Christmas Letter 2012 - The Round Robin comes Bob-bob-bobbing along again!

It's that time of year once again - Keeping up with the Rotte-Murray Family - though we are nowhere near as rich or (in)famous as the TV family half the youth of the world are keen on keeping up with, the Kardashians. It's a special day today, being the 12-12-12, a type of date that won't roll around again this century.

I hope you're all well and looking forward to the festive season albeit in a time of austerity and post-budget blues, when we are all counting the cost of the pain, and are unhappy with some of the cuts that are having an impact on young families and older people. Banks and big business seems immune from the worst excesses of austerity and people are getting increasingly angry and aggrieved, all understandably. I am not complaining personally as I am one of the cushioned public servants as a HSE nurse, but I do resent all the assumptions that I'm on a gravy train and get my gold-plated pension for free! I'll be lucky to retire in the next decade with less than 20 years of service - equal to about a quarter salary including the state pension. Meanwhile I'll grit my teeth and smile whenever I'm told I'm lucky to have a job!

What a year it's been in our family - one of flux and massive changes, mostly good, although not without some measure of poignancy, as our children move on and make their path in life. It reminds me of us a generation ago and I guess we gave little thought to the impact our choices made on our families. Now I can see that my mother had great fortitude to let me go off on my travels without guilt tripping me, and also that it can't have been easy for her to see us heading to Africa when she only saw her grandchildren when we came on holidays every year.

The year started with Martin heading off to Australia on a year's work-holiday visa. He went with his friend Bobby and they were based in Brisbane where they had friends. They tried their hand at farming in N. Queensland but it spiralled into a cascade of unfortunate events culminating in their somewhat premature return to the comforts of city living and settled down to working in Brisbane, where Martin is still enjoying working in a graphic design company and he spent some months in a nice upmarket restaurant as well. He'll be back in Ireland in a couple of months, and see where his next adventures will bring him.

Maeve has just turned 17 which is hard to believe and I wonder where all the years have gone since she was a baby - then I realise we are living in Ireland for almost 16 years or most of her life! She has really grown up and is taller than me, peroxide blonde for the past few months after working her way through the spectrum of home hair colours from brown to purple through red. She is in Fifth year in the local Blackwater Community School, and has a far livelier social life than I remember at that age. Learning to drive is top of her to-do list right now so she'll have to knuckle down and get her theory test before she can even take a lesson.

William has just finished his Masters in UCC in e-business (no, I haven't a clue either!) and is now in Dublin looking for work and enjoying a break after all the study. He seemed to enjoy the course and worked in Cork in an outdoor adventure shop for a few months. He would like to travel but will need to get some funds together after being a student for five of the past six years! He doesn't come back to Lismore much although he will be home for Christmas, which will be great, as it'll be a quiet one compared to the last few years.

And the reason for this - as many of you already know - is that Shayne and Jany and Sofia and Livia moved back to Spain in late July, a few weeks after their wedding on July 5th! This was the big family event of the year, which we knew would take place in the summer. We were all looking forward to it, and then at the end of May they announced their plans to move back to Spain where they had lived up to three years ago, before they came to Ireland. So that news took us all a bit by surprise, although we knew they'd ultimately planned to return, mainly as we hadn't realised it would happen so soon after the wedding. They had steady jobs in Ireland and in the midst of so much unemployment it seemed Spain would be the last place to find work. Yet within days of checking online jobs in Spain Jany was offered a job in IT in Barcelona. Then Shayne was offered an interview for a customer services job in Citibank in Barcelona. All this fast forwarded their plans for moving so within weeks of the wedding they had moved.

The wedding itself was a wonderful day, the ceremony in Cork Registry Office followed by a reception in the Montenotte Hotel. I made the wedding cake which was a new and fun challenge for me! We had a small group of about 45 sitting down to dinner and then another 30 or so for the afters, that peculiarly Irish institution of extending the party to everyone who doesn't come for the whole day. Anne came over from New Jersey for her Godson's wedding, which was great, and we enjoyed meeting all of Jany's family who came from Holland and who we met for the first time. Sofia and Livia looked sweet in their little flower girl frocks and loved the excitement of the day, and Jany made a beautiful bride, with her lacy dress and homemade crochet bouquet which was so creative, and a lovely touch. I had the heebie-jeebies about being mother of the groom as I am so not into fancy frocks and any I tried on seemed to add about 20 years to me - at least that's how it seemed to me! Finally I saw a lovely lavender ensemble in Shaw’s that felt right and I made a little crochet handbag and was sorted for the day. Maeve wore a beautiful blue dress from TKMaxx and she and her three friends looked great.

As the move to Spain was so soon after the wedding there was plenty to plan - Jan and William drove down to Malgrat, where Shayne and Jany had lived before, with all their worldly goods in the back of the Trajet, which held a lot once the seats were removed. Shayne flew over earlier, and found an apartment before the stuff arrived, and I flew over with Jany and the girls once everything was in place. I stayed for a week's holidays and enjoyed spending that time with the girls as Jany started work a few days after we arrived. Shayne got the job in Citibank and they are well settled in by now, with the girls in the local crèche and a childminder to help out. I went over for a long weekend in October and look forward to going over again in the New Year. We miss them a lot but Skype is terrific and with almost daily chat on Facebook it is easy to keep in touch thanks to social media. Cork is definitely not the same without them and I'll always have great memories of the Hen Night in June when we took over Cork by stretch limo and had a great night out clubbing and in the Old Oak.

Jan had a busy year with Immrama going from strength to strength and this year's festival had a great lineup of speakers yet again. Despite the Arts funding cuts the festival was a big success, and hopefully this will continue to the second decade. They published a book of essays from previous speakers - The Blue Sky Bends Over All (The words of Thackeray on Lismore) - to mark the first decade of the festival. He was busy with the town council and got elected to be a delegate to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, where he went for a conference in October. There are a lot of changes afoot in the whole local government area and it looks like the town councils will be abolished and replaced with district municipal councils, covering a wider area. Time will tell how it'll all work out, as there's a lot of scepticism around the future of local democracy if there's no representation at town level. So it looks like Jan will go down in history as the last Mayor of Lismore, a somewhat dubious honour if it’s the swan song for the town council as we know it.

As for me, I've been enjoying getting embedded in Lismore as the local public health nurse, and as I drive around the area I sometimes have to remind myself that this is actually work, so much do I enjoy it! I'll take some photos of the mountains or the sky or the views if it takes my fancy and share them on Facebook or Twitter, so that others can enjoy the beauties of Lismore and its environs. I went to the INMO conference in Killarney, and I go to Dublin for meetings of Labour Women. It's the centenary year of the Party and there have been some nice celebrations, although not on the ostentatious lines of the infamous Galway tent of Celtic Tiger days! I'm still enjoying knitting and crochet and made some great jumpers, socks and scarves, and the knitting circle and Bookclub are my downtime activities and I get a lot of pleasure from my hobbies! This year the knitting circle got involved in Yarn Bombing or Guerilla Knitting, blitzing public space with knitted art. We did a bicycle for the Immrama 10th anniversary which you can see below, and both Jan and I did the Sean Kelly cycle again this year, me the 50km and Jan the 100km. So we really are as fit as fiddles! We even took part in the second Aengus Finucane Memorial Walk in The Burren in May, which was a great weekend of old friends reunited from our Bangladesh days with Concern onwards through Tanzania and Laos. We are delighted that the Waterford contingent will be hosting the walk in 2013 and have a delightful route planned in West Waterford – and all in a good cause for a charity after Aengus’s heart. This year it went to Jack Praeger’s Foundation in Calcutta.

On that upbeat note I’ll wind up the newsletter for this year. We loved meeting friends old and new, from near and far, and while we’ll miss having the family all together over Christmas we’ll be Skypeing across the airmiles and looking forward to our next reunion. As ever we wish you and yours a wonderful Christmas and every good wish for a great 2013, in the hopes that the recession will recede as it should, and as the cliché goes - things can only get better.

Love and good wishes from Jan and Catherine and all the family near and far – Shayne, Jany, Sofia and Livia, Martin, William, Maeve and of course our old faithful Ben!

Immrama 2012 - Celebrating Lismore's 10th Travel Writing Festival - Part One

Jan and me with Artemis Cooper and Colin Thubron

 I will blog about Immrama in two parts as there is far too much to report for a single post. This was a very special anniversary for Immrama as it was the 10th festival. We marked it with the publication of a very special book called "The Blue Sky Bends Over All" which is a quote from William Makepeace Thackeray that Immrama adopted as its motto at the festival's outset in 2003. It was his remark on the Catholics and Protestants being buried in opposite sides of the Church of Ireland cemetery which he visited in the 1800s. He noted that the sun didn't shine more on one side than the other and "The blue sky bends over all", an early nod to ecumenism that deserves to be lauded. Paul Clements, a long-time friend of Immrama, was the editor of the book along with hubby Jan, and it comprises essays from around 20 earlier speakers at Immrama from the first decade. I already blogged about the Yarnbomb homage to Immrama here.

Prof. Eoin Burke at the launch

This year's festival was another successful milestone on the literary calender. Immrama has become recognised nationally and internationally as a world-class literary festival, a boutique festival that has a global reach far exceeding its perceived niche of travel writing.  Visitors come from as far afield as Vancouver and Melbourne, and from all over Ireland and the UK and mainland Europe.

Ciaran Murphy at the book launch

The participants and speakers always love the hospitality and Lismore welcome they get, from the preparations for their journey to and from Lismore to the attention lavished on them by the committee during their stay. They will be looked after and brought to see local sights like Ballysaggartmore Towers, a local folly, or The Vee up in the Knockmealdown Mountains, or Mount Melleray, a local Cistercian Abbey. And if they want to chill and do nothing, that's fine too. The fact that after each evening's event we all repair to the festival club in a local pub, a different one each night to keep everyone happy, means the speakers get to chat with the locals and there's very little standing to ceremony, which they all seem to enjoy.

Catherine de Courcy at the launch

Jan, me, Paul, Peter, Claire, Catherine and Bernard

Story Trail led by Bernard and historical Lismoreians!

Thursday evening saw the launch of three books in the prestigious Lismore Castle Arts Gallery. First was "What Happens on Tour|", Waterford man Ciaran Murphy's adventures in Australia and New Zealand, followed by Galway University Professor Eoin Burke's tome on German travellers in 19th Century Ireland in translation which is quite academic but fascinating, and finally our own Immrama book which Catherine de Courcy launched, as she was at the festival as a returning visitor, having been a speaker and creative writing workshop faciliator other years. That event took place in the Castle Arts Gallery amid the massive sculptures of Hans Josephsohn, whose work adorns the gallery and the gardens for the summer exhibition.

St. Carthage in his Cathedral in Lismore

Friday was a busier day with the school children doing the Story Trail with local characters like St. Carthage and Robert Boyle of the eponymous Law who was born in Lismore Castle, as his father Richard was the Earl of Cork. The weather held despite vile weather earlier in the week and a bad forecast.

That evening the first main event was held in the Courthouse Theatre. It was a panel discussion on the Legacy of Patrick Leigh Fermor, an acclaimed albeit little known travel writer. The panel consisted of Colin Thubron, the legendary Asian and Silk Road travel writer, Artemis Cooper (wife of Antony Beevor the historian), Jan Morris on a return visit to Lismore, and Tony Wheeler, the co-founder with his wife Maureen of Lonely Planet, the gold standard guide series.

Robert Boyle explains Boyle's Law

The topic was timely given that Leigh Fermor's death occurred a year ago on the same Friday night of Immrama, when it was announced during that evening's event in the same venue. There's a Lismore connection too, as he was a great friend of the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, formerly Deborah Mitford, the youngest of the famous Mitford Sisters. She is now in her 90s and her grandson Lord Burlington is a frequent visitor to his home in Lismore, where he established the Castle Arts exhibitions, always highly regarded internationally even if a tad avant-garde.

The panel discussion was chaired by Paul Clements and was riveting as Artemis Cooper introduced the man she called Paddy and knew as a dear friend. She is his biographer, and Jan Morris and herself and Colin Thubron are all involved in administering his estate on Crete, where he called home for many years. It was a fascinating insight to a dashingly handsome boys' own adventurer who had a somewhat rocky childhood - parents left him behind in England when they headed off to India, and when they returned as strangers he was uprooted from the only home he knew.

The Panel discuss Patrick Leigh Fermor

Jan with Colin Thubron

He hated school and when he was about 18 he headed off on foot to walk from the Hook of Holland to Istanbul or Constantinople. The diaries of this journey are in two books while a third will be posthumously published when completed. He had a penchant for parties and seemed to fit in wherever he went, and I'm looking forward to reading his two books and eventually the third. I also have the book of letters between him and Deborah Devonshire, In Tearing Haste, which I got for my birthday and which Artemis Cooper and Colin Thubron both signed.  The Q&A Session after the discussion was animated and showed the knowledge of an informed and erudite audience that packed the theatre to capacity and beyond.  Easons  as the main sponsor of the festival ensure a wide range and good supply of books of all the speakers and the entire panel were happy to sign books after the talk, a great chance for informal chat with the public, to be continued in the pub or hotel.

Artemis, Tony, Jan, Colin and Paul

I'll continue with the events of Saturday and Sunday in the next blogpost.

Yarnbombing - for Immrama and Lismore's Travel Writing Cyclist

A colourful attraction!

I just had to share this with you all in the blogosphere and knitting and crocheting community - a craftosphere perhaps - as it is the coolest thing to hit Lismore since the Barber of Seville Yarnbombing of the previous weekend, which you can see here.

An unlikely Urban Guerilla.

In the Tuesday Knitters at Angela's Design Workshop we had a plan afoot for the Immrama Travel Writing Festival, especially as this is the 10th Festival and has just concluded last night after a very successful weekend. I will blog about the festival anon. Meanwhile, a bicycle yarnbombing seemed most appropriate given that it's the preferred mode of transport of our own renowned traveller Dervla Murphy. Dervla is world-famous is travel writing circles as an octogenarian who has written of her journeys through life from her first book, Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, through her autobiography Wheels within Wheels to her latest work The Island that Dared - Journeys in Cuba and she is soon bringing out her book on Palestine. She has a wonderful body of work, Lismore is very proud of her, and we are delighted to have her as a friend. She visited Laos after we told her what a wonderfully unspoilt place it was back in the 90s, and she is a real inspiration to all generations.

My crocheted contributions

Street art!

So this is the outcome of our endeavours! Angela kindly supplied the bike, which was somewhat past roadworthy and its prime, and we embellished it with love and lots of crochet and knitting and weaving to make this fabulous work of art. Many Tuesday Knitters made various parts - mine was the half-moon rear-wheel "skirt-guard" which is a peculiarly Dutch innovation - "Jasbeschermers" or coat protectors. I found these wonderfully colourful embellishments online and on Ravelry and adapted one to my end procuct, which I love. Then Dairiona made the beautiful front-wheel covers in crochet shades of blue, while sisters Annie and Agnes made the basket - in basketweave stitch with a pre-patterned yarn. I can't name each and everyone as I'd be sure to omit many but suffice to say there were myriad contributors!

The ornate basket - bees making honey!

Last Friday, coinciding with the Immrama Festival, the bike was placed on the steps of the Heritage Centre, a nerve centre for tourism in Lismore, and the visitor numbers were certainly up this weekend, due to the festival but of course we take some credit with our own visitor-magnet! I saw lots of people photographing it, being photographed beside it, and in one case, in it! A little  baby was placed in the basket for the sweetest photograph, which I saw on Facebook! Some people thought it was Dervla's iconic bike, Roz (Rozinante, the Quixotically named bike that took her to India and beyond in 1963 and which found a home in the Lismore Library, where her father was once County Librarian).

So what do you think? We are totally biased and love it and hope it finds a long-term home in Lismore, as a tourist attraction in its own right. Who knows, it might even go down in history.

Yarnbombing The Barber of Seville - A First for Lismore

Lismore's "Opera Lane" aka The New Way

Angela, Brian and Minnie

This June Bank Holiday weekend was marked by the staging of Rossini's The Barber of Seville by the Lismore Music Festival in Lismore Castles's salubrious setting. The Opera was staged outdoors, a risky venture in itself given our unpredictable climate and indeed it didn't disappoint as last  night's performance took place in a veritable deluge. Luckily they had the presence of  mind to erect a tent to protect the audience and hopefully the stage could be covered as well. The previous night was the dress rehearsal which I already blogged about in this post about the visit of our President Michael D. Higgins to the Castle, where we met him afterwards at a reception. 

A yarnbombed pole

In Angela's Window - Mary's knitted banner!

All roads lead from Lismore! 

The Tuesday Knitters from the Design Workshop, our self-styled Knitting Circle, decided a while ago to get into the whole yarnbombing movement, which seems to be a global phenomenon. As the name implies, items made from yarn either knitted or crocheted are bombed into public spaces to decorate street furniture, and it can be themed or random. We decided to mark the Opera weekend with yarnbombing on the theme of Barber poles - lots of red and white stripes along the lamposts of Lismore especially en route to the Castle from the town - our very own Opera Lane.

My Granny Squares pole

What makes Yarnbombing special is the surprise element - not for nothing is it also called Guerilla Knitting - so nobody outside the select members of the Knitting Circle morning and evening groups were told what all this frantic red and white knitting or crochet was about, and it was assumed we were knitting up the Cork colours, our rivals on the fields of sport, who are always pitched against the blue and white of Waterford. Alas no, it was much more than an homage to Cork, and by yesterday morning the town was blitzed. 

En route to the Castle Avenue

Like a duel of old, it was up at dawn for Angela of the Design Workshop and some other trusty members who were out in force with the lengths of knitting and crochet, cable ties, stepladders and darning needles.  Sadly I slept it out till 8:30 by which all the hard work was done and I went around taking photos feeling rather sheepishly guilty for not having been there - but Saturday mornings are sacrosanct and the alarm is silenced - I forgot to reset it.

My crochet stripes - concertina-ing!

My yarn bombs pre-deployment! 

So when I arrived on my bike Angela and fiance Brian and trusty dog Minnie (who is a prima donna star in her own right, with a whole range of greeting cards in her image) were breakfasting on the terrace of the Lismore House Hotel, and I was delighted to see the end result of the poles draped in Barber Pole stripes - some quirkier than others. Mine included a length of granny squares in alternating colours and they looked lovely on the pole, and it was great to see them on the corners of the Main Street too. 

The Barber's this way!

We have plans afoot for next weekend and the Immrama Festival of Travel Writing, so watch this space! Like Arnie, we'll  be  back - and it's gonna be fun. I hope you enjoy the photos of our venture into this brave new world of knitting and crochet! 

On My Bike in the Spring Sunshine - Out and About Around Lovely Lismore

At Ballyduff Bridge in Hi-Viz!

The past week we have had fabulous summer weather in late March and this unseasonal weather was such a treat that everyone tried to make the best of it.

We did some gardening and planted some new shrubs in a bed near the patio and I finally got out on my bike for some longish cycles around the beautiful countryside. I've been very bad with getting going on the bike and hubby Jan's put me to shame by keeping up his cycling during the winter, but this is my first week of proper cycling, apart from trips to the shops for the messages (a Hiberno-English expression for grocery shopping).

Like everything I tend to defer the moment but once I get started I'll  be on track for a few times a week and aim at the Sean Kelly Challenge 50km charity cycle in late August. This will be the third year I'll  be doing this event and I've enjoyed it immensely for the past two years. You can read about 2010 and 2011, and watch this space for 2012.


I came home from work two consecutive evenings and went out on the bike for about an hour,  doing the same circuit of 15.2km both evenings and glad to see I'd knocked a  minute and a half off my time the second day. Yesterday I went for a longer cycle of 22.5km and didn't expect to do too well time-wise as there was a strong headwind on the home stretch, so I was pleased with the end result.

The River Blackwater at Ballyduff - towards Fermoy

River Blackwater at Ballyduff - towards Lismore

Cappoquin - R. Blackwater and the old Railway Bridge

New Cordylines and old banana trees

The Knockmealdown Mountains from Glencairn

There are some wonderfully picturesque cycling routes around Lismore, with the river valley providing circuits out one road and home another, with no major hills to wear down the weary start-up cyclist.

I only wish I had the stamina of our world-renowned cycling author and travel writer extraordinaire Lismore resident, Dervla Murphy, whose exploits on her various bikes and other modes of more exotic transport have been documented in her numerous books for the past almost-fifty years, since Full Tilt - from Ireland to India on a bicycle was published in 1965. 

Rozinante was the name of that bike and she surely was an Irish Don Quixote tilting at more than windmills, certainly she threw the book at the stereotype of Irish womanhood in those pre-feminist wave days. We are very pleased and proud to call her a friend and have spent many a pleasant evening in her company.

Here are some of the lovely scenes around Lismore and Cappoquin and Ballyduff, and our newly planted shrubbery out in the back garden. Hopefully the banana trees will flourish again this year with a nearly-frostfree winter, and the cordylines will thrive and grow.

My trusty steed - nameless

Ben and our newly planted garden

Dromana House at Villierstown

Horses on R.  Blackwater Inches

Enjoy the beauty of our Blackwater River Valley - and if we only had this kind of good weather here we'd be living in the best place on earth - in fact it's pretty good as it is despite the weather, as it's the rain that help the Emerald Isle live up to its name!

River Blackwater from Cappoquin

Reflections from the Kitchen Hole, near Cappoquin

Devonshire Day 2012 - Another Perfect Mothers' Day

The Upper Gardens Lismore Castle

Yesterday was the 9th Annual Devonshire Day held in Lismore Castle as the main fundraiser for the annual Immrama Festival of Travel writing and this year will  be the 10th Immrama Festival so it's a very special anniversary - watch this space for updates and programme announcements after the launch on April 19th! I just want to share some of the photos of yesterday with you - and link you to previous posts on Devonshire Day which I've blogged about since 2009 - the first Devonshire Day after I started the blog in December 2008. Here are the links to the 2010 and 2011 posts.

We were blessed with perfect weather yesterday - and we always say St. Carthage our Patron Saint of Lismore is looking down on his own home town with favour. Well, he came from Rahan in Co. Offaly but we claim him as our own as his name is synonymous with Lismore, whichever one you want - as the Australian Lismore has a St. Carthage's Cathedral also and is our Twin Town, and we have two St. Carthage's - the Church of Ireland Cathedral and the Catholic Church.

The Joseph Paxton Greenhouse/Vinery and raised beds

The Lower Gardens of Lismore Castle

The day is a series of five guided walks through the spring gardens of Lismore Castle with the Head Gardener Chris Tull at the helm, and his love and enthusiasm for the gardens shines through all the way - he never flags even after six hours or more,  he displays the same humour and passion with the final group as with the first. I should know, as I accompany each group, tasteful in my garish yellow Hi-Viz jacket and carrying my First-Aid kit, just in case anyone decides to take a tumble or keel over - all in the name of "elf'n'safety"! Luckily no-one has thus far, although a few years ago in particularly vile weather some of the punters nearly came a cropper on the slippery slopes of the lower garden where the mud had churned up into a veritable mire. At least this year the mild winter meant the gardens were in magnificent bloom and some of the magnolias were a little early while others were late having not fully recovered from the Arctic winter of 2010/11.

Chris and Antony Gormley's Man Out Of Water

The walks are preceded by the piece de resistance - the Devonshire Cream Tea served by the Butlers of the Duke of Devonshire in the Pugin Room - the Ballroom and former Chapel designed by Pugin, the famous designer of Westminster Houses Of Parliament in London. The tea is served on monogrammed china and with full silver service, and is very posh. As two of our sons worked there for years as butlers when they were students we tend to take it for granted, but it is very other-worldly for the visitors. A taste of how the other half (or more like the 1%) live, if you will. And that's a topic for debate another day!

Devonshire Cream Tea in the Pugin Room

But I digress - back to the tea. The punters are treated to a series of talks during their tea - on the history of the Castle, Lismore, the Pugin connection and the Pugin Room in particular, and then Chris talks about the gardens and during the walkabout he is a mine of information on Joseph Paxton who built the Glasshouses and designed the gardens initially, and then the contemporary influences of the Cavendish family who inaugurated a Sculpture Garden throughout the gardens, with many contemporary artists having permanent exhibits. Eilis O'Connell has a couple of pieces, and Antony Gormley is probably the best known with his "Learning to be I" man figure - a mould of his own body on a cold day as Chris tells it! I leave you to judge. Gormley's signature piece is the Angel of the North in Newcastle in England, and 100 of his body figures are dotting the English coastline at Crosby near Liverpool.

Over the Inches at sunset from the Castle Dining Room

The Castle Arts Gallery will be open throughout the summer along with the gardens and the ticket entry includes both. Each year there's a different  exhibition usually with guest curators, and it is always avant garde and of international renown but not to everyone's taste. So if you're expecting art a-la the National Galleries, you might be disappointed! This is also the first year there was no Sotheby's Irish Sale Preview in Lismore Castle Arts, which is missed by me as I loved it. But that's the downside of the recession, and we have to put up with it. I'm sure it cost someone a fortune to tour with those artworks worth millions.

Knitter extraordinaire Agnes, with Kevin 

So I  hope you enjoy the photos  and the post - I met a lady who was here last year and she had the most amazing Aran outfit, which she designed and knitted herself - I was gobsmacked by her skill and tenacity - she had a beret, mittens, cowl, bag and calf-length coat - all in fabulous intricate Aran patterns. You can see the photo here as I took some to send her, and I hope she likes them as much as I did seeing them and meeting her. She's called Agnes and she comes from Waterford.

Chris Tull stands on the Ice-House talking to the crowd

I've been asked to do a Guest Post over on the Immrama Blog that hubby Jan moderates in his role as the Immrama Festival Administrator and coordinator of Devonshire Day, and it's a nice family collaboration. Hope you enjoy browsing the blog which is linked to the Immrama Website. 

You can see the full gallery of photos from yesterday over on the Immrama Facebook page here and do click Like when you visit!

Dates for your Diary: 

• April 19th for the Launch of Immrama 2012 - the Tenth Immrama which will be very special! 
• Immrama 2012 will take place in Lismore from 7th-10th June 2012. Save the weekend!