Clair Wills Clair Wills was in her twenties when she learned she had a cousin she’d never met. It wasn’t as though their families drifted apart. She’d never been told of this person’s existence. It was shrouded in shame and secrecy, and she wanted to understand why. She pieced the story together from forgotten anecdotes, dim memories and institutional archives spanning four generations of...
New Year’s Eve in Dublin The echo of words were in the air as we made our way to Dublin to tramp the streets of Ireland’s Big Smoke on the last three days of the year. Our hotel off Leeson Street Upper was a stone’s throw from the Grand Canal, and a quick cut across St. Stephen’s Green — or a detour past the rigid brick symmetry of Fitzwilliam Square’s Georgian facades — to the River Liffey...
Kilkenny Castle “It’s smaller than I thought.” That’s a phrase no one wants to hear, particularly men, but I was talking about the castle we’d driven across Co. Tipperary to see. The photos I’d seen were so imposing that I guess I just expected its rooms to go on and on. Inside, it felt more like a very large country house than a fortress. Of course, size is relative. As my dad used to say, “It’s...
Exploring the ruins of Athassel priory The countryside around the Rock of Cashel is scattered with ecclesiastical ruins. The entire region bears the traces of half-forgotten martyrdoms, and the struggles of early Christian saints to wrest the island’s inhabitants from the pagan beliefs the Irish had lived with since time immemorial. The monastic way of life began in the deserts of Egypt in the...
The Rock of Cashel We left Killorglin early the next morning for the long drive across Co. Limerick to Tipperary, with stops for strong lashings of Bewley’s tea to inject alertness into a blustery grey day. Our destination was the Rock of Cashel, a remarkable cluster of medieval buildings erected on a 60m (200 foot) limestone outcrop with commanding views of the Tipperary plain. Long before...
Muckross Abbey I spent my last County Kerry day wandering the wet woods of Killarney. With so few people plodding the post-Christmas streets of the town, it was difficult to imagine just how packed Ireland’s first — and most popular — national park could be in the high season. The mountains were dressed in purple heather misted by passing rain. The interlinked Lakes of Killarney, each with its...
Dick Mack’s in Dingle We hadn’t been walking through Dingle very long when two girls with long curling tails passed me in the street. I was surprised by this, as you might imagine. But then I began to ponder the possibilities of growing up in a place where girlfriends had tails. I mean, if that’s how they do things in Dingle, who am I to complain? The wake of their perfume had barely...
Squalls sweep in from the Atlantic Eric Newby wrote that the “Dingle Peninsula contains within it one of the greatest concentrations of ancient remains in Ireland.” Much of this is located at its far end, where religious ascetics shivered their way to salvation in damp stone huts whose sparseness must have accelerated their journey to the afterlife. That’s where we headed on Boxing Day — Dingle...
Views of Kenmare Bay from the wall Life has settled in to that early January feeling of listlessness when the holidays are over, New Year motivation has fizzled out, and fresh projects are sitting on the desk but the means of starting them hasn’t yet been revealed. I guess part of me is still back in Ireland, where I’m wandering through an earlier age moistened by mists of rain. Unable to...
If you follow my News page, you’ll have heard that my latest feature article was just published in the current issue of Outpost magazine (July/August 2009). You can find it on newsstands for the next month and a half, or if you’re not in Canada or near an international magazine store you can read it right now on the Articles page of my website. It’s always nice to see a piece...