Paddle Steamer Entering the Port of Cork, by George Mounsey Wheatley Atkinson

While the pace of publication here has slowed it’s not from lack of writing. Rather, some of the pieces that began life as potential posts here have ended up in the pages (print and digital) of the Irish Examiner.

I’m particularly proud of this one, written up to coincide with International Women’s Day. It was inspired by one of my female farming ancestors, my great grandmother Ellen Connolly, aka Ella Collins, aka “Granny Coll” to my mother and her siblings. Along the way it became a call to celebrate the legacy of women who worked the land.

Remembering Ireland’s forgotten farming women

My writing draws heavily on aspects of my own family’s history, which sort of parallels the history of many other Irish people. The furore over the ending of the eviction ban in Ireland brought up our angry, wounded association with the word “eviction” but to me also recalled a word that followed it, particularly in Famine time: workhouse. One of my ancestors was born there.

‘Eviction’ brings up other grim aspects of our history

Just last week I wrote a piece that was intended to fill in for one regular columnist, but ended up filling in for another on a different day (such is the way of the warrior). It focuses on Cork’s relationship with the water, which is as much one in its head as it is something tangible and real compared to how it used the water in previous years.

Back when the Lee was Cork’s life blood

I currently don’t have anything else in the pipeline for the Examiner but then again these weren’t planned long ahead so who knows what the future will bring? In the meantime I will work away on a piece about Frankenstein, one of my favourite books and one which I reread just a couple of weeks ago.