Life has been busy! I haven’t posted since October, skipping November altogether… it’s the longest I’ve gone since starting this blog. Without further ado, here are a few brief updates from the last several weeks before any more time passes. Christmas time is here Dublin is in full-on Christmas mode. The street lights went up in mid-November, and the festive season has...
It’s been a busy past few weeks — a trip to Manchester UK a the end of August for Pride weekend there, multiple office social events, and various get-togethers with friends. It feels like today has been the first day I’ve been able to relax in awhile. The weather has turned rainy once again — a good excuse to stay in and write a blog post — after a stretch of dry days last week and...
The past two weeks have been relatively uneventful. Work continues to be very slow. The warmest summer weather is behind us now, but temperatures have still been in high 60s F / low 70 F, around 20 C. On Sunday I took a long walk with a friend out to Phoenix Park, which I hadn’t visited in many months. The open skies were a refreshing break from Dublin’s urbanity. I also captured some glowing...
My friend S., whom I had not seen since Christmas, came for a visit to Dublin for the weekend. I met him at the Spire after his train arrived in the afternoon, then we had lunch at a Japanese place, Musashi, on Capel Street — bento boxes with katsu curry, sushi and gyoza. On a whim, we decided to go see a one-man theatrical performance in the evening by Gabriel Byrne, a well known Irish movie...
BIG NEWS! Ireland is officially on the other side of the omicron wave. This evening at the start of the 6 o’clock news, Taoiseach (prime minister) Micheál Martin announced that almost all COVID restrictions will be lifted effective Saturday at 6:00am. The decision was made after the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) gave the green light on lifting restrictions in its report to...
Happy Winter Solstice! This day always brings to mind the ancient Irish site of Newgrange. From Wikipedia: “Newgrange is a prehistoric monument in County Meath, Ireland, located 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) west of Drogheda on the north side of the River Boyne. It is an exceptionally grand passage tomb built during the Neolithic period, around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the...
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London. The Treaty formally ended the War of Independence, set the stage for British withdrawal from most of Ireland, and the handover of power to an independent Irish government. However, the Treaty only gave Ireland independence as a member of the British Commonwealth, not as a Republic. Northern Ireland was to remain...