As promised, Liath Luachra: The Seeking is finally being released today. It’s something of a ‘soft’ launch however (in that you wont see much fanfare) as the book will only be available in digital form through the Irish Imbas Books website (and in paperback form through Amazon) for the next month or two. After that,… Read more »
Interesting Parallels with Irish Culture
Recently, the Cherokee Nation in the United States gave notice to Stellantic – the company making ‘Cherokee Jeeps’ – that it was time to stop using their name and culture for commercial branding purposes. This followed actions by other American tribes (e.g. pressures on the Washington Redskins football team to change their name, the Navaho… Read more »
Brian Boru – Guerrila Fighter against the Vikings
Attached is a short but interesting video on Brian Boru from an old television series called ‘Ancient Warriors‘. This being an American series, much of the pronunuciation of Irish names and terms is pretty dodgy and the producers seem to have got their locations badly mixed up. That said, they do cover the inter-tribal discord… Read more »
Patterns in History and Mythology
You can’t really understand mythology if you don’t have the culture and the historical context – one of the reasons Western-based “internet mythology” remains an ‘entertainment’ rather than actual ‘knowledge’. When it comes to mythology, one of the biggest mistakes people tend to make is an enthusiatic and frenzied focus on individual events and records… Read more »
IRISH WOMAN WARRIOR ON A HORSE
This was a snippet from Liath Luachra: The Seeking which I first put online this day a year ago. Today I sent the completed manuscript off to my editor for a final check prior to its release in March so it seems apt to put it out again. ———————————- Emerging from the cave, the warrior… Read more »
Liath Luachra – Teaser Trailer
It’s hard to believe but it’s apparently been two years since this home-made trailer for the Irish Woman Warrior Series ( a series of books on the fictional adventures of an Irish woman warrior and her mercenary war party, Na Cinéaltaí – The Friendly Ones) first appeared online. It’s certainly been an interesting (and slightly… Read more »
The End. And the Start.
I’m finishing up this year with a beautiful photo from Aida Pascual that summarises my feelings for 2020 and 2021 far more effectively than words probably could. 2020 was extremely hard for everyone and although there’s hope for stability and peace in 2021, for many that remains a distant goal across a dangerous traverse. On… Read more »
FAVOURITE CHARACTERS: NUMBER TWO – DAHL
Dahl is a young, attractive, and very mysterious Hungarian woman from the short story ‘The Ring Master’s Daughter’. When I first wrote this tale some twenty years ago, I was originally trying to create a situation involving a dialogue between two strangers, where you could never be entirely sure whether anything that was said was… Read more »
Gaelic Slavers
I was intrigued by a recent image I came across from Polish illustrator Piotr Chrzanowski, as it includes an intriguing level of cultural authenticity that lifts him far above the usual visual representations of (what passes for) early Irish warriors/culture. Chrzanowski’s own description notes on the image describe it as: ‘Gaelic Irish raiders’ – a… Read more »
Walking “the Great Mother’s Mantle”
The Sliabh Bládhma mountains are located in central Ireland and, according to geologists, they’re one of the oldest mountain ranges in Europe, purportedly once rising to a height of 3,700m. That’s hard to believe nowadays of course. Over millennia, erosion has worn the mountains down to 527 metres and they’re really more aptly considered as… Read more »
Paperback Books
I’m pleased to announce that nearly all of my books can now be ordered through bookshops anywhere in the world (while recognising many of them are still closed due to the pandemic). For the last six years or so, there’s really been only three paperbacks available in print outside of the Amazon system (Fionn 1, Fionn 2 and… Read more »
THE HEAD OF THE SHEEP
Rinn Mhuintir Bháire – The Point/Headland of the People of Báire two years before the Age of Covid. Twenty years ago this place used to be deserted although I once met a crazy woman on the side of a hill road, sitting quietly on a stool in the rain with her dress pulled up around… Read more »