With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, Edythe Preet gives us the story of Áine, the goddess of love, and star-crossed lovers – the warrior Diarmuid Ua and Gráinne, daughter of the High King Cormac mac Airt. Love. It makes the world go round, conquers all, and warps the mind. We are star-crossed by it, swept away by it, fall into it, and become fools for it. It can’t be … [Read more...] about Sláinte! Love Mór
Slainte: Irish Recipes
Sláinte: I Love Pie!
In one of my favorite movies – Michael, a tale of Michael the Archangel visiting earth to help a few folk find their way in life – a particularly sweet scene shows the central characters all enjoying slices of pie in a small-town eatery. When Scots-Irish Andie MacDowell’s character is revealed to love pie, Michael (John Travolta) insists she sing her “pie” song. It goes like … [Read more...] about Sláinte: I Love Pie!
Sláinte: The Mighty Salmon
While health practitioners now praise the protein and amino acids provided by salmon, it has long had its place in Irish history simply because it is such good eating. Every year more than 180,000 people visit Ireland expressly to engage in an activity that has been one of the island’s top drawing cards since the first intrepid hunter-gatherers arrived over 7,000 years ago: … [Read more...] about Sláinte: The Mighty Salmon
Sláinte: Forty Shades of Green
Back in the nineties a friend’s gorgeous garden made me 40 envious shades of green. Then in 2002, I moved into a little 1950s bungalow with a big backyard that was choked with weeds, discarded bed and bicycle frames, and a dilapidated shed housing a black widow spider colony. Full of purpose and heavily gloved, I dove into the task of creating my first garden. For four months I … [Read more...] about Sláinte: Forty Shades of Green
Sláinte: Saint Patrick
It is perhaps a love of words that endears the Irish to Saint Patrick. Son of a West Britain Roman family, at age sixteen Patrick was kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. Six years later he escaped, fled to the coast, and was hired on as kennel master to a German boat that was transporting Irish wolfhounds to the continent. After many hardships, he at last … [Read more...] about Sláinte: Saint Patrick