History & Folklore - West Cork People

History and landscape of the Mizen Peninsula explored in new book

WCP Staff February, 2026

‘This Is The Mizen’ presents a rigorous and wide-ranging investigation into the history and landscape of the Mizen Peninsula in West Cork. Drawing on extensive research and a journalist’s eye for detail, John D’Alton, a long-time Mizen resident, brings clarity to a region often obscured by myth, assumption, and romanticisation. […]

Trump’s foreign policy is no different to American presidents of old

Kieran Doyle February, 2026

Whatever one’s opinion of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the world was left open-jawed at the audacity of the move by US military forces to seize the president in one pre-ordained swoop so he could be placed on trial in New York for criminal charges. Maduro by all accounts is a […]

Seán Ó Coileáin (1754-1817) – Part I of a series

Eugene Daly February, 2026

Daniel Corkery refers to ‘Irish’ Ireland in the eighteenth century, that is the country outside of Dublin and the larger towns, as the “hidden Ireland” in his book of the same title. He refers to it as that “dreadful century during which our forefathers were tested as never before. He […]

The potato in Ireland

Eugene Daly January, 2026

It is a historical fact that the potato, more than any other crop, dominated the farming system of Ireland in general, and of West Cork in particular, all through the 19th century and indeed well into the 20th. The early variety in those days was either the ‘Red Elephant’ or […]

Comparing Putin to Stalin

Kieran Doyle January, 2026

Defendants in the Moscow Show Trials of the 1930s. Within these past few weeks, Trump’s audacious attempt to broker a peace deal in Ukraine, if accepted, could result in a humiliating defeat for Ukraine and a justification that if a bigger country like Russia wants something, then they can go […]

What our ancestors drank: Part 2

Eugene Daly December, 2025

At one time almost every housewife made her own wine. The only essential additives to wine not requiring to be stored are yeast, sugar and water. The most popular of the homemade wines were made from sloes, blackberries, elderberries, rhubarb, apples, beetroot, nettles, carrots and potatoes. Other homemade brews included […]

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