A blast from the past with this old post (and draft cover) from 2015. At the time, I was still writing the first Liath Luachra book with the intention of using it as a prequel for the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series. That plan went kinda sideways. After an initial lacklustre reception on it’s publication, more… Read more »
‘Turning Roads’ is an innovative anthology of short narratives centred around the theme of ‘Irish Folklore’ and told through the medium of comics. Consisting of 18 different stories contributed by a range of creators from Ireland and overseas, it was edited and produced by Paul Carroll in early 2022. It’s probably worth noting up front,… Read more »
This is a selection of some of the images I used when I was originally conceptualising the woman warrior Liath Luachra. This particular set (from Spanish artist/photographer Lídia Vives) visually captured the savage/thoughtful aspect of the character and proved a helpful prompt when writing. I’ll probably be using these again for the next book (Liath… Read more »
A selection of production shots from Macnas’ ‘Gilgamesh’ (a Galway 2020 project). The final product was a short 20 minute movie, of which you can find various snippets online. The Macnas visuals – as always – are sublime but I didn’t think the script worked particularly well. Given theat the original myth takes places in… Read more »
It’s already been a year since I released the first ‘Irish Imbas Catalogue’, but of course its already out of date!In any case, if you want to know a little more about what I do and why I do it, you can find it here: Irish Imbas Catalogue
Over the last few years. I’ve restricted my public work on Irish culture and mythology to the three Celtic Mythology Collections and haven’t really published anything further on the topic. This was predominantly due to a growing cynicism with the ‘spiritual’ industries and ‘new age’ style religions who regularly comandeer elements of Irish culture and… Read more »
‘Scéal’ is an interesting little story-based game I came across last year (although it was actually released way back in 2016!). Originally created by Sandro Magliocco, the Slovakian-based developer drew on childhood holidays in Carlingford to set the overall look and design of the project. ‘Scéal’ tells the story of the ghost of a young… Read more »
Ever since the infamous Battle of the Books (when the force of Saint Columba and Saint Finnian ended up fighting over the illegal copying of a psalter), Irish people have been opposing each other over the creation and ownership of works of art. It’s been particularly interesting to watch the dynamics in the Irish art… Read more »
I got a bit of a shock today when a ‘Facebook Memory’ post alerted me to the fact that it was seven years since I’d published Fionn: The Adversary. After that initial shock – and suddenly feeling very, very old – I was slightly mollified (and relieved) when I worked out that the post was… Read more »
Looking across to Beara from the Sheep’s Head peninsula with ‘Cnoc Daod’ glowering under the central clouds. The name ‘Cnoc Daod’ can be roughly translated as ‘the quick tempered hill‘ (relating to the weather and its ability to turn bad fast). Back in the day, the name was anglicized to ‘Hungry Hill’ (and there’s an… Read more »
It’s almost a year to the day since ‘Dark Dawn’ – a free, online interactive project based on the Irish mythological Fenian Cycle was released online. Although produced on a shoe-string budget over the initial chaos of the 2020 Covid pandemic, the final product remains quite strong and garnered some very favourable reviews GrimDark Magazine… Read more »
I came across Fidget Feet (a Limerick-based Irish ‘aerial circus performance company’) several years ago when I saw their ‘Sky Dance’ – a performance carried out against the backdrop of Dublin’s Customs House as part of the 2016/17 new year’s eve celebrations – which really blew me away. I’ve always had a fascination with dance… Read more »
