MUSIC AND MEMORY   The first song that entered my consciousness as a young child was an American spiritual called: “Will the Angels Play their

BRETON CALVARIES   When our children were young, we used to get the car ferry from Cork to the French port of Roscoff, for our

THE STUFF OF LIFE   There was great excitement in the town when a fit up company arrived during the 1950’s. These were groups of

THE YEAR OF THE OCTOPUS   As a child I had an aversion to snakes – their beady eyes, their scaley bodies and their furtive,

TOWN LIFE   As a child, I Iiked to visit the Public Library in Loughrea. It occupied a room in the Temperance Hall and was

Life is full of miracles and mysteries.   It is a miracle that we are here on earth and that we are sustained by all that

  A work colleague went to a convention at The Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia and he couldn’t stop singing its praises.   He loved

  Defrag., an abbreviation of defragmentation is a new word for me.   Some people may be familiar with it as it relates to defragging the

Buns “AND”  “OR” Chatbots  “NOT”   I baked some raisin buns for my college-going grand-nephew and his mom.   He was designing an algorithm and translating

“Yes, we have no bananasWe have-a no bananas today.We’ve string beans, and onionsWe have an old fashioned to-mah-toA Long Island po-tah-toBut yes, we have no

Carnivorous plants   The promotional blurb for Eanna Ni Lamhna’s “Wonders of the Wild” children’s book mentioned “animal-eating plants”.   That is not something I hear

FATHERS AND SONS   It was New Year’s Eve, 2006.  After lunch I had gone to visit my father in the nursing home. Until recently

DOWN THE ESCALATOR   Las Palmas in Gran Canaria has 5 large shopping centres built like American Malls. One of them called, El Muelle, is

AN APOLOGY FOR IDLERS   While on a short trip to Edinburgh a few years ago I went to see the Scottish National Gallery. It

It’s ten years since this poem was published in the Galway Advertiser and on the Galway Review website. It’s written in the form of ‘Ode

THE WORLD WAS ALL BEFORE THEM   The highlight of the school year was Graduation – a ceremony to mark the end of post-primary education

ONE WORLD, ENDLESS IDEAS   Non-stop talk about the injustice and calamity of climate change could induce fatigue when what we need is action on

Music and Memory   My mother sang the following songs as she went about the house working; a chorus here, a verse there, or a

What Makes Us, Us   It’s complicated! Be it nature or nurture or some mixture of both, children are steered by their parents, family and

“Look here, Fiona, can you believe it”, said Somchai, calling her to see what appears to be a rice plant he found growing in the