Inktober Days 10 And 11 - ‘Nomadic’ And ‘Snacks’

Learning color in traditional art

Craughwell, Co. Galway

Tír na nÓg / Ulster cycle Hatsune Miku

Béal Feirste, 2025

Celtober 2023 Days 4, 5 and 6: Murder, Judgement and Mound

Corrgend, the king of the Fir Bolg, caught Áed, son of Eochaid Dagda, in the act of sleeping with Corrgend’s wife, and so he killed Áed in a fit of rage and jealousy. The grieving father sentenced Corrgend to carry Áed’s decomposing body tied to his back until he finds a perfect place for the mound that he should build for his victim. After that, Corrgend was finally executed and buried elsewhere.

Little lives (gone)

Co. Galway

Ladies, gentlemen and glorious non-binary people, I give you Áed Dub mac Suibhni and St. Findchán! It's a series of illustrations I made for my husband's conference presentation on how love wins in Early Ireland. Shared with his permission of course.

Brave little flowers on campus on Imbolc day.

Celtober 2023 Days 7, 8 and 9: Dream, Birds and Divination

The druid, then in his sleep, at the end of the night beheld a man stark-naked, passing along the road of Tara, with a stone in his sling.

The destruction of Da Derga's Hostel

Tonaroasty (Tóin an Róistigh, something along the lines of 'The bottom end of de Roche lands') is a medieval ghost village in Co. Galway I accidentally came across when out to shoot a stone circle on a barrow (I did take photos of it too). Judging from the onomastics (and from the satellite photos clearly showing rectangular foundations and what seems to be a cross-shaped church) it was an Anglo-Norman settlement, so built no later than 12th c. This also gives us a clue about how and why it ended. When the Black Death reached Ireland, the Gaels were in a more advantageous position than the Normans as they lived in less crowded conditions and did not have any religious prejudice about cats (hence, less rats and less fleas carrying plague). The Norman settlers were traditionally living in a more compact way, were in frequent contact with people from crowded castles, and the relationship between cats and folk Christianity soon turned to be rocky at best (to put it very mildly). Therefore, the plague was feasting on them at will, and it was one of the factors that contributed to the subsequent Gaelicisation of the surviving Anglo-Norman nobility. The plague hypothesis also explains quite neatly why the site has not been used for settlement again ever since.