Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda
The Gloaming are something of a traditional Irish music supergroup, infused with something of a post-classical/Indie sensibility. They comprise fiddler Martin Hayes, guitarist Dennis Cahill, veteran Sean Nos singer, Iarla Ó Lionáird, fiddler Caoimhín…
With the prospect of mass extinction in the news, it seems a good time to reflect on the loss of soundscapes. In Ireland, the corncrake and the curlew were once…
A while back I posted a group of rain songs – featuring Sinatra, The Go-Betweens and Linda Perhacs. If I had known about it at the time, I would have…
This is not the first time this has happened. Nevertheless it is eerie to walk beside a dried-up river, especially one that at other times is prone to flooding. Evidently…
Often it is said that “Eskimos” have fifty, or a hundred, or hundreds, of words for snow. I had vaguely picked up that this was discredited … although it turns out…
A little while ago I blogged that Choctaw artist/writer Waylon Gary White Deer was to lead a Famine Walk on the 28th July Well, today was the 28th July, so…
I dabble, with unapologetic amateurism, in drawing. There are all sorts of intellectualised reasons I could give. One influential one was reading Tristan Gooley’s observations on how well artists read landscapes. Ultimately…
The current issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine has a fascinating cover story by Elin Kelsey on hope and optimism versus despair in how we think and act about the environment. Essentially, much…
Séamus Sweeney 