It’s fascinating to see what happens when fantasy becomes strong enough to merge with reality (or vice versa where Amazon, hobbits, and Ireland are concerned). When the LOTR movies were first released a few years back, Tourism New Zealand was busy branding New Zealand as ‘Middle Earth’. When the first few series of Game of… Read more »
Floored with the Rings
I don’t know how many readers have been following that LOTR spin-off (‘The Rings of Power’) but from an Irish perspective, I can tell you that a lot of people are angry at the creators’ appropriation of Irish accents for their Hobbit/Hapfoot (or whatever they’re called) characters. Misrepresentation of someone else’s culture has a longer-term detrimental impact on… Read more »
An Mór-Ríoghain or ‘The Morrigan’
There are some helpful measures to gauge when someone genuinely knows something (anything) about Irish mythology or not. How they represent An Mór-Ríoghain is usually a good one.
“Volley of the Kerns”
Nice, atmospheric image by artist Joseph Feely depicting a spear volley by a group of Ceithrenn (normally referred to as ‘Kern’ by non-Irish speakers). I get a lot of overseas fantasy militarists visiting the website who get quite turned on by the idea of Ceithrenn. Some of these have quite strange views about what they… Read more »
In the Shadow of the Death Sun
I’m just in the process of completing the last chapter in Fionn: Stranger at Mullán Bán and felt it might be timely to offer a small taster of what that book will be about. For those of you who’ve been following this series, the events in this fourth book take place six years after Fionn:… Read more »
Ráth Meadhbha
Ráth Meadhbha is looking a bit run down these days but after 3000 years (best estimates put its construction in the early Bronze Age (2000–1500 BC) I guess that’s pretty understandable. Climb in over the shaky ‘geata’, slip through the trees and you find yourself in an open field that could be a farming meadow… Read more »
Odin Land
I came across this beautifully moody pic by Italian-based artist Daniele Gay this morning while researching a new cover concept. Generally his work tends more to dark sci-fi or futuristic imagery but he has the occasional more ‘historically based’ works as well. Generally, in my day-to-day work, I don’t place too much focus on Norse… Read more »
Oisin Rides to the Land of Youth
This beautiful painting is entitled “Oisin Rides to the Land of Youth”. Painted in 1936 by American artist Newell Convers Wyeth. it represents a more Anglophile view of Irish mythology that many non-Irish creators continue to produce today. You can’t fault Convers Wyeth however. A talented illustrator and painter, he produced a huge body of… Read more »
Croiméal – Moustache
A great image from Cork-based illustrator and tattoo artist, Michael Nolan (who’s based in Cork under Arti Tattoo). This one really took my fancy for some reason.
Oirish Obbits!
I’ve yet to see the new LOTR series but the initial Irish Times review is actually quite funny and they summarized it with the following tagline: “De Lord of de Rings: The new hobbits are filthy, hungry simpletons with stage-Irish accents. That’s $1bn well spent“ I’ve always seen ‘Hobbits’ as having more of an upper… Read more »
Last Days of the Liath Luachra Sale
The first book of the Irish Woman Warrior Series has been on a trial sale for the last two weeks but this will soon be coming to a close. Liath Luachra: The Grey One is probably the favourite book (and Liath Luachra is the favourite character) of readers who follow my mythological adventure stories, so… Read more »
A different Warrior Woman
I’ve been an enormous fan of Czech artist Satine Zillah for a few years now as I’ve always been impressed with the incredible amount of detail and cultural research she puts into her work (it really has to be seen to be believed). As a result, I was very pleased to learn that she’s still… Read more »