

Early last November, a beautiful black woman named Xania Monet made world history. Sort of. Her song, ‘How Was I Supposed to Know?’ entered the US Adult R&B Airplay chart at no. 30 and also charted no. 20 on Hot R&B Songs, which ranks the 25 most popular contemporary R&B tracks. It came with relatable live action videos. Scenes of love, neglect and romantic heartbreak playing out across various generations. A drunken father. An abusive boyfriend. And a poignant lyric, written from the point of view of a daughter who is remarkably perceptive when it comes to understanding her own unresolved trauma. “Mama did her best but she can’t teach/What it feels like when a father speaks/So I took every “I love you” too deep/Even when they meant it only for a week. […] Unpacking daddy wounds from every kiss.”

Xania’s voice sounds soulful but also…overly smooth. No wonder. Monet’s claim to fame is that she was the first AI being to enter a US radio chart. Listeners accepted her as a real person. She has a ‘creator’, the poet Telisha Jones, who writes Xania’s lyrics, generates her music, and sees her as an avatar. She got a multi-million contract but also a lot of pushback from human artists and sections of the music industry, which consider this to be an ominous milestone. 

AI has since made inroads into many genres. Up to and including the traditional Appalachian music. AI itself describes it as, “raw, historical, deeply rooted … a rich, living blend of Anglo-Celtic folk ballads, African American blues, and West African rhythms that evolved organically on front porches and in the coal camps of the American mountains”. But maybe it is simply blind to the human factor. 

The latter will be strongly represented “in the flesh” at DeBarra’s Folk Club on September 16, the first night of the Clonakilty International Guitar Festival, when the remarkable Leah Song, “Appalachian storyteller, song-catcher, and cultural bridge-builder” will take to the stage. Best known as one of the frontwomen, alongside her sister, Chloe Smith, of ‘Rising Appalachia’. Not the only ensemble from that slightly mystical region with women in the driving seat, whether as instrumentalists, or singers, or both. There were the iconic Coon Creek Girls, an all-girl bluegrass string band which was rather famous in the 1930s and 1940s and hailed from the Appalachian foothills of Eastern Kentucky. (Appalachia stretches across 13 US states and is roughly 6.3 times larger than Ireland). Contemporary women’s bands with Appalachian roots include the Grammy-nominated outfit Della Mae (formed in Boston), the sedately-dressed Sister Sadie (formed in Nashville, a non-Appalachian part of Tennessee), and the Grammy-winning Aoife O’Donovan, whose father grew up in Ardfield near Clonakilty before emigrating to Boston. Her shows in West Cork are mostly sold out. In the US, she’s part of the trio ‘I’m With Her’. It was formed at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado in 2014 but is not on the twangy, hard-nosed, lonesome side of the bluegrass vocal landscape. Neither is Rising Appalachia. The band’s harmonies are wonderful, vulnerable, sweet, sometimes soaring to great multidimensional heights. 

Now an internationally touring folk ensemble, it started on the sisters’ back porch in Atlanta (Georgia), where they grew up. They also spent seven years in New Orleans where they deliberately moved a year after Hurricane Katrina pounced to help rebuild community. “Both are fabulous, wonderful, diverse, wild Southern cultural hubs,” explains Leah Song. They love busking on urban streets but always seem to have at least one foot in nature. As they write on their website: “In Appalachia, farmers still practice the ancestral tradition of companion planting. Corn grows tall as a trellis, beans climb the corn, and squash provides the ground cover. Rising Appalachia cultivates a similar symbiosis in their music, where Southern folk traditions, New Orleans swamp culture, and Atlanta’s street spirit strengthen each other.” 

Leah does the interview from her cabin near Asheville, North Carolina, “right behind a protected 43-acre forest. I’m only here part-time as my life is pretty global. It’s a place that is very rooted in traditional culture, music, craft, and song so I go here to refill my cup. I’m standing underneath a huge oak tree right now. Southern Appalachia is one of the most biologically diverse temperate regions on Earth. You get a whole lot of wildlife. Bears, owls, foxes. Yes, it’s under threat from the current administration; everything is. Two years ago it was devastated by Hurricane Helene, the second-deadliest US hurricane of the last 50 years. We lost about a hundred thousand trees and there were some very scary fatalities. Although there was a silver lining. It did encourage the community to get more self-reliant and interconnected. It now has very strong grassroots underground education and advocacy groups.” 

Born to a sculptor (father) and fiddler (mother), the sisters have always been fully immersed in music and other art forms. “The gospel music of our mother, the folklore of our father. All steeped in Southern Appalachian culture. However, our mother started learning the Irish fiddle when we were five years old. She brought us over to Ireland often, to study the fiddle traditions but only found out she had Irish lineage 10 years ago. As an Irish fiddler pointed out to her, there really is a close kinship; you can trace the Appalachian song lines directly to different counties and regions in the Celtic Isles. One of my first trips back to Ireland after many years was when we were still in recovery from storm Helene. I decided that I really needed to be in community with folks who have a long history of survival and of art and music being the tools of handling hardship.” 

Before alighting on the guitar festival, where she will sing and play claw-hammer banjo, bodhrán, and guitar alongside fellow Rising Appalachian star David Brown, Leah Song will embark on an extraordinary 11-day journey across East Clare and West Cork, curated by Wild Routes Ireland (Tara De Róiste and Chris Gambatesa). It includes visits to Ballydehob (Kilcoe Studios, Levis Corner House), heritage foods with Max Jones (somewhere in West Cork), somatics and songs with Leah Song. Plus storytelling, coracle weaving, strawcraft and other crafts taught by different experts. It is connected to the slow music movement (see her Tedx Talk). “It is about building longer, slower relationships. Going slow and then fast again. This tour is a homecoming of sorts. A rooted experience where music is just one part of the exchanges between culture and story and place.”

www.leahsongmusic.com

www.clonguitarfest.com

Interestingly, in Spanish you can both be sad (Soy triste) and be in a state of sadness (Estoy triste). The former is something you are born with – you are a sad person; the latter is due to events outside of you like failing an exam. Two other words that only exist in Irish and which really reflect the Irish spirit are ‘craic’ (good times in good company) and ‘meitheal’ (coming together as a team to achieve a common goal). In fact, a good ‘meitheal’ is great ‘craic’! The fact that there is no way to say “Yes “or “No” in Irish is a clue into why the Irish can seem a bit cagey. You can’t definitively say that you will be going out on Friday if you have no word for yes/no. And then there is ‘an modh coinníollach’, a whole verb tense to conjugate what might, maybe happen depending on the circumstances. It is the most unspecific of verb tenses.

Many languages have words that don’t have an English translation and I love discovering them. I am lucky to speak Spanish, and French, which makes Italian easy to understand but somehow shuts out both Greek and Portuguese, two languages that totally escape me. Here are a few of my favourite untranslatable words. Each one is a little peek into that culture’s soul.

‘Sobremesa’ is a lovely word in Spanish, which conjures up all my childhood summers. It is the time after you’ve finished a meal when you stay chatting at the table. It can last from an hour to all afternoon if the meal is lunch. Another great Spanish word is ‘estenar,’ which means to wear something new for the first time. It’s showing off in the most blatant way and goes a long way to understanding a certain arrogant confidence that some might accuse my ancestors of having. I love the verb for riding a horse ‘caballgar,’ which literally translates into “to horse” from caballo (horse). Spanish is great on verbs. ‘Madrugar’ is to get up at dawn, while ‘merendar’, is to eat ‘merienda’ (afternoon tea). Another lovely verb is ‘despedirse’, which describes saying goodbye.

French has some good words as well. ‘Amuse bouche’ is something you might find on a fancy restaurant menu, but it literally means amuse mouth. It is something bite size, that is both tasty and surprising. French can be very specific like that. Take ‘defenestrer,’ which is the verb that describes throwing someone out a window.

One of my favourite French verbs is ‘flaner’, which means to stroll with no particular purpose and no particular destination. It is more fluid and aimless than the Italian ‘passeggiata’. The Spanish ‘putivuelta’ is a stroll around the town to see what’s happening and where’s the best ‘ambiente’, ambience, ‘atmosphera’. The Irish equivalent is to take a walk to see where’s the craic? If you bump into friends along the way, you have had a ‘retrouvaille’, a word which means to meet again in French and implies that both parties are pleased about it. To be ‘depayser’ translates literally as to be de-countried. Nothing is familiar. Everything is different from your country. It’s Dorothy turning to Toto and saying, “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” It’s not homesickness as much as an awareness of being totally not where you are used to being.

I had a look at words that only exist in English and discovered a few of my favourites. ‘Serendipity’ is a wonderful word, which means a happy accident. We should all have a bit of serendipity in our lives. Another word which I use a lot and which I did not realise was exclusive to English is ‘flabbergasted’. It means overwhelming surprise- a sort of “I didn’t see that coming” moment. Lastly is ‘bungalow’, a solid simple word that is truly suited to its meaning.

It sounds like a small shift, but it changes everything. As parents, we naturally notice behaviour first. The slammed bedroom door. The eye roll. The silence after school. The argument over homework. The refusal to come to dinner. The endless hours spent behind a bedroom door or scrolling through a phone.

Behaviour is visible. It demands our attention. And because it often disrupts family life, our instinct is usually to stop it as quickly as possible.

But what if behaviour isn’t the problem? What if behaviour is the language our teenagers use when they don’t yet have the words to explain what is happening inside them?

Teenagers rarely wake up deciding to be difficult. They don’t choose anxiety, loneliness, shame or overwhelm. Yet they often don’t have the emotional vocabulary or confidence to say, “I’m struggling,” “I’m scared,” or “I don’t feel good enough.” Instead, those feelings leak out through behaviour.

Imagine trying to read a book by opening it to the very last page. You would know how the story ends, but you would have no understanding of everything that came before it. Behaviour is often like that last page. We see the ending, but we miss the chapters that explain it.

A teenager who snaps over something small may have spent the entire day feeling criticised or excluded. The teenager who refuses to go to school may not be lazy at all. They may be carrying anxiety that feels impossible to describe.The teenager who seems constantly angry may actually be frightened, disappointed or deeply hurt. And sometimes, the teenager who appears perfectly fine is the one quietly struggling the most.

This doesn’t mean that every difficult behaviour should be accepted without boundaries. Boundaries remain one of the greatest gifts we can offer our children. They provide safety, predictability and security. However, boundaries become much more effective when they are paired with curiosity.

Instead of asking, “How do I stop this?” we might ask, “What happened before this?” or “What could my teenager be finding difficult right now?” Curiosity doesn’t remove accountability. It simply helps us understand what we are responding to.

Think about how we respond to a physical symptom. If someone develops a persistent cough, we don’t simply tell them to stop coughing. We become curious. We ask what might be causing it. Behaviour deserves the same level of curiosity.

One of the biggest misconceptions about adolescence is that teenagers stop needing connection. Because they become more independent, spend more time with friends and seek greater privacy, it’s easy to assume they no longer want us involved.

The opposite is often true. Many teenagers desperately want connection. They simply don’t always know how to ask for it without risking rejection or embarrassment.

Sometimes connection looks nothing like the warm conversations parents hope for.

It might look like sitting beside you while you’re watching television. It might be asking for a lift somewhere. It might even look like an argument that started over something insignificant but was really an attempt to be noticed.

Not every behaviour carries a deep hidden meaning, of course. Teenagers are learning, testing limits and making mistakes, just as every generation before them has done.

But when difficult behaviours become repeated patterns, it’s worth wondering whether they are pointing towards an unmet emotional need.

This perspective can be surprisingly freeing for parents. Instead of feeling they have failed because their teenager is struggling, they begin to see themselves as detectives rather than judges and start collecting clues instead of building cases. They begin listening. Noticing that behind the anger there may be fear. Behind the withdrawal there may be shame. Behind the defiance there may be uncertainty. Behind the constant joking there may be sadness.

This doesn’t make parenting easier overnight. Teenagers will still test boundaries and family disagreements will still happen. But when we remember that behaviour is communication, we respond differently.

And perhaps most importantly, our teenagers begin to experience something every young person needs: the feeling of being understood before being corrected. Behaviour may be the loudest thing our teenagers show us, but it is rarely the whole story.

If we can learn to listen beyond the behaviour, we may get to understand the message and discover that what looked like defiance was really distress, what looked like laziness was exhaustion, and what looked like indifference was simply a young person who didn’t yet know how to ask for help.

Honeysuckle, with its bright flowers and sweet perfume, is a symbol of beauty and summertime. However, the wood of honeysuckle, although it begins life soft and flexible, becomes very hard as it matures, with the ability to choke off the growth of any other wood by binding it tightly in its grip. This has made it a symbol in Irish legend of strength and slow inexorable power, which led to the Irish saying that anything that was hard to break was ‘chomh righin leis an táith-fhéithleann, as tough as the honeysuckle.

In Ireland, honeysuckle was believed to have a power against evil spirits and it was used in a drink to cure the effects of the ‘evil eye’. In parts of Scotland on May Day farmers put pieces of honeysuckle and rowan over the doors of the cow houses to prevent the goodness of the milk being stolen by witchcraft. In the Hebrides, they used to make a death of ivy, honeysuckle and rowan and placed it over the lintel of the cow house and under the vessels in the dairy to safeguard the cows and their milk from evil. On the Isle of Man, honeysuckle was considered good ‘to keep milk from stinginess and butter from blackness’.

The flowers of honeysuckle are full of nectar and a favourite pastime of children was to suck them for their sweet taste and this trait gave honeysuckle its name. Honeysuckle is also known as woodbine. In Irish it has several names – ‘féithleann, táith-fhéithleann, bainne gamhna’ (calves’ milk), ‘lus na meala (the herb of honey), ‘mil ghabhair’ (goat’s honey). In the 1950s, in West Cork we called it ‘táith-fhéithleann’.

In England, honeysuckle has romantic associations. If it is brought into a house then a wedding will follow and, if its flowers are placed in a girl’s bedroom, it will bring her dreams of love. Honeysuckle is mentioned by Shakespeare in a romantic context, ‘Sleep thou and I will wind thee in my arms / so doth the woodbine – the sweet honeysuckle gently entwist’.

In Irish, the name ‘bainne gamhna’, (literally calve’s milk) refers to the idea of something sweet for sucking. The name appears in the well-known old Irish song, ‘Samhradh, samhradh, bainne na ngamhna, Thugamar féin an samhradh linn. Samhradh buí na nóiníní glégheal / Thugamar féin ansamhradh linn’. (Summer, summer, the honeysuckle / we brought the summer with us / Golden summer of bright daisies / we brought the summer with us). The song was traditionally sung at Maytime as part of the festivities, when there was singing and dancing and making garlands of flowers.

In the great Irish tale, ‘Táin Bó Cuailgne’ (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), Cuchulainn is goaded into fighting the great friend of his youth, Ferdia. Ferdia had left Ulster and fought with the Connaght men and Queen Maeve against Ulster, whose greatest warrior was Cuchulainn. None of the Connacht champions could beat Cuchulainn. Maeve’s last chance was to force Ferdia to fight his friend. Cuchulainn was goaded by the words that Ferdia “has bested you as a woodbine binds trees”. Later, when Cuchulainn finally turned the table on Ferdia, he himself uses the same image. He tells Ferdia to stand aside or ‘I will entwine you as a woodbine binds trees’. It is not the gentle embrace of love that is meant here, but the crushing of an enemy in an iron grip.

Honeysuckle’s themes of love and strength come together in the Irish tale of the love between the youth ‘Baile Mac Buain’ and the princess ‘Aillin’. Their love is ill-fated and they both die of broken hearts and are buried separately. A yew tree grows from Baile’s grave and an apple tree from Aillin’s and, after seven years, poets made writing tablets out of each of them. It so happens that the two poets later attend a feast at Tara at the same time, and the high king, Cormac Mac Airt, is impressed by both poems. He asks to see the two tablets and, as soon as he takes them into his hands, they spring together and become entwined like honeysuckle around a branch. So tightly are they intertwined that no-one could part them.

In traditional herbal medicine the flowers of honeysuckle have been used to make a syrup to cure diseases of the respiratory organs and asthma, and a decoction of the leaves has been used for diseases of the liver and spleen. The most common cure was to use the leaves and flowers for gargles and lotions for inflammations of the mouth, especially thrush. The bark of honeysuckle was used in counties Leitrim and Cavan as a cure for jaundice and in Cork and Wicklow as a cure for whooping cough. In other parts of Ireland, people used to chew it as a cure for toothache. Beekeepers used to smear their hives with honeysuckle flowers so that the bees would regard them as their homes and return to them. The leaves were a favourite food of goats, hence the Latin name for the honeysuckle family comes from ‘capri folium’ (goat’s leaf).