It’s happening again. Every year around this time, seemingly out of nowhere, comes an irresistible compulsion to attend to the needs of the homestead. And as I have said before it is a totally primal, subliminal, unconscious thing. It quite clearly has to do with our inherent rhythms, our ancient propensity to tie up loose… Read more »

We hear a lot about our architectural heritage and the lengths to which the appropriate bodies routinely have to go to protect it from soulless development. I cast my mind back to the famous Frank McDonald book The Destruction of Dublin which was published in 1985. In the book McDonald chronicled the systematic disfigurement of… Read more »

A very important anniversary falls this year. It’s not one you are going to hear an awful lot about. There won’t be any military parades up and down O’Connell Street, wreaths laid or lapel adornments worn. It will slip by unnoticed by all but the sad few, amongst whom I must include myself. Ladies and… Read more »

I have a healthy obsession with an American singer songwriter by the name of Dar Williams. I first saw her perform in 1996 in the Jazz Café in Camden Town in North London, again a few years later in the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts and most recently a couple of years ago in the… Read more »

I caught an interesting discussion on the Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk the other morning. Pat was interviewing (actually a more accurate verb might be ‘crucifying’) the Chief Executive of The Housing Agency. And perhaps the most striking and interesting thing about the Chief Executive of The Housing Agency was how fondly he spoke, how… Read more »

I have been given a brief for a townhouse garden, 15 metres long x 8 metres wide. So what, says you. Nothing startling, special or unusual about that. And, of course, you’re right. I only mention it because it is one of those that crop up every so often that is proving especially difficult to… Read more »

Some day when you have absolutely nothing else to do, Google the phrase ‘Sound of the Suburbs.’ In all likelihood, what will appear before you on the results page is a collection of versions of The Members hit single of the same name from the nineteen seventies. You will also see a string of references… Read more »

Every summer, the last week of July, the good folk down in Carlow Tourism stage the Carlow Garden Festival. This year in fact it ran for nine days, from July 21st to July 30th. The idea is to stage at least one event on each of those days whether it be a talk, a presentation,… Read more »

Right, so here is something I’m pretty sure you didn’t know. I only found out myself this morning. You can grow a banana plant in your back garden. Or your front garden for that matter. Despite their exotic appearance, the roots of banana plants can withstand bone chillingly cold temperatures. Now, in the Irish midlands… Read more »

Let me throw a few interesting statistics at you. The world consumes 1 000 000 plastic bottles per minute. That is the equivalent of approximately 17 000 per second. 480 billion bottles were sold globally in 2016. If laid end to end they would reach halfway to the sun. By 2021, at current rates of… Read more »