Two Days in the Mournes January 2012

A very good friend gave us a Groupon for Christmas. It was a bed and breakfast Friday night in the excellent Glassdrumman Lodge just outside Annalong, a fishing port on the edge of the Mourne Mountains. On the Friday we took a walk to Lough Shannagh, the largest natural lake in the Mournes.     [...]

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Ireland in Pictures 2011

BBC N. Ireland has posted 21 photographs under the title In Pictures: BBC N. Ireland 2011 year in review They cover a lot of politics north and south; sport… mostly golf, of course; the Queen’s historic visit to the Republic of Ireland; strikes; the MTV awards in Belfast; and the Field Marshall Montgomery Pipe Band [...]

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St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Down Cathedral

While I was enjoying myself walking in the Mourne Mountains yesterday, people who were our guests at From Eden to Eternity at Stormont, were working! St Patrick had clearly ‘turned the stone’ for the Down and Dromore pilgrims making their annual journey from Saul Church to Down Cathedral on a sunny 17th March. The diocesan [...]

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St Patrick’s Day in the Mourne Mountains

Yesterday I took a trip with my parents to St Patrick country – Downpatrick – where tradition has it he is buried in the grounds of Down Cathedral. Today is 17 March, St Patrick’s Day and below are some of the most famous lines from St Patrick’s Breastplate: Christ be with me, Christ within me, [...]

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Pioneer Bible Translators 1: William Tyndale

Today the Wycliffe UK Blog recalls the martyrdom of William Tyndale. Four hundred and seventy four years ago today, William Tyndale was hanged and burnt for heresy.  His crimes? He believed the ‘boy who drives the plough’ should, and could, read God’s word with as much ease as the scholar and clergyman. One day, a [...]

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Camping in Connemara & Dingle

News from England would make you sick! Heatwave health alerts and hosepipe bans indeed – not in Connemara and Dingle last week! Now get get me wrong, the West of Ireland is amazingly beautiful – it’s just that the soft refreshing rain comes from hauntingly atmospheric grey clouds that tend to inhibit one’s view of [...]

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We’re off on holiday!

As bright and early as possible after a 6oth birthday party here this evening [no, not mine this time] we’re driving south and west on a camping holiday, first of all to Renvyle in Connemara… And here’s a map… I’ll post some of my own photos in the fullness of time. Meanwhile the Wycliffe Engage [...]

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