1) "What Was it?" (pdf) (html) (Google Books)

Despite being described variously as "a lion of literary New York", "a Poe in the minor mode", …

If there's one lesson I've learned from my numerous trips to charity shops (on both sides of the Irish sea) it is (alas) to expect the expected. For while such places hold out the slight promise of rare oddities and …

An alarming headline from today's Limerick Post. While I know that Tesco have (over the last number of years) been aggressively seeking to increase their presence in the Irish supermarket landscape, I hadn't realised quite how far their plans …

After a very pleasant 10 days spent holidaying in beautiful Kerry, I've passed the last 72 hours (and counting) laid up in bed with an extremely nasty flu (complete with mild bouts of delirium).

On one of my very rare …

Apologies if you've just spurted your precious morning coffee all over your keyboard, but the above graffito does indeed say what you think it says. Take another look. Yup, it's still there.

To add …

I'm not sure to what extent "Grafitti Studies" has (as a discipline) permeated academic institutions, but I'd be surprised if the below offshoot of the artform has recieved much scholarly attention.

The circumstances in which such graffiti …

After foolishly getting quite excited about (and engaged with) the soul-sappingly predictable thing that was the general election, it's high time I turned my gaze from prosaic matters and focused on more important, magical …

Pictured above is one of Irish sport's most enduring images: Packie Bonner in the act of palming away poor old Daniel Timofte's penalty (Genoa, June 25th, 1990). Not pictured anywhere on this page …

While beating the election target, the Taoiseach can produce a sound and his eye give out light. The pensioners were beaten the inside to can call.

[tags]Clare Street, Limerick, Taoiseach, Fianna Fáil, Power …

On Tuesday night, after an evening spent gulping back bellinis and spritzes, Jess and I managed to find our way back to our hotel in Venice without getting lost. Not much of …

When I started this project I imagined that the supply of good bad quality toys in Limerick would be practically inexhaustible. The only struggle, I thought, would be deciding what to omit. However, despite …

Few art critics (even the most stuffy, hidebound and be-monocled) would likely deny the legitimacy of graffiti as a contemporary urban art form. Those that remain ambivalent or unconvinced, however, need look no further than …

It's strange how life can frequently, as Ned Flanders memorably described it, "put the dink in coinkydink".

During a recent(ish) post on the contents of my 1986 "Letts Boy's Diary" (the one with the fetching vector-graphic design), I described the …

Though I rarely write about matters (overtly) political, and tend to leave the local reporting to "squid" et al, I couldn't let an image from today's Limerick Post go uncommented on.

While sitting on the U.L. bus this morning, …

Though I've a long-standing interest in matters esoteric and otherworldly (fairies, mysterious beasts, aliens and the like) I rarely buy or read books on the area. The simple reason being that (other than …