In recent years (the tropical chapter), the week before Christmas each year, my next door neighbour, Carol, would play festive tunes. Classics from a bygone era, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Perry Como, Johnny Mathis, etc would delightfully waft across the garden. It was a magical time of the year. I miss my very good friend, and her kindness. Beers on her terrace at sunset, my two...
I would like to wish all the readers of the website, a very Merry Christmas. We have people browsing from such countries as Ireland, England, Scotland, Germany, France, Holland, Italy, Asia, Canada, the USA, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Thank you for all the messages, during the year, of kindness and support. I haven’t published as much this year as anticipated...
Apologies, I have not been posting much in recent months. I have not been writing anything at all. But the creativity is still there, and I have been working in the evenings, on enhancing a lot of old photos, for future publication. I trust that you are all keeping well and managing to somehow navigate this mad world. By the way, thank you for the emails. They make it all worthwhile. We all, as...
Several hours last Saturday were spent, rather than writing up a weekend post, brushing out the flood in my house. I had turned on the bath and forgotten about it. I stepped off the sofa, to bizarrely find myself plodding around in water. Every room was impacted. Two hours of brushing water, whilst canoeing, and 5 fans subsequently running until midnight, ensured all the floor tiles were...
Every once in a while, usually after a glass of red wine, I have a look at mum and dad’s old photos. They met in the late 1950s, in a hall over in Garvagh. Although dad was ten years older, it was apparently love at first sight. Looking through the trove of photos from that late 50s and early 1960s era, they clearly have a love for the north coast, notably Portstewart. It is a beautiful...
When you have your own blog, you are able to write about your own life and what is close to your heart. This post may have limited interest for some. But I do know that those who know me well and who knew Tiger, will want to know the news. The loss of a loved one is never easy. Tiger, my sole companion, passed on, just as the sun began to rise, at 6am on Saturday morning, 3rd July 2021. He...
It’s funny, when you are looking for something directly, you often can’t find it. But when you aren’t looking, you discover it. If you recall, we recently covered the awful Christmas Day shooting tragedy in 1912, involving Workman’s pub in Eden. I had no luck a couple of months back, trying to find anything further in old newspapers, about Isaac Workman’s public...
Apologies for the delay in responding to recent emails and those who have been in touch via the website’s contact form. It’s been 8 days or so here, without laptop access to the internet. Windows 10 had to be updated. The update took a day and a half. Then things quickly went south. Network adapters refused to work. Arghhhh. Anyways, I am back online this weekend. Yeee-haaa! I...
The Irish are well known for always talking about the weather. This is hardly that surprising given that we have as many as five different competing weather systems, that can give us four seasons in one day. Around rural Ulster the topic of the weather was never more than a sentence away. When a neighbour pulled alongside on his tractor, for a yarn, you’d hear comments like “the rain...
My father, Richard Mulholland, died some years ago. In recent years, two of his siblings have also passed on. There is now only one left. Sammy Mulholland, who lives at the top of Portglenone, with wife Matsy, turned 90 years old at the end of January 2021. He spent his career working as a salesman, for Craigs meal company in Kilrea. I don’t believe that I have ever encountered a...
It’s always nice to get correspondence. I was contacted several months ago by Iben Olsen, a stamp collector from Denmark. He had a fascinating old envelope in his possession, sent by the Reverend Davey, the preacher in Tamlaght Lower, in June 1946, to a man in Poland. Iben says: [su_quote cite=”Iben Olsen”]I am a Danish stamp collector with a special interest in Irish...
A Moment in Time My parents, Richard Mulholland and Eleanor Quinn, got married in the summer of 1961. After the wedding at First Moneymore, the wedding party drove the 34 miles northwards for the wedding reception on the coast. They stopped at the Rose Gardens in Coleraine for photographs. Afterwards they made the short trip to the reception in the Carrig-na-Cule Hotel in Portstewart. It was...