Project Aims: The general aim of the folklore project is to preserve the remaining memories of the old stories, traditions and lifestyles of the people. This will be accomplished by way of recorded interviews and may be an invaluable resource in years to come when these memories have died out and been long forgotten. This can be a digital window onto the people of Sliabh Luachra area in times past.
Our Mission StatementTo develop a Folklore Resource within the Community for the benefit of all people in the Community and the general public as a whole" A lifetime of Lyreacrompane Poetry by John Joe Sheehy. This is a PDF you can download from Dropbox. You do not have to join Dropbox just Click on " NO THANKS, CONTINUE TO VIEW". It will open and then to download to your own PC, go to the right hand side and click on the arrow to " DIRECT DOWNLOAD". Check where it is saved to on your PC.
The collections document various aspects of folklore and folklife, including material relating to livelihood and household dwellings, the community, human life, nature, folk medicine, time, principles and rules of popular belief and practice, mythological tradition, historical tradition, religious tradition, popular oral literature and sports and pastimes. The Folklore Collection can be accessed by appointment only.
Other Active Retired Groups in Kerry or other counties can be located from this website: ActiveIrl.ie
Kerry Gems Events Diary for Kerry
THE IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE AND
MOONLIGHTERS Agrarian violence during the home rule period, 1885–6 in Co. Kerry can be read HERE. A large copy of the image can be seen by clicking on it. The Advertiser is a free magazine distributed weekly throughout the greater North Kerry area and parts of West Limerick. Click the image to read the free current magazine online. Great to get times & date of venues on for the week.
Places of Interest - Kerry 1916 - PDF of a map to download from Kerry County Library. Use the plus icons to zoom in to read the text on the right
World Fiddle Day in Scartaglin
Irish Traditional Music Festival celebrating the fiddle style and music of Sliabh Luachra held annually in Scartaglin Co Kerry on World Fiddle Day in Mid May each year . From October to May they hold a monthly series called "Handed Down " where a guest presenter gives a talk on certain musicians or topics of Sliabh Luachra music history. They showcase young and upcoming musicians and also feature more seasoned musicians and a singer on each night. Have a listen to some great tunes from their SoundCloud page. Also have a listen to their Sliabh Luachra Playlist Jerry McCarthy along with others. Take the Hello Brain Challenge
Why not download the Free App for your Smartphone - available for Iphones and Androids or use it from your PC. To read more about brain health visit www.hellobrain.eu A library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.Today in Irish History
Irish History Online, Irish History articles, interviews, ebooks and podcasts. The Irish Story is a digital publisher of informed and accessible Irish history ebooks that tackles important issues in Irish History and explains them for a general audience Came across Peig Sayers family in my ramblings from the National Archives Census Dated 1911. For those of you who do not know who Peig Sayers was:
"Peig Sayers was born in 1873 to Tomás Sayers and Peig Brosnan in the parish of Dunquin on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry, Ireland. Her father had a flare for storytelling and poetry, as did her mother, and she relished every moment she could of these tales and lyrics that her elders spun. Throughout her childhood, she would leap at any opportunity to listen to the stories of the old people in her nearby villages and towns (Peig, pg 19, 33). Her love of language did not stop with the oral traditions however. At the age of four, Peig discovered the world of literature after visiting her friend, Cáit -Jim, who was already enrolled in school. That very same day, she insisted that her parents allow her to start school that week, and reluctantly they obliged (Peig, pg 15). This was her doorway to learning reading and writing, both in English and in Irish (Peig, pg 35). Books, and thus words, became her greatest treasure." More at this website: Interesting Links:
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Kilmorna House
About 5 miles east of Listowel there once stood the great Kilmorna House. It was owned by the O’Mahoneys Kerry. George O’Mahoney was step brother to Arthur Vicars. Sir Arthur Vicars was in charge of the crown jewels when they were stolen. In 1912. When George O'Mahoney died. Kilmorna House and grounds passed on to Vicars’ sister. At once she offered Vicars the place, free of charge, for as long as he wished. Little did he know the tragedy which would follow his stay at Kilmorna House. Sir Arthur Vickers loved the house. It was everything that could be wanted by a man who adored high society. It stood on 600 acres of the beautiful countryside in the deep west of Ireland. Three lodge houses with painted roofs stood by stonewall entrances. These lodges are still standing and are occupied by local people today. Kilmorna House was built of brick, surfaced with smooth Kerry Stone and, for most of the year, ivy climbed up its high walls. On the west side of the house a walk of lime trees paraded down to the bank of the river Feale, rich in salmon and trout meandering and flowing through the estate. From the granite terraces to the house, the smooth lawns sloped gently down through shrubberies and flower beds. The estate stretched from Shanacool Cross to Gortaglanna Cross, to the bridge which divides Duagh parish from Knockanure. From Shanacool to Kilmorna Station there were plantations of beech, oak and yew trees. At the age of 53, Sir Arthur, to the surprise of many, married Miss Gertrude Wright of Kilurry house near Castleisland. There were over 100 local people employed directly or indirectly by Sir Arthur, who paid them wages above the average for this backward area of Ireland. The old people of Kilmorna today still remember the huge party that was organised for the local children by Sir Arthur at Christmas. He loved to ride about the neighbouring farms on horseback. He owned the only car in the district and, once or twice a week, he would drive to Listowel, handing out produce from the Kilmorna gardens and orchards to needy families, Protestant and Catholic alike. His wife kept tiny Yorkshire terriers and in the event of the death of one of these creatures, a funeral was arranged and the workmen were expected to dress in black and look solemn. After the theft of the crown jewels, Sir Arthur, with bitter experience of the unreliability of safes, had built a strong room to house his wife's jewels, Kilmorna’s silver ornaments, valuable books and family paintings when he was away from the house. It was natural that wild stories spread through the countryside amongst uneducated peasant farmers. Could it be, asked some, that Sir Arthur really stole the crown jewels and had hidden them in Kilmorna’s strong room? It was thought that there may have been guns stored there also. The IRA considered him to be a spy and informer. Despite many warnings he refused to leave his beloved Kilmorna. On Monday, 14 April 1921, Sir Arthur was still in bed at 10 o'clock when his wife rushed into the room to tell him that there were men with pistols in the house. He ordered the servants to save as many valuable things as possible. His manager, Michael Murphy, told him the men said that they had only come to burn the house and that no one would be harmed. By this time the army was on its way from Listowel, alerted by a message from Kilmorna Railway Station. The soldiers wasted precious minutes in a chase that was fruitless. In those minutes, Sir Arthur stood under the guns of the three men from the North Kerry Flying Column, his back pressed against a beech tree. It was there at 10.30 that he was shot three times in the chest and neck and twice in the head. The house had been burnt down as the men had run through it with blankets soaked in petrol. The army wondered what might remain in the smoking ruins of Kilmorna so they blew open the strong room to find nothing. It had been empty all the time.. The O’Mahoney’s Of Kerry called in lawyers to formulate a claim for compensation against the British government, valuing Kilmorna House at around £15,000. From Listowel, people came to gaze at the great black ruin. Their children played with the dismembered pieces of suits of armour they found lying on the terrace. Some wandered amongst the tiny headstones of Lady Vicars’ canine cemetery but mostly they stood looking silently at the devastation before them. All that remains today in Kilmorna is Parnell’s tree – an oak tree was planted by Parnell 67 years ago. He said that he hoped that we would have Home Rule in Ireland before the magpies built their nests in the tree. (By Irene O’Keeffe and Laura Doran). Acquired from ListowelConnection.com, who acquired it from a Presentation Secondary School 1988 yearbook. In October 2021, the descendants of Pierce Mahony (1850-1930) of Kilmorna House near Listowel made a donation of family memorabilia to the Kerry County museum. The collection is hugely important for the county from a historical perspective and will have a positive impact on tourism, notably the North Kerry Greenway which passes through Kilmorna, as the items reveal history which was not known until the items came to light in 2020. The items donated are also significant on a national and international level due to their connection to Pierce Mahony. Pierce Mahony lived at Kilmorna House during the later half of the 19th century and sat as an MP with the Irish Parliamentary Party in the House of Commons in Westminster. During his time as an MP, Pierce kept a visitors book at Kilmorna which was signed by many famous names in Irish politics and culture at the time. The most famous signature is by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of Irish nationalism. He signed the book twice when he was in the area to speak at Home Rule meetings. The Nobel Prize winner and icon of Irish literature William Butler Yeats signed the book twice. Until the visitors book came to light, there was no evidence he ever visited Kerry. Other famous signatures include politician John Redmond, who was the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, revolutionary Maud Gonne and the famous Irish composer William Percy French, who wrote songs such as ‘The Mountains of Mourne’ and ‘Phil the Fluter’s Ball’. The people who signed the visitors book came to Kilmorna House by train from all over Ireland, Britain and the world. Kilmorna Railway Station was only a mile away from the Mahony home. The railway is now the route of the North Kerry Greenway. From 1912, Pierce Mahony became an Irish chieftain and assumed the title ‘The O’Mahony of Kerry’. His kilt is was also donated to Kerry County Museum. Also being donated is a small statue of St Francis which belonged to Sir Arthur Vicars, the half-brother of Pierce Mahony. On April 14th, 1921, the IRA returned to Kilmorna and burned down the house. They also shot Vicars dead on the garden steps on suspicion of being a spy. He was one of the most high profile civilian casualties of the Irish War of Independence and it was claimed his death led many Protestant gentry families to leave Ireland for fear of meeting the same fate during the conflict. The Mahony home at Kilmorna was one of nine Big Houses burned during the Irish War of Independence in Kerry and among 79 nationally. Some more information about places around Duagh as well as Kilmorna House... Some more information about Kilmorna House and the murder of Arthur Vicars’. He was also keeper of the Irish Crown Jewels... His great, great granddaughter Iva Pocock, and historian Tom Dillon spoke on Kerry Radio during the week, the podcast can be picked up here.. Irish History Podcasts
Hundreds of free podcasts on Irish History from the story of the Norman Invasion to the Great Famine. Download / listen online, or on iTunes or Spotify or become a patron to unlock free content. To listen to the free podcasts you do not need to become a patron. Click on the following links to read the full articles:IRELAND'S TRAVELLING MINSTRELS-
FIDDLERS ON THE HOOF- Patrick Keeffe IRELAND'S TRAVELLING MINSTRELS-
FIDDLERS ON THE HOOF The concept of the generation gap was produced by some American sociologist on a day when he had nothing better to do. There were about thirty-five years between Patrick Keeffe the great fiddle player, and me, but we couldn't have been closer friends: we spoke the same language. Patrick was born in Glounthane, a townland about five miles to the east of Castle Island. One night long ago on the radio, I heard Ciaran MacMathuna ask Patrick where is Glounthane. The answer was pithy: 'Glounthane is where the bog is.' Indeed it is – and for good measure it is in the heart of Sliabh Luachra, a region that in recent years has become a moveable feast and is now threatening to embrace all Munster. Patrick trained as a teacher in Drumcondra, and while there he won the gold medal at the All-Ireland Feis. Incidentally he set little store by this achievement – and indeed he disliked competitions. One day when he was the adjudicator at Ballyheige Fleadh, he chose a quiet corner on the stage and fell gently asleep. When asked to give his judgement, he said, 'They were all good.' Patrick began his working life as a teacher in Glounthane National School, where his parents had taught before him. He was a good teacher but the profession was not for him: he was a free-range spirit. 'Connie boy, whenever there was a fair in Castle Island or a race meeting in Knocknagree or maybe a neighbour getting married, the four walls of the school were like the confines of a prison.' There were days when he didn't turn up. His absences became more frequent and more prolonged. It was all too bad to last. And one morning when he came to the school, he found a young man sitting at his table; a rather taut silence ensued. High noon approached. In this context it was half past nine, the official time for calling the roll; the young man opened the ledger. Patrick got up and went towards the door. The young man spoke for the first time: 'Take that thin with you.' 'That thing' was his beloved fiddle; those two words in themselves tell you what little appreciation there was for country music in that barren era. Patrick was then little over thirty. There was no social welfare in those days; he was to survive without any kind of regular income. It was a daunting prospect. He made a living of a kind by teaching the fiddle. As they say in Kerry, he saw more dinner times than dinners. He was never a man to complain. He had made his own bed – and sometimes it was a bed of nails. There is a wealth of stories about him. Some are true; some have long ago passed into the common lore and are told about other folk figures. My favourite is known to almost everyone on this island: 'I went to Scartaglen last Sunday night and left the bike against the wall outside O'Connor's pub. When I came out, the wall was there but the bike was gone.' One night he failed to turn up for a recording session organised by Ciaran MacMathuna in Castle Island. Now read on . . . It was little wonder: the mountain country was under snow. Patrick's little house stood where two roads intersect – and therein hangs the tale. When Ciaran met him a few weeks later, he asked Patrick why he didn't turn up. 'Like Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross in Calvary, I was nailed to the cross in Glounthane,' Patrick replied. Humour was the great anodyne in those days when penury stalked the land. The fiddle players were very adept at it. Denis Murphy, another marvellous musician, was very quick on the verbal draw. He took up a job in New York and eventually he was joined by Jerry McCarthy, another virtuoso on the fiddle. On Jerry's first night in the Big Apple, my friend Denis took him to his favourite pub in the Bronx. They weren't too long there when the sound of gunfire came from the street, and Jerry said: 'What are they firing at?' And Denis said: 'I'll tell you one thing for sure – it isn't a fox.' They both worked as porters in the Metropolitan Gallery at the time when the Mona Lisa was on loan and thousands of schoolchildren were being brought from all over the US to view it. Jerry, God rest him, had a remarkable face – the kind you see in El Greco paintings. It was long and pale and bony and crowned with a cluster of black curls and illuminated by great brown eyes. Therein hangs a tale: when Denis was home on holiday, he said to me, 'Connie, they weren't coming to see the Mona Lisa; they were coming to see McCarthy.' Jerry himself was no slouch at catching the wry – and I recall with a mixture of fondness and sadness a little paragraph from our lives and hard times. It belongs to the era when I was headmaster in the Church of Ireland school in Ballymacelligott. It wasn't a position of great honour: it was a one-teacher school. Jerry was teaching the fiddle to one of the rector's sons. One evening the two of us set out on foot for home together. The roads were frost-bound; there were no buses. About halfway on our journey, we were assailed by nibs of snow and pellets of hail. We took shelter under a hawthorn bush that had seen better days. And Jerry said: 'Do you something, Coneen – we're like Napoleon's army on the retreat from Moscow.' Patrick Keeffe had the reputation of being fond of the drink but I never saw him the worse for it. Bill Shankly, the great Football manager, would have understood – even though he was a teetotaller. He grew up in a mining town in Lanarkshire and in his autobiography he wrote: 'Almost all my neighbours drank a lot. You couldn't blame them. They did very hard work for very low pay. They drank to keep themselves from going mad.' You couldn't say that Patrick O'Keeffe died from drink: he was well into his seventies when he passed away. And there was a certain irony in his passing: he died not from drink but for the lack of it. It was a bitter Winter. For a week in January, his little house was snow-bound. He couldn't go to Castle Island or Scartaglen for his nightly intake. He got pneumonia and was taken to hospital in Tralee; there he died about three o'clock on a Friday. His neighbour, Kate Mannix, was on the way up the stairs, accompanied by a bottle of Paddy, when a nurse told her that her old friend had died. I got on the phone to RTÉ – and, fair dues to them, they gave him a good show on the News at Six. Nobody deserved it better. Con Houlihan. Xpress, 17 July 1995. Difference Between Fairy and Faerie
Most of the people use fairy and faerie in the same sense and do not consider having many differences. For them, it is just the difference in spelling and nothing else. Both fairy and faerie are used for two different mythical spirits or figures.
“Fairy” is a word that has been derived from Latin word “fatum,” which can mean “fate.” Fairies are considered to be a group of young and pure spirits. These fairies are considered to elevate to higher levels through their impartial and loving service. Generally, a fairy refers to the young spirit which is in the mid-level of growth. They are considered to be lower to “sylph” and higher to “elf.” “Faerie” is a word that has been derived from Gaelic “fear shidhe,” which means “man of the shee.” Unlike the fairies, faeries are considered to be evil, horrid, and mischievous creatures. These mythical figures are portrayed as spirits that know easy ways of stealing. For example, faeries steal children and keep them as slaves or pets. When compared to faeries, fairies are friendly and nice. They are also good-looking and more handsome then the faeries. Unlike the faeries, fairies can be a bit mischievous but are not dangerous. The faeries are evil, unfriendly, and cruel spirits. The faeries are a bit dangerous also. When comparing the two spirits, fairies are very playful and kind. The fairies are also cute in comparison to faeries. An example of a fairy is Tinkerbell and an example of a faerie is a banshee. Summary: 1.“Fairy” is a word that has been derived from Latin word “fatum,” which can mean “fate.” “Faerie” is a word that has been derived from Gaelic “fear shidhe,” which means “’man of the shee.” 2.Fairies are considered to be a group of young and pure spirits. These fairies are considered to elevate to higher levels through their impartial and loving service. 3.When compared to faeries, fairies are friendly and nice. When comparing the two spirits, fairies are very playful and kind. The fairies are also cute in comparison to faeries. 4.Unlike the faeries, fairies can be a bit mischievous but are not dangerous. 5.Unlike the fairies, faeries are considered to be evil, horrid, and mischievous creatures. These mythical figures are portrayed as spirits that know easy ways of stealing. 6.The fairies are also good-looking and more handsome then the faeries. Read more: Difference Between Fairy and Faerie | Difference Between http://www.differencebetween.net/language/words-language/difference-between-fairy-and-faerie/#ixzz5lMAZ75f0 Documentary on Tom Billy Murphy
A radio documentary program made by Pat Feeley for Radio Éireann on the life and music of the blind Sliabh Luachra fiddle player and teacher Tom Billy Murphy Born 1879 - Died 1944 . Tom Billy Murphy (1879-1944), was one of 17 children. He was struck down by polio at the age of 13 years, following which he lost his sight and had only limited use of one leg and one arm. Tom Billy’s family were quite well off and could afford to support Tom, who was unable to earn a living by conventional means as he was both lame in one leg and blind. The family owned a big house at Glencollins Upper and Tom lived there all his life, contrary to the belief in some circles that he was a permanent itinerant. Despite his disabilities he became a celebrated fiddle (and whistle) player and occupied his time by teaching pupils around the district. He was a near contemporary (and sometime rival) of Pádraig O’Keeffe. Tom Billy himself learned much of his repertoire from a travelling blind fiddle player named Taidhgin an Asail (aka Tadhg O Buachalla or Tadeen the Fiddler). Following Taidghin’s example, his form of transport was a donkey, already unusual by this period, and he could rely on the animal to reach the destination after it had been shown the way a couple of times. Tom also had the blind man’s keen sense of hearing and smell and could identify people at long distances by their footsteps, or houses along the road by the smell of the smoke from their chimneys. He seems to have ranged quite widely as, for instance, he taught Maurice Leane of Annagh near Castleisland and Dan Leary of Kilcummin near Killarney. Unable to write music he called out the notes by name and got the pupil to write them down. On the evidence of his pupils’ present-day performances, it seems that he did not go in for a great deal of ornamentation most of the time and was probably much the same in style as an ordinary proficient player - the difference perhaps being in his sweetness of tone (not a common Sliabh Luachra trait) and breadth of repertoire, coupled with an ability to teach. Tom Billy also looms large as a "character". He had a wide knowledge of politics and world events and enjoyed sitting in pubs for hours on end arguing with people. He is buried in Ballydesmond Churchyard as is remembered with affection by the older generation for miles around. From the monument to him in Ballydesmond with the wrong dates! : In Memory of Tom Billy Murphy Glencollins, Ballydesmond Traditional Music Teacher and Storyteller Born 1875 - Died 1943 Music - the language of paradise And we’ll dance like the waves of the sea Information accessed from The Music of Sliabh Luachra website. A website with a fountain of information of the great musicians from the Sliabh Luachra area. A Guide to doing an Interview and sample Questions to ask: General Interview, Short Questionnaire and Consent Form. All interviews and transcriptions for the Sliabh Luachra Active Retired Network Folklore Project are stored in a secure location. Also there is an Interview Technique Sample you can download and get ideas from, remember its only an example.
Eamon Kelly
A documentary about actor and storyteller Eamon Kelly (1914 -2001) and the art of Irish storytelling. (Broadcast 1980) you can listen to it HERE Paddy Faley
Paddy himself was not a native of Lyreacrompane. He learned about the place from John Molyneaux as we used to say. John Molyneaux was bred, born and reared in Lyreacrompane. He married and settled down in Killeeny Glen where he lived happily with his wife. Jack and Paddy happened to work together from time to time. Jack had a great love for Lyreacrompane and the companions of his youth and very often related to Paddy events of his younger days there. So much so Paddy felt he had lived there himself. He thought it would be a pity to let it get lost without recording it in song and as Lyreacrompane is such a poetic musical sound it implement him to compose “My home in Sweet Lyreacrompane”. Jack told him, that when he Paddy sang the song and when the people of Lyre heard it they found it hard to believe that the writer who had never been in Lyreacrompane could picture it so accurately. More information on Paddy here... The History of Eggs in Irish Cuisine and Culture: A fascinating inside to the importance of eggs in Ireland's Culture. PDF to read or download.
Gun running for Casement in the Easter rebellion, 1916
by Spindler, Karl; Montgomery, W; McGrath, E. H. Captain Karl Spindler of the "SS Libau" whose boat was changed to the "Aud Norge" for the gun smuggling on the 20th April 1916.. Published 1921 translated to English and available to read online or download a pdf Click on the image of the book to read it. This digital archive features oral histories collected by undergraduate students at University College Cork. The interviews relate to all aspects of Irish life in the twentieth century - browse, listen, and learn!
Welcome to the GLENANNAR page of the Canon Sheehan site, You can now enjoy this publication free of charge by using an online "ebook", to do this simply click on the image. An audio version of the book also available from the website.
Geography:Opinions differ as to the exact region of Sliabh Luachra, but it is generally accepted to refer to the mountainous, rush-filled upland that straddles the border area in Munster, Ireland by the River Blackwater and borders the counties Cork, Kerry and Limerick.
including the Kerry parishes of Ballymacelligott, Cordal, Brosna, Knocknagoshel, Barraduff, Gneeveguilla, Scartaglen and Rathmore, the Cork villages of Ballydesmond, Kiskeam, Rockchapel, Knocknagree, Cullen, Boherbue, Meelin, and Freemount, and the Limerick villages of Tournafulla, Templeglantine, Athea, Mountcollinsand Abbeyfeale The Outlook provide free news and advertising provider for Killarney, Tralee, Castleisland and all surrounding towns and villages. Click on the image.
Music and literature The Sliabh Luachra region is recognised nationally and internationally as the bedrock of traditional Irish music, song, dance, poetry, and culture.
Sliabh Luachra has produced some of Ireland's greatest poets: Geoffrey Fionn Dálaigh, Aogán Ó Rathaille, and the charismatic Gaelic poet Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin (1748–1784) to name a few. This latter poet's many exploits live on in local folklore, as does his poetry and aislings (dramatic descriptions). His solo set dance, "Rodney's Glory," was composed in 1783 and follows his adventures after being forced to join the British Navy. Sliabh Luachra was also the birthplace of the folklorist, poet, and translator Edward Walsh (1805–1850), Patrick S. Dinneen, who compiled Dineen's Dictionary, viewed as the "bible" of Irish language, and Tomás Rathaille, Superior General of the Presentation Brothers 1905–1925 who wrote two books of Irish poetry: An Spideog and An Cuaicín Draoidheachta. This tradition of poetry continues to present day with Bernard O'Donoghue (now a lecturer in Oxford University) who won the prestigious Whitbread prize for a collection of poems in 1993/94. Professor Daniel Corkery, author of The Hidden Ireland wrote that Sliabh Luachra was the literary capital of Ireland. This region has a unique musical style which makes heavy use of the polka and the slide. Musicians from the area include Denis Murphy, Julia Clifford, Paddy Cronin, Padraig O'Keeffe, Johnny O'Leary, Maurice O' Keeffe, Jackie Daly, Con Curtin, Peggy Sweeney, and Donal Murphy to name a few. extracts from Wikipedia January 2016 Rambles in Eirinn by William Bulfin
( His tour of Ireland on a bike in 1902) As part of the transcribing of an Interview from a very articulated 93 year old he mentioned a line from a book. ” I was rambling [hungry] for a feast of the summer glory, I was filled with the desire to dim the workshop lustre of my brand new Wexford wheel”. After much searching I came across the book ( now out of print) and he had the first line of the first chapter pretty good, but the name of the book was wrong. The book is called " Rambles in Eirinn" by William Bulfin and some of it is available to read online. Bulfin travelled all around the country by a bicycle made in Co. Wexford no less, and recounts his tales and experiences along the way, the book was published in 1907. William Bulfin (1864–1910) was the fourth son in a family of nine boys and one girl, the children of William Bulfin, of Derrinlough, Birr, County Offaly, Ireland, and Ellen Grogan of Croghan, County Offaly. Enjoy.
Irish Showbands
This website is dedicated to the Irish showbands and much much more! The term "Irish showband" generally refers to a particular type of musical act popular in Ireland in the 1950's and 1960's. Irish Showbands like the Clipper Carlton, the Dixies, the Royal, and hundreds more traveled the length and breadth of Ireland playing to packed houses every night. Came across this very informative website on my travels and I think it's well worth a visit. Loads of free books to read on Folklore and Fairies on the section on Folklore from the menu. Not only that but plenty of information on Irish History as well. Be warned give yourself plenty of time to view it as it's a goldmine of information. Click on the image to access the website.
Rambling Houses - Sliabh Luachra Area..
More information at: The Sliabh Luachra Music Trail works with music festivals, heritage centers and other venues to deliver a year round programme of concerts, talks, workshops and other events. They will be adding to these on a regular basis so please check back frequently. The Maine Valley Post website is another source of information of all things musical. Interesting Website on Donegal Rambling Houses- The series of Rambling House sought to capture the atmosphere of a proper Donegal rambling house by recording six radio shows back in 2009. Time Sheet Calculator
Handy to time something cooking or to keep track of one's hours at work. |