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 »

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 »

Mysterious Gállain

We’re spoilt for choice with gállain in Cork and Kerry. This one in the Cousane Pass doesn’t get much press because of it’s isolated location. Although gállain are usually there to commemorate or mark something, it’s very hard to know what they were intended for. If it was burial-related, for example, does it mark the… Read more »

Border Guardian

‘Border Guardian’ by, always interesting artist, Vin Hill. A fictional concept, he describes it as follows: “The theme around the piece is very much based on the border between the land of the living and the land of the dead in British and Irish prehistorical landscapes. Places like stone henge are often dedicated to ancestors… Read more »

Irish Book Sales

For lovers of Irish mythology books, Irish historical fiction books, Irish historical fantasy books, Irish adventure books and Irish action books! Circumstances beyond my control mean I won’t be returning to the office until the end of July. As a result, the sale of our two bestselling Irish adventure books: Fionn: Defence of Rath Bladhma… Read more »

Out Communing with … er … Trashing Up … the Ancestors

There’s a lot of fun to be had visiting the many old megaliths and cultural sites back home, particularly in Cork and Kerry where we’re absolutely spoilt for choice. With numerous ráthanna (avoid using the English term ‘ring-forts’), galláin and many others, most are located in beautiful locations that are often as worth visiting as… Read more »

Rivers and Tailors and Fools

The Abha Mháirtín/​Martin River which flows through Blarney has a wide, flattish boulder a few hundred metres upstream from where it hits the village. Locally, there’s an old story about a tailor who was being chased by two policemen who managed to escape capture by leaping to that stone from the bank and then crossing… Read more »

An Irish ‘Thirteenth Warrior’

It’s just about four years since I published the second Liath Luachra book and, keen to distinguish it from the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series, I had the action take place much further south in the area that was once called ‘Usraighe‘. I also incorporated a number of elements from ancient stories associated with Usraighe as… Read more »