….Having long exhausted the phrase ‘the last place God ever made’, here I am in Gleann Cholm Cille, west Donegal.
Trees.
Decades passed into centuries, names changed and Ireland transformed. But those trees stood.
What was it like?
Someone asked me a few weeks ago what living on the island was like. It took a while to come up with an answer better than, ‘I dunno, eh grand I suppose, fine like.’
Sitting a while in churches.
Time passed, and travels amassed, but the habit of stopping in churches never left me.
And in the dark of night…
The city dweller might think this absoluteness of silence and darkness intimidating or boring, but I am transfixed.
In praise of swimming in the sea
I think the sea swimming is an act of gratitude – gratitude perhaps for being alive, healthy and happy, and for being all those things here.
Inis Meáin II: I moved there
I’ve few illusions but so perfectly did the stars align to land this opportunity in my lap, it almost must be right.
Visiting Inis Meáin
Inis Meáin is at once bleak and alluring, as much as reminder of how handy we have it here and how unnecessary much of what we have is.
Sunset, and the photos I wanted to show off.
A spectacular sunset transforms the landscape for a few minutes, allowing us to look anew at every day’s view.
The bog’s special place in the Irish imagination.
The bog has a special position in the Irish imagination; an otherworldly place that we avoid like the plague as children but Instagram the living daylights out of in adulthood.
Inisbofin, and the view of Inis Meáin
…for it was in Bofin a fortnight ago that I saw my time on Inis Meáin with pure clarity.
September 3rd 1995.
September 3rd 1995, the day I learned that anything could happen.
Living the other language
I think of all of this Irish I have, and how I got it, and what I’ll do with it.
And how it came to mean so much to me.
Anois teacht an earraigh…
And winter forgotten, all over again.
Frosty night, Inis Meáin.
No movement on the island this night. Absolute stillness. Contagious calmness
Home, part 1.
This place has moulded me in many ways…
The music.
…. At the miracle of sounds made that show us ourselves
The west village.
It’s to where doubters came and said, ‘I get it now, I get why you’re here.’
The boat.
From the boat, the unlikelihood of living on an offshore island is laid bare.
The sea, and me.
The spectrum of opinion on the sea runs from romance to respect
Brigid brings the spring
Brigid’s Day reflected our own lives; rushes were easy come by in west Roscommon, Brigid was headstrong rather than immaculate, she was protector of animals and we were the children or grandchildren of farmers.
To every thing, there is a season…
Summer was marvellous and though it’d be better if it was always summer here, winter will bring certain benefits
The time I went to Mexico…
Mexico is above all vibrant, but the real joy was the adventure; the rucksack on the back again.
The kind of life I want to have.
What happens on Inis Meáin isn’t just seen but smelt and felt and heard.
The time I went to Tory
To every island there is a wildness, but to Tory there is a rareness.
Ukraine. And the end of indifference.
The jolt out of indifference has been sharp and swift.
doireann.ie 