I received one of those social media reminders today that it’s been six years since I first published FIONN: Defence of Ráth Bládhma, an anniversary that’s triggered some quiet reflection for me. FIONN 1 was actually the second book I ever published (Beara: Dark Legends being the first). It was my first attempt at producing… Read more »
A snippet from Liath Lauchra 3: The Seeking ———————————- Emerging from the cave, the warrior woman found Murchú already mounted and waiting below the yew trees. Swaddled against the cold in his black cloak, he had the lower hem drawn up and held in place beneath his inner thighs. The sight of the Uí Loinge… Read more »
This is another of the images pulled from my regular weekend research of imagery – something about the mood in this image really drew me to Eve Ventrue’s ‘The Rider’ ( the image attached to this post). I’m currently writing a chapter which involves the use of horses and was reminded of a question I… Read more »
The title in the image above – Camhaoir Fuilsmeartha – is the Irish title for a free, online, bilingual adventure fiction project released in January 2020. The English title – Dark Dawn – is one you may have come across elsewhere (it’s a bilingual Irish/English project). As with all languages, translation often doesn’t work the… Read more »
It’s a little sad, and somewhat indicative of the lingering impacts of colonisation, when you see one of your national newspapers get so much wrong with respect to ancient Irish belief systems (mythology). You can certainly respect a newspaper’s desire to produce relevant articles for an upcoming event of national relevance (Samhain) but it would… Read more »
A friend of mine passed two books on to me last week as he knew he’d get a rise. Both books were in the Celtic fantasy genre, a genre which often involves fantasy stories loaded with ‘Oirish’ cultural elements for branding purposes. Sometimes that’s not too much of an issue but, on this occasion, both… Read more »
The original stories from the Fenian Cycle (the stories of Fionn mac Cumhaill and the warrior band mistakenly called Na Fianna by medieval and later writers) are believed to have first originated in Leinster (that’s on the eastern side of Ireland if you’re unfamiliar with it) which is why so many of the Fionn mac… Read more »
When I get back home, I usually do at least three or four folklore or mythological site visits to test out various bits of research I’m working on. The Long Woman’s Grave near Carlingfor Lough is a bit of a feint but it’s hilarious marketing would put many other, far more authentic sites to shame.… Read more »
An interesting study in the Journal of Archaeological Science suggests that Viking intervention through colonisation etc. had an important impact on Ireland’s population. Over the last twenty to thirty years or so, the actual impact of Viking influence really only started to become recognised and nowadays it’s pretty much accepted that the vast majority of… Read more »
Studying the patterns in mythology has a way of changing the mind and one of the personal side effects of such research is that over the last few years, I’ve slowly ceased to believe in ‘countries’. Society Versus Geography When you look at mythology, you’re essentially looking at the cultural belief systems of a specific society.… Read more »
Writing about Ireland in the 2nd century can sometimes be a bit of a challenge because the country was so very different to what it looks like nowadays. Back in 195 AD, most of the island was still covered by dense forest and the centre of the country was undrained marsh and swamp. The population… Read more »
Because of my interest in Irish-based dramatic narrative, I’m always keen to suss them out in other media besides books, particularly where they involve subjects linked to my own passion for mythology and cultural heritage. One such project I came across recently was Paul Mercier’s movie ‘The Pursuit’ (which was actually released back in 2015).… Read more »
There’s quite an amusing story in the Guardian Newspaper site about an ‘ancient’ Scottish stone circle that actually turned out to be built in the 1990s (you can find it here: Stone Circle Story). It’s also a good example of how disconnected people from the “Celtic” countries can be from their own cultural heritage (and… Read more »
This is the hill known as Suí Finn – Fionn’s Seat (sadly anglicized to ‘Seefin’), a coastal view point on the beautiful Sheep’s Head peninsula in Cork (and the highest point on the peninsula). One of at least ten sites around the country with this name (or some derivative), most of them tend to be… Read more »
Because I tend to focus predominantly on culturally accurate Irish ‘mythology’, I come across a lot of examples where that mythology ends up being misrepresented or manipulated into something it’s not. This is what we find with the following teaser trailer for a film called “Finn MacCool” (sadly, despite the character’s Gaelic origins, the Gaelic… Read more »
In the mid-eighteenth century, an English detective working in Dublin was assigned to investigate the disappearance of a missing Irishman. On travelling to the up-market suburb where this individual had lived in a tiny hovel amongst the splendid Georgian architecture, the detective questioned the various individuals that lived nearby. What the detective found surprised him.… Read more »
QUEEN MAEVE’S VULVA AND OTHER MATTERS This article in the Irish Times gives a very nice rundown on the astounding work carried out by the Placenames Branch of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. In a sense, this particular group carries out a similar kind of preservation/conservation work to the very effective Irish… Read more »
Back in 2014, we came up with the idea for running a short story competition based on the cultural mythology of Ireland, Scotland and Wales (the ‘Celtic’ countries). They key aim of this project was to produce a number of free resources to help counter the huge volume of misinformation and inaccuracies on the internet.… Read more »
