The year was 1948 when Ireland last won the Grand Slam of the Six Nations Championship. At this time yesterday, the frustrating era of not fulfilling Ireland’s hopes was almost as long as the Chicago Cubs’s absence from the World Series (i.e. baseball’s Two-Nations championship).
Yesterday, we were privileged to witness Ireland’s moment of rugby glory in our local pub, which was full of Irish fans who lived and died with every change of possession. (more…)
In just moments, we’ll have a fine Irish breakfast on our way to the big parade. We’ve been in the spirit of things since Sunday, when we went to Big Day Out. Merrion Square, about two blocks from our home, was transformed into a festival to celebrate the holiday. (more…)
Tomorrow is March 17th, 2009 — Saint Patrick’s Day! It’s a national holiday for the Republic of Ireland, and the city centres of Dublin and most other towns will be devoted to massive parades.
On last year’s Saint Patrick’s Day, we watched part of the parade. We were meant to fly to Venice that evening, so we could not spend the whole day in Dublin. It was a cold day that threatened rain, but the crowds along Dame Street were enormous nonetheless. (more…)
Sunday was gorgeous: warm and partly sunny. Today was almost as nice. It feels like spring!
In some places, robins are a sign of spring. In others, the heavens are the guide.
Here in Dublin, we know it’s spring when the flocks of tour buses take to the streets. (more…)
Alert readers have noticed the regular updates to this blog’s sidebar: daily photos, news stories from Ireland and all over the world, and other items of general interest. If you’d like to see Tumblr entries in full (or subscribe to their RSS feed), go to the website, bugle.tumblr.com.
This week’s tumblr included these items, and more:
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If you follow the Tumblr photos in the sidebar of this blog, then you’ve seen a few shots of the snow in Dublin this week. If you’ve visited the Bugle B&B, then you know that there’s a desolate mountain range just south of Dublin. It’s one of my favourite places in Ireland.
It’s still fascinating to this child of the Corn Belt that such an inhospitable area is so close to Dublin, just a few kilometres beyond the suburbs. You can take the urban bus system into the Wicklow Mountains. If you research hillwalking in County Wicklow on the internet, you’ll see plenty of warnings about weather conditions. Those warnings resonated with my wariness of mountainous terrain. And I was not long in Ireland before I saw how quickly a sunny walk along a little trail can turn into a beating administered by a cold, wet wind followed by rain and flooding creeks.
This week, those warnings were completely vindicated, (more…)
The Bugle is a bit tardy in reporting the 90th anniversary of the first independent parliament of Ireland. The celebrations in Dublin were understated and mostly for the political elite, but the pivotal moment, ninety years ago, is too important to let pass.
The idea of forming a government apart from the British Parliament was promoted for 15 years by Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin. According to Michael Laffan of the Irish Times, many Irish voters at the time saw their representatives at British Parliament as lobbyists who could occasionally bring home pork projects (to put it in American terms). Why give up those lobbyists for the sake of an improbable ideal?
The equation changed when the three years after the Easter Rising added new factors. (more…)
James Joyce was born in Dublin on this day in 1882. In honour of one of Ireland’s greatest writers, I set out to find his birthplace. (more…)
Today marks 100 years since the organisation of a labour union that played a crucial role in Irish independence. On 20 January 1909, union cards were issued to the first members of the Irish Transport Worker’s Union. Those members’ commitment would help bring Ireland to the Easter Rising of 1916. In a real way, they made possible tomorrow’s celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the First Dáil Éireann. (more…)
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