History & Folklore

One of the great blessings that enrich our lives is birds; their colour, their habits, their eggs, but above all their song. Among the things of which we may be most afraid is the silence of birds. Rachel Carson, in her seminal work on the effects of artificial pesticides on […]

Welcome to 2022. Perhaps the most significant anniversary in Irish history, this year is the centenary of the Irish Civil War. Let’s look at contemporary events elsewhere to put this war in context. Why did this conflict, that only had a fraction of the 38,000 deaths suffered during the Finnish […]

In 1954, USA, the civil rights movement won a landmark case which ruled that the segregation (the deliberate and legal separation of the white and black races), of schools was unconstitutional. This landmark case, known as ‘Brown v Board’, would mean the dismantling of all segregated institutions from Mississippi to […]

Christmas as a time of celebrations and revelry goes back to the customs of  pre-Christian times. Mistletoe, yule logs, holly and evergreen trees are of pagan origin, sacred to the Romans and Celts. Of all the Christian festivals, Christmas was considered the most important in Ireland, and preparations began some […]

While today we are more inclined to see life as a linear progression from our physical birth through to our death, a beginning and an ending , Eugene Daly says the ancient Irish saw life as a recurring cyclical process of birth, life, death and regeneration. In the midst of […]