Vestry /ˈvɛstri/ Noun a room or building attached to a church, used as an office and for changing into ceremonial vestments. a real estate investment trust (REIT), incorporated in the Republic of Ireland. There comes a moment when you discover a person the trajectory of whose business affairs appears to embody the rotten nature of … Read more
Music has always been my favourite mystery. As a medium, an energy or exchange, there’s no other frequency that carries as much potential. I grew up learning classical music as a French horn player in orchestras. Most of my teenage years were spent exploring musical brass ensembles from the Baroque era. However, deep down, I … Read more
At the end of Roger Scruton’s short book On Hunting, an out-of-print memoir about the British conservative philosopher’s discovery and participation in fox hunting during middle age, Scruton focuses on the final days of his cob Bob. Shorn of the energy needed to gallop in herd-like fashion through the landscape as a part of the … Read more
It feels like centuries must have passed, but it is only decades. Years grow shorter as they multiply. Back then a year was long. Winters moved slowly through the seasons, bookending the boundless summers. I remember the newness of things then. When I was a boy, in my imagination, I could picture death, but it … Read more
Back in 2016, I was embarking on a road towards sobriety after nearly eighteen years of committed alcoholism, homelessness, depression, and, in many ways, desperation. I needed to change. However, I did not know how or where to begin. I started with ‘one day at a time,’ taking small, manageable steps. If I don’t drink … Read more
‘There are only so many times you can be expected to look at the Sagrada Família,’ said my uncle. He was visiting me in Barcelona, where I had returned for a few weeks. He said he wanted to take me to see the Colònia Güell, a lesser-known Gaudí site. ‘You mean the Park Güell?’ I … Read more
I am a self-taught musician, playing fiddle, viola, hammer dulcimer, bodhran and tunes percussion. I am mainly known as a composer, arranger and fiddle player with Kila for the last thirty-four years. I also play with Freespeakingmonkey and The Armagh Rhymers. Several generations of my family were and are musicians. My grandmother Maggie Armstrong was … Read more
_ Where beckons the quiver…? Are there no spirits moving in the air _ ruling the region between earth and sky ? And do you shine from the sky _ goddess in decay, _ as respite from the spit of day ? For this world could not hold you ? Whose arm twitches … Read more
If you count my two unsuccessful (all cough no high) undergraduate attempts to smoke weed and the later (nominally) more successful fractal bits of gummy I consumed (once) at a wedding reception, you must grant I possessed sufficient knowledge and experience with recreational imbibing to feel I was setting myself up for an evening of … Read more
A Chapter in the WarAppian, 95-165 CEUnder orders from Octavian, the hardened captains – Pansa, Carfulenus – patrolled the narrow pass they had determined to defend, with the Martian legion and half a dozen cohorts in their train.Surrounded all about by mulling marshland, heavy bogs, eight miles south-east of Mutina, their suspicions as they carried … Read more