Ireland

Whisky beer island of green and fight.

The Year 2024 in Retrospect

Posted on 3rd January 20254th January 2025 by Bok McDonagh

This year, I finally took a leap I’d been dreaming of for years: I chose myself. I left behind a life of routine, and embraced the unknown as a nomad.

Saint Colmcille’s Holy Well

Posted on 15th November 202315th November 2023 by Bok McDonagh

Geocaching is an app that opens up a world to mysterious treasures. People leave “caches” hidden in many places, and the lets you find where they are. It’s often a good way to find hidden secrets, and sometimes you have no idea what you might stumble across.

Croagh Patrick: Ireland’s Holiest Mountain

Posted on 1st November 202331st October 2023 by Bok McDonagh

I don’t feel quite ready for Ireland’s highest mountain just yet, so instead I went for the holiest instead. Croagh Patrick, also known as the Reek, is a pilgrimage site where it is said that St. Patrick expelled the snakes from Ireland.

I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something. That there’s some good in this world. And it’s worth fighting for.