I am a canal-sider from birth but my travels took me far away from and back to canals since I was a child of seven. Now retired, my permanent home finds me five minutes from my long-time friend. I walk a spur of the Grand Canal regularly and my favourite stretch is between the library
It was a warm school day. I knew that because I was only six or seven years old, and I was, indeed, in school. Senior Infants, to be exact. Behind my school, there was a small garden area- although given my tiny size, it may as well have been an Olympic stadium. It was filled
Scéalaí: Cad is ainm duit? Bradán: Airgead is aimn dom. Scéalaí: Sin ainm ait! Bradán: Tá dath airgead nó geal ar mo chraiceann. Scéalaí: Cad as tú? Bradán: Sin scéal fada. Inseoidh mé an scéal duit anois… I mí Deireadh Fómhair I 2018 bhí tuile san tSiúir. Bhí m’athair agus mo mhátháir sa fharraige timpeall
When I was a little girl, I spent many hours wandering the stately rooms and echoing hallways of Castletown House, admiring the elegance of the country house, skipping through corridors and rooms big and small, noting every item of furniture and counting every secret doorway. My mother worked as a guide there when the house
I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” ― John O’Donohue The Liffey runs by our town but not through it. Running east to west it intersects the Naas/Dublin road at its northern end. Curving leisurely through the strand, it meanders past the old watering gates,
Our story is of creating our own waterside for nature, in 2018 we began the task of creating a community garden in our council estate in Rathcoffey, Co Kildare. There was about 1 and a half acres of waste ground lying idle and costing the council the earth to maintain, as a resident’s association we
A warm sunny day called me outside…. being 8 months pregnant, I decided to go for a short stroll….. I heard it before I saw it…. a happy babbling stream seemed to be asking me to stop beside it and to keep it company….. Little leaves floated down on the surface of its fast moving
When I stand on the bridge in Ballytore and look into the river, I am taken back to childhood remembering happy times spent walking the banks, going to and from school in Crookstown, and paddling in the shallows below the bridge. The Greise river rises in Tubber Co. Wicklow and flows into the ‘Barrow, near
Many years ago, I used to spend two weeks of every summer break at my Grandparents’ and that was always the highlight of my summer. Granny told many stories from the past, but Grandad only had one story. He told me that story once every year: it was about a little brook in the nearby
She looked into the screen and waved goodbye to her students. Closing her textbook, she switched off the laptop, the diminishing icon heralding the end to her online classes for the day. Her mood was unusually low, these were strange times after all. Perhaps some fresh air might lift the heaviness from her mind. The
Fado, fado, when i was a young one, I walked daily, hail, rain or snow, on the banks of the river barrow near Athy, in Co. Kildare. Walking the boundaries of Laoise and Kildare, the same route as my mother and grandmother had done before me. I still walk this beautiful river today. Early summer
Water is vital for all forms of life, water moves through many cycles of evaporation, condensation, precipitation, run-off. Water comes in many forms the seas, oceans, ground- water, glaciers, ice -caps, clouds, rainwater or run -off water. Freshwater has been used by humans for generations for agriculture, fishing, heating, cooling, washing, sports, to name a