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Uisneach Fires
by Mawie Barrett The Hill of Uisneach may not appear in many travel guides, but local historian Mawie Barrett explains why this ancient and sacred site in the geographic center of Ireland is not to be missed. As May filters into June, it is an appropriate time to offer an insight into the ancient hill of ritual at Uisneach in Co Westmeath and what it means to the psyche of the Irish. Uisneach is where Bealtaine is celebrated annually in a ritual fire ceremony that seems older than time itself. Bealtaine Fires have been lit here since the dawn of time, symbolising the very spark of our creation, charting our…
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Even the rainbows are social distancing
by Alan McMonagle May 22, 2020 With wry humour, Irish novelist Alan McMonagle writes of the challenges of living through COVID-19. Somewhere in Bedfordshire, England a ninety-nine-year-old man is hobbling lengths of his garden to raise money for the UK’s National Health Service, and here I am, sitting on my backside, staring at my fingernails and wondering where I’ve left the bar of soap I bought. There must be other ways to stop myself going out of my mind. And I can’t help thinking that old codger in Bedfordshire, England has the better idea. So far he has raised eleven million. Eleven million. In nine days. All I’ve managed to…
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Pasteur and Uncle Paddy
by Margaret O’Brien Trasna editor Margaret O’Brien’s timely piece,“Pasteur and Uncle Paddy,” is about a deadly virus, her great-grandmother Mary, and one of the world’s most famous scientists. Today the world is in the grip of a pandemic because of COVID-19, the deadly Coronavirus. Although it has claimed many lives and disrupted economic and social life around the globe, it is not the deadliest virus. That distinction goes to another, the bullet shaped rabies virus, which kills nearly 100 percent of its hosts, both human and animal. Unlike the Coronavirus, which spreads by droplet, the rabies virus needs a host animal and it must cross from animal to human through a bite. ~~~ It was Ireland in the summer of 1898. After…
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‘Bittern Cry’ by Fergus Hogan
Our sensibility recognizes the divine in Nature and Ceremony. With vision and voice, Fergus Hogan’s lyrics intensify the connection and set it afire. Three Stones for a Decision there’s a path through the woods round the lake where I pray that I take when I’m feeling low down the summer I left I went to the edge and sat there alone every day just me the fox and the moorhen we’d watch the sun rise from the shoreline beyond and ripple its way across water till it kissed every stone on the shoreline this side and they glistened red-gold-n-amber till the sun rose so high it heated the sky and…
