Ireland's Food Revolution We Irish have had a fraught relationship with food for far too long. Generations were raised to see it as a crime to leave even the tiniest morsel on our plates. Instead of being encouraged to develop a taste for good food, we were told to consider ourselves lucky to have any food at all. Is this a legacy of our past? For centuries, British landlords … [Read more...] about A Taste of Ireland
Sharon Ní Chonchúir
A Glimpse of Ireland Past
Sharon Ni Choncuir discovers that 'Romantic Ireland' is still alive. ‘Romantic Ireland is dead and gone. It’s with O’Leary in the grave.’ This was Yeats’ lament in the Ireland of 1914 and it was often repeated during the Celtic Tiger years. In our frantic quest for materialistic modernity, Ireland and its people were said to have forsaken the traditions of the past. But how … [Read more...] about A Glimpse of Ireland Past
Poets & Pubs in Dublin: A Literary Tour
Dublin’s fair city has changed in recent years. Cranes have come to dominate its skyline and people of all hues – Polish, Chinese and African as well as Irish – now throng its streets. Yet one essential aspect remains the same. Dublin still has its literary heritage, a heritage that revolves around poets, pints and pubs. If Parisian writers were inspired by café life, their … [Read more...] about Poets & Pubs in Dublin: A Literary Tour
Sea Fever: An Irish Surfing Odyssey
Ireland, with 3,000 miles of open Atlantic to the West, offers some of the best surf conditions in the world. Sea Fever, a documentary, covers the history of Irish surfing from the early 1960s to the present. Surfing. The very word brings to mind golden sunsets over tropical locations. The palm trees of Hawaii. The warm seas and roaring waves of Australia and California. … [Read more...] about Sea Fever: An Irish Surfing Odyssey
The Polish Connection
Since Poland joined the EU in May 2004, two million people have left the country. An estimated 250,000 of them have come to Ireland where they now amount to five percent of the population. In fact, so large is the Polish contingent in Ireland that when the two countries recently met in a soccer match in Croke Park, penalty scorer Stephen Hunt remarked that it was like a home … [Read more...] about The Polish Connection