I headed to Tullamore Show last week, armed with copies of Would You Marry A Farmer?, sharing a stand with Oonagh Monahan, author of Money for Jam and being part of the Business Action Group, I was wondering what to expect in terms of sales. The tent was positioned in the top left corner of the field, good in one way but a long way from the stands at the other end! What became evident was [...]
The working title for my next book is something along the lines of ‘How to be a perfect farm wife’, as a sequel to ‘Would You Marry A Farmer?‘. I feel a bit of a fraud though as there is no way I could describe myself as a perfect anything let alone a perfect farm wife. I was going to add ‘the cheater’s guide’ to the end of it but then I decided I’m not even sure if [...]
My father moved up to Garrendenny Castle when he was 7 back in 1945, his father having inherited it from an uncle who bought it around 1908. Before that it was owned by the Warren family for about 30 years and before that were relatives to the Butler family of Kilkenny Castle, albeit very much the poorer relations.
Garrendenny was often described as a “poor man’s castle’ consisting of relatively small rooms, one room wide in the 3 storey part with [...]
Farmers haven’t always been seen as a good catch. Farming was often be a very isolated occupation, with the farmer living on an isolated farm, eking out a living and caring for an aged parent, usually a mother. The age difference between husband and wife could be a couple of decades in some cases, partly because the man could be in his 40s or 50s before he could afford to marry. His father might have died or die during the [...]
The Irish Wake is popular within Irish folklore and within Irish books (or at least it was popular when I was in school!) so I just thought I would write a post showing what the modern Irish wake is like, and to be honest, it is probably not all that different to what it was like 50 or 100 years ago. Less alcohol now but the principle is still very much the same.
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