Begorrathon 2017: William Orpen

For me, though, I will always be drawn to the National Gallery to see The Holy Well, Orpen’s scathing repudiation of a romanticised view of western Ireland and Celticism as ‘pure’ and ‘authentic’ (a notion that was very en vogue at the time; see William Butler Yeats).

Begorrathon 2017: Grattan and Me

There’s a Zulu proverb – umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – that roughly translates as “A person is a person because of people”: in other words, our characters are shaped by those we encounter and are ever changing. That is the rough theme of Tom O’Neill’s Grattan and Me, a sprawling, freewheeling satirical look at modern Ireland, circa […]

Fluffing Apologies …

If you’ve never been in a room full of adults playing Pass the Parcel with an invisible ball of energy, then you don’t know what you’re missing.

At the John Hewitt Summer School

I left Armagh with a bag full of books, a head full of ideas, a heart full of memories, and the soft feel and lingering scent of hugs and kisses from my new friends.

Hay Festival Kells

The four-day programme begins on Thursday, June 23rd.

Awesome!

I was recently nominated for the Awesome blogger award by My Mind Reels Through Film. It’s very odd. I mean, seriously weird. Like, Japan -level weird. The Rules: #1. Copy and paste the image with the rules. #2. Share one thing that you thing that makes you truly awesome. #3. Nominate other bloggers for […]

Dublin & Dredd

Firstly, apologies, fluffsters, for my absence from the blogosphere for the last few days. I am currently visiting family and friends in Dublin and have not had time to do much on the old interweb. I almost made it to the end of the A to Z Challenge for April, but I wasn’t able to […]

First Chapter, First Paragraph, First Lightship

Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where you can share the first paragraph, or a few, of a book you are reading or thinking about reading soon. #begorrathon16

Begorrathon 2016: Week Three

Now that Easter Week is about to begin, we’re expecting a lot of posts relating to the Easter Rising.

An Irish Country Teaser Tuesday

Barry Laverty, M.B., can barely find the Northern Ireland village of Ballybucklebo on a map when he first sets out to seek gainful employment there. But Barry jumps at the chance to secure a position as an assistant in a small rural practice.

The Fluff Is Raging

Flufferings on Arts, Culture and the Perpetual Allure of Uma Thurman by an Irish ex-pat currently at large in Canada

Ireland