This is an element of a side project on the Irish Fenian narratives that I’ve been working on, on and off over the past year or so. It’s still at a conceptual level for the moment so I’m undecided as to whether I’ll commit the time needed to complete it next year.
Not many people are aware of the fact, but Napoleon Bonaparte was a serious fan of Fionn mac Cumhaill and it was often claimed that he slept with a copy of the Fhiannaíocht tales beneath his pillow at night [but that’s pretty unlikely]. Sadly, much of Napoleon’s interest stemmed from a fondness for a work… Read more »
It’s been seven years today since I published “Liath Luachra: The Swallowed” so I celebrated by creating a brief scene from the woman warrior’s adventures. I’m still being asked when I intend to do the follow up to Liath Luachra: The Metal Men and the simple answer is “Once the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series is… Read more »
Did you know that: Nope. Me neither. So what’s actually happening? You might want to read on. Working in the Irish culture, history and ‘mythology’ sector over the past three decades, I’ve come across some pretty crazy notions and claims on the internet, of which the above are just the tip of the iceberg. Some… Read more »
This week I’m scoping out some of the details for the last book in the Fionn mac Cumhaill Series which is provisionally title ‘FIONN: Return to Almu’. Cnoc Almhain (the Hill of Almu) in County Kildare was the reputed base of Fionn’s grandfather (Tadg mac Nuadat) and the area where his mother Muirne Muncháem was… Read more »
Just a brief heads up on the proposed Beara Series. I’m breaking the Beara Trilogy into a series of 6 books (each book in the Beara Trilogy = two books in the Beara Series). The first book in the Beara Trilogy is Beara: Dark Legends The first two books in the Beara Series are: Beara:… Read more »
Irish people used to be in the unique, if somewhat unenviable, position of having our cultural ‘mythology’ and history (in particular, our prehistory) regularly misrepresented in narratives by overseas entertainment interests. Fortunately, the recent shift to Scandinavian culture means that, in that respect at least, we now have some company. It’s an interesting phenomenon but… Read more »
A selection of some of the images I used while writing the character Liath Luachra in ‘Liath Luachra: The Great Wild.’ This particular set from Spanish artist/photographer Lídia Vives was very helpful in that it really captured the savage/feral aspect of the character and it was a good baseline to fall back on whenever I… Read more »
There’s a lot of misinformation online about this rock in Kilcatherine on the Beara peninsula. So much so, that the rock is now regularly polluted by votive ‘offerings’ left by tourists and ‘seekers’ who don’t really understand its cultural context or the reason behind its evolution to fame. Last month I started the next novel… Read more »
After reading Simon Stålenhag’s artwork/book ‘The Electric State’ (which bears only a minimal relation to the movie) and reviewing it in my newsletter (Vóg), I was intrigued enough to try another of his works. This time, its ‘Things from the Flood’, which I’ll also review on Vóg at the end of the month. I have… Read more »
‘Tristan and Iseult‘ is a medieval romance that was adapted in the 12th century from earlier tales and tells of the illicit love affair between a Cornish warrior called Tristan and an Irishwoman called Iseult (in the stories she’s often described as a ‘princess’ – but that’s really a more modern English concept that didn’t exist… Read more »
It seems a bit odd but in March 2025, the United Kingdom’s ‘Royal Mail’ released a stamp featuring the legendary Irish figure, Fionn mac Cumhaill, as part of a series intended to capture legends from different parts of the ‘United Kingdom’. The Fionn mac Cumhaill image (by artist Adam Simpson) was included in the series… Read more »
