Ireland, a masterpiece
The Ireland I now inhabit is one that these Irish contemporaries have helped to imagine. (Seamus Heaney) Ireland is where strange tales begin and happy endings are possible. (Charles Haughey)
Famine
Ever since Dublin became my hometown, the Irish Famine sculptures by artist Rowan Gillespie on Custom House Quay haunt me. The statues are ‘walking’ on towards emigration ships like the Jeannie Johnston and they describe so well the hunger Irish people went through during the Great Famine, called Gorta Mór in Irish (Great Hunger), between 1845 and 1852, caused by blight. There were, however, two other famine periods in Ireland: the Irish Famine from 1740 to 1741 called Bliain an Áir, meaning the Year of Slaughter. Another one was in 1879, called An Gorta Beag, meaning the ‘mini-famine’. The Act of Union caused Ireland to be governed directly by the United Kingdom, which meant that Ireland had been prohibited living the life they were so used to, leading to “a starving population, an…
Back to Ireland
So many things represent us, shows our character, our inner feelings, our life. I chose this picture because the world through my eyes is always moving. Forward most of all, sometimes backwards. My world however also consists of simple, pure stillness. But even when the world is spinning quietly, stillness is waiting to explode into forward motion or motion is waiting to return to sheer tranquility. Living in Ireland for over ten years now, my world has become one of airports, packing bags and looking forward to step onto that Aer Lingus plane once again. My love for movement is therefore always represented by airplanes, and nothing excites me more than taking off and landing. Flying to and from Ireland is a joy that cannot be replaced. WordPress Weekly Photo…
You never know how strong you are…
One of the most emotional journeys you could go on, is meeting yourself along the road of a diagnosis you never wanted to happen. It will make you, shape you and perhaps take you somewhere you don’t want to go, but for now, you have to. You lose a parent, a brother or sister, or someone else you dearly loved, and yet time goes on. Time has to go on. For your family, for yourself. Years later you realize you went through that loss maybe a bit better than you ever thought you would. Because being strong was the only option you had. Being diagnosed with an illness that can’t be cured is a little bit similar. Or is it? The day I received my multiple sclerosis diagnosis is a…
An Irish General… and me
The places that we pass through day after day, or even once in a lifetime, leave in their small way, echoes and traces of themselves upon us. But so often when taking self-portraits or pictures of friends, the places themselves become a softly blurred mush of indistinct semi-nothingness, the limelight stolen by our smiling faces. Take a picture of yourself or someone else as a shadow, a reflection, or a lesser part of a scene, making the background, or — as in the example above — the foreground, the centre of attention. © Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2013. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be…
Ireland, 75 shades of green
Patience and persistance
Patience and persistence are key when you first start blogging. Why you want to write publicly is totally your idea, how you do so is by using WordPress and its many users’ intelligence. Almost 2 years into my blogging adventure, I still find it an amazing tool to get your voice heard. When I started blogging, I simultaneously wrote on Blogger as well as on WordPress, just to find out what was the perfect tool for what I wanted out of my blog. After blogging on both for a while, I became very dissatisfied with the lack of settings Blogger had in comparison to WordPress. The choice to drop my Blogger profile was an easy one to make, and to this day, I am still amazed at what WordPress offers…