Patricia’s Blog
The outer coast area of Cape Cod stretching from Chatham to Provincetown has been protected since President Kennedy signed the National Seashore legislation in 1961. I have just returned from a week there and offer my half-dozen ‘to-do’ list: Spend a few hours at the National Seashore visitor centre at Eastham to immerse yourself in…
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Glad to see The Irish Times recently publish my nomination of Erris in its Best Place to Holiday in Ireland series. This is a hidden gem in the north-west corner of my native County Mayo that is immortalised as the setting of J M Synge’s drama The Playboy of the Western World.
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Iris Galloway, in her guide to the The Great Western Greenway – ‘the longest off-road walking and cycling trail in Ireland’ – expresses the hope that her book will enhance the experience of this unique trail for walkers and cyclists. She succeeds admirably in her aim by welding together history, folklore, rich information on the…
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Achill Island 1912: A Microcosm of Swirling Political Movements.
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Literary readings, three book launches, an illustrated lecture on ‘Women Artists on Achill’ by Catherine Marshall, and a guided walk on the nearby Clare Island, all feature in this year’s Heinrich Böll Memorial Weekend on the May bank-holiday weekend. The book launches include Gisela Holfter’s Heinrich Böll and Ireland, which charts the Nobel Prize winning author’s connections…
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They say it is now ‘the largest off-road walking and cycling trail in Ireland’. The 42km Great Western Greenway stretching from Westport through Newport and Mulranny to Achill Island is proving to be a wonderful draw for walkers and cyclists alike. The trail follows the path of the disused line of the Midland Great Western…
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My piece in the current edition of Writing.ie here describes the path I travelled in writing my nonfiction book The Veiled Woman of Achill and the challenge of staying true to the facts of the story while building a compelling narrative around the 1894 dark events at the Valley House, Achill.
Read MoreOutrage on Achill. Delighted to get this review of The Veiled Woman of Achill by Aine Ryan in the Mayo News:
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Heinrich Boll in Ireland | Melville House Books. Melville House included Heinrich Boll’s Irish Journal in their book bundle for Saint Patrick’s Day. Boll’s book includes a wonderful sentence about Irish rain: ‘The rain here is absolute, magnificent, and frightening. To call this rain bad weather is as inappropriate as to call scorching sunshine fine weather.’ Irish Journal covers…
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You can walk in the footsteps of the artist Paul Henry, following the shoreline from Dooagh to Keel, as part of the May bank-holiday Achill Walks Festival. There are a half-dozen walks, some on the island, some on the north-west Mayo mainland in Ballycroy National Park and the Nephin mountain range. A century ago Paul…
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