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current article Walking in the west " 'You're doing well,' John reassured me, 'That's the fifth cross.' I smiled, stopping for a breather on the way up. 'How many are there?' I asked hopefully. 'Fourteen,' was the matter-of-fact reply. I groaned to myself but we pushed on, following in the footsteps of the pilgrims up the holy Mount Brandon on Ireland's Dingle Peninsula. The crosses made a dramatic sight against a backdrop of clear blue sky." This article looks at the experience of walking in western Ireland, from Europe's westernmost point, the Dingle Peninsula, with its rugged coastline and holy mountain, to the Connemara north of Galway, where a landscape of peat bogs, lakes and mounatins yields a treasure trove of archaeological discoveries.
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current article Wherever green is worn " The door opened very quietly, and I stepped into a realm full of ghosts. For here in the rooms of the Dublin Writers Museum is a history of Ireland's literary past. There are early or first edition books from Gulliver's Travels to Dracula and Waiting for Godot, and Ireland's greatest writers are represented here, including James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, J. M. Synge, Samuel Beckett, Lady Augusta Gregory and W. B. Yeats. Among the literary bric-a-brac are Beckett's telephone, Mary Lavin's teddy bear, the opera glasses of Yeats' friend Lady Gregory and some 1928 coins for which Yeats chaired the design committee. On this visit to Dublin I was following the Yeats Trail, a series of stopping points across the country where the Nobel Prize winning poet had sought inspiration or solitude." One of the most famous poets of the 20th century, Yeats was one of the key figures of the Irish Literary Revival. This article follows a tourist trail across Ireland that gives some sense of where he lived and an idea of the sources of his inspiration, from Coole Park where he spent twenty summers as a guest of Lady Gregory, to his grave at Drumcliffe for which he wrote the headstone's inscription himself.
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current article Far, Far Away "As Tom Cruise begins his epic journey in the 1992 film Far and Away, he looks back from the top of the mountain ridge at the Ireland he will leave behind. A land of green running down to the rocky shore, a rugged coastline with views to lonely islands in the distance. This is mainland Ireland's westernmost point, the Dingle Peninsula, a place remote from the life of the cities and bigger towns in every sense of the word. With a beauty that makes it worth leaving the beaten track." This article explores Ireland's Dingle Peninsula, from the fishing harbour and colourful town to walks and misty mountain tops, from the ancient sites and legends to hints on how to avoid those occasional tour buses.
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current article Remnants of Medieval Ireland "What if you had four successive husbands who died in suspicious circumstances and you lived in medieval Ireland? Then you'd be a witch, or so said Dame Alice Kyteler's enemies in 1324. Dame Alice, her son, sister and maid were found guilty of course, but she fled and others bought their lives. Only the maid Petronella remained to be burned at the stake in the first and only burning for witchcraft in Ireland." Follow a walking tour of medieval Kilkenny town, once the capital of Ireland, and see the splendour of the castle, the ordinariness of old laneways with colourful names, the Black Abbey where the bell still tolls, and the Old Jail where unfortunates spent time for stealing a loaf of bread. Then it's on to nearby Cashel with its fortified hill-top seat of secular and religious power.
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current article Here's to the much-read and long dead "Eithne sings her opening lines with gusto, and hands on hips she asks: 'What will you have?' The audience choruses, 'I'll have a pint!' And so Dublin's famous Literary Pub Crawl gets a roll on. The first of the pubs is The Duke, just off Grafton St, where the eager crowd fills the upstairs room. The night I went quite a few Australians were there, and even an Australian TV crew stayed with us for a while." A wander through the night, pint by pint, checking out the haunts of Ireland's literary legends, and constantly entertained by two of Dublin's colourful characters.
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