Somebody bought me a Leprechaun T-shirt, so I thought – I NEEDED to do this!! I got the hat and the beard to go with it in an ‘OIRISH’ souvenir shop. Away with the Fairies Now I’ve lived around this island for a thousand years or more, and it used…
Just because I hated X-factor so much! I really have to stop dressing up as a woman . . . The blonde wig was perhaps a wee tad over the top. The ‘Y’ factor When I seen the Telly advert, I says ‘that’s the job for me’ They were looking…
We have seen the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Steam age, Nuclear age, etc. but I think we could call this the Inspector Age! No matter what you try to do, somebody comes along to say you are not allowed to do it, or you are doing it wrong,…
The first time I did the Bard of Armagh contest, they all sung the ‘Bard of Armagh’ song at the end – I did not sing, due to a UN ‘Health and Safety’ ruling, but I was thinking that it would be a lot funnier if was spelled ‘Barred’, as…
I was reared on a tiny farm, with a thatched cottage, no electric, no water, outdoor ‘bog’ etc. about a mile from Armagh. When I was big enough to carry two buckets of water, I had to go to the well 300-400 yards away, to bring them home each day….
My Da used to tell a tale a bit like this, from his youth in the 1920s. Some of the ‘harmless fun’ they did for Halloween would get you 6 months in the ‘Lisburn Hilton’ nowadays! I’m a man that likes a quiet life, with the odd we bit o’…
One of the world’s great institutions is the ‘Irish Wake’. When someone dies, the coffin is brought back to the house, and left open for two or more days/evenings, so that all the friends and neighbours from near and far can come and ‘pay their respects’. This is a huge…
Many years ago, a few ‘young fellas’ asked me if I did not do RAP, as well as ‘ordinary’ poems. It took me a while, but here goes! A sort of rural, agricultural version. C-RAP Now I’ve bin known for quite some time,For writing lousy jokes in rhyme,But the kids…
I wish to make it crystal clear that, unlike some others, this poem is definitely NOT true! It came second in the 2014 Bard competition, and is very loosely based on a certain book, (which I have not read, of course!), and a film. (which I have not seen, of…
The firm I worked for went ‘tits up’ when I was almost 60 years old, so my prospects of further employment looked bleak. However, I was lucky enough to get a job as a programmer in Belfast, with an American Insurance company, called Allstate. This meant a train journey each…