This is an interview I had with Finbarr Murray of Capital Irish – the Irish Access Radio channel in Wellington – back in 2016. I actually spent a few years as one of the presenters on this show but had to give it up a year before the interview due to competing time commitments. In… Read more »
Given recent events following the murder of George Floyd, it’s probably worth recalling a story from 2017 when an American cop hilariously tried to counter the popularity of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement through the use of his own (cough) Irish heritage. The cop in question was attempting to translate the words ‘Blue Lives Matter’… Read more »
An excerpt from Fionn: Defence of Ráth Bládhma. While out hunting, the woman warrior Liath Luachra and her young companion Bearach have discovered tracks of a large war party in the snow. Concerned that the war party might discover their trail and follow them back to the settlement of Ráth Bládhma, they elect instead to… Read more »
One of the problems with writing independently is that it’s hard to do marketing or advertising unless you have the time/energy to commit to it yourself. Given that I usually have neither (and I’m essentially useless at all forms of marketing), I generally let it up to other people to spread word about my books,… Read more »
Scáthach – the Shadowed – is a woman warrior who turns up in the tenth century manuscript Tochmarc Emire (The Wooing of Emer). A supporting character to the narrative adventure that focuses on Irish hero Cú Chulainn, her main purpose is to add an element of depth and context to Cú Chulainn’s legendary fighting skills… Read more »
Two years have passed since I published the most recent book in the Celtic Mythology Collection Series. I had hoped to run another -slightly amended – competition this year but events, unfortunately, conspired to prevent it. The original purpose of this series was to try and educate people about Irish mythology and to establish some… Read more »
I was amused the other day to find a Russian-based pirate site offering free downloads of one of my books – “Liath Luachra: The Seeking” – the only copy of which, sits on my desktop, awaiting the last few chapters to be written. Obviously, this was one of the many false ‘pirate’ sites that are… Read more »
APRIL NEWSLETTER CANCELLED Due to barbaric workloads I’ve had to cancel April’s newsletter. I’m sure the internet can just cope perfectly well by itself while I recover but if anyone finds my temporal lobe, could you please return it to Irish Imbas at the usual address. I’ll respond to all emails, etc. when I get… Read more »
Liath Luachra: The Seeking has now passed 80,000 words – essentially the first eight chapters (and I’m currently working on Chapter 9). The book is planned for release later this year. Above is a section of the new cover for this book. Below is the current draft of the back cover blurb. ********* In the… Read more »
There’s an interesting new film from Irish Director Neasa Hardiman available in April. Set aboard and Irish fishing boat in the Northern Sea, it offers some fascinating parallels with the practical impacts of infection/epidemiology. Neatly packaged in a horror/sci-fi/adventure-style story akin to Alien or The Abyss, this does seem to be a bit of a… Read more »
It may be hard to see but there’s a lot of work going on in the background at the moment, most of which won’t become evident until later this year (or early next year). The sheer volume of work has significantly impacted on progress with a number of other projects I’m champing at the bit… Read more »
Wherever there are human beings in large numbers, you’ll find microbes and epidemics and although Ireland wasn’t vastly populated in the Pre-Christian era, its people were still familiar with the concept of disease and its spread. Centuries later, medieval writers tended to use the word ‘plague’ when describing early epidemics but, in fact, the term… Read more »
