Soaking up the Yeats Experience in Sligo
The Lake Isle of Innisfree on Lough Gill. The setting for, perhaps, Yeats' most famous poem. And it's right outside the window at Damien Brennan and Paula Gilvarry's home. More than 35 years [...]
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Discovering European Capitals of Culture GalleryDiscovering European Capitals of Culture
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland
Discovering European Capitals of Culture
Museum of Alchemy in Prague, a European Capital of Culture in 2000 Since 1985, the European Commission has been designating one or two cities per year as European Capitals of Culture (ECOC). That’s [...]
2013 in 50 Photographs
Kris and I visited 13 foreign countries this year. In order: Spain, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Canada, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Japan, back to Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary. Our travels within the US [...]
Advice for Driving in the UK and Ireland
I can talk about this now, and I’ll start by saying Tom is a very good driver. And I am a very good navigator. I can read a map, have a good sense of direction, and am good at planning routes, scenic or otherwise. But things are different here in the UK and in the Republic of Ireland, and I’m not just talking about driving on the left. For both driver and passenger, I offer these true stories and tidbits of advice.
Site Blocked, and Other Little Surprises in the UK and Ireland
The message read, "This site has been blocked as potentially politically controversial. If you think this message has appeared in error, please see your network administrator," or something like that. Had I accidentally Googled my way into a terrorist site? No, as a matter of fact, I was trying to look up UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Ireland. I was in my room at Bewley's Hotel in the Ballsbridge neighborhood of Dublin, a fairly nice place, the nicest place I'd been in for quite a while.
County Wicklow, Ireland
From various high points in County Wicklow, you can see the sea both to the west and to the east. It's just a faint blue line from here, so you have to mostly content yourself [...]
Antrim Coast, Northern Ireland
We took two days to do not much more than drive at random around the northeast coast of Ireland. A lot of focus on the natural beauty of Ireland is on the more rugged west [...]
The Dark Hedges, near Ballymoney, Northern Ireland
I'm told that fans of Game of Thrones will recognize this scene from Northern Ireland, where much of Game of Thrones is filmed, evidently. Sorry, but I've only seen snippets of Game of Thrones. I [...]
Building a Bonfire, Belfast, Northern Ireland
As we were walking through the center of Belfast we saw this future bonfire at the edge of a parking lot. On the night of July 11 every year, the Protestant loyalists have huge bonfires [...]
Graffiti Artist, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Just after finishing a spray paint portrait of Margaret Thatcher, a graffiti artist sprayed a white rectangle next to Maggie to prepare his next canvas. We stopped a bit and talked to him and his [...]