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Blues
A rather ancient fishing boat makes its way down the River Slaney and out of Wexford Harbour for a night’s fishing. Wexford was Ireland’s leading fishing port in the 15th and 16th centuries, exporting mainly to ports along the west coast of England and Wales. But nothing lasts, and today Wexford Harbour is used on…
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A Castle Dark…
If you could read my mind, loveWhat a tale my thoughts could tellJust like an old time movie‘Bout a ghost from a wishing wellIn a castle dark or a fortress strongWith chains upon my feet… A verse to mark the passing of the singer-songwriter, Gordon Lightfoot, credited with helping to define the folk of the…
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The Bright Fort
A return to the past with Cahergall Stone Fort, near Cahirciveen on the Ring of Kerry, in south west Ireland. The name Cahergall comes from the Gaelic words, Chathair Gheal, which means “The Bright Fort”. Ring forts are difficult to date as they are often multi-period sites, it appears this dry-stone walled ring fort probably…
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Minard Castle
Overlooking Kilmurry Bay, aka ‘Beal na gCloc’, the Bay of Stones for obvious reasons are the remnants of 16th Century Minard Castle. A former stronghold of the Knight of Kerry, it was one of the last of the Fitzgerald castles constructed on the Dingle Peninsula until destroyed in the mid-17th century by Oliver Cromwell’s parliamentary…
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A Secluded Hideway
Growing up in the midst of the Liverpool suburbs, the nearest green spaces were in my local park, a much frequented place during school holidays. From high ground en route, I could see the distant Lancashire hills with fields, wood and cottages, a sight that sparked my young imagination – and a daydream to live…
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Natural Clock
It looks like a dandelion, but it’s ten times bigger, and goes by a number of common names: western goat’s-beard, wild oysterplant, yellow goat’s beard and goatsbeard to name but a few. In fact it’s the seed-head of the western salsify (Tragopogon dubius ), a common inhabitant of roadside verges in Andalucia. The image is…
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Westport Bridge
Westport is a town in County Mayo at the south-east corner of Clew Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean on the west coast of Ireland. Over the years I’ve noticed many Irish towns tend to situate houses so they back on to rivers. Westport is a beautiful exception, with the town’s Georgian architectural style…
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Olives…
A grove of olive trees basking in the late evening light. Over the years, the olive has been used to symbolize wisdom, fertility, power, and purity. Indeed the olive branch has often been a symbol of abundance, glory, and peace and ritually offered to deities and powerful figures as emblems of benediction and purification, and were…
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Stormy Stage Cove
On the clifftop, white posts and fencing surround the still open mine shafts above Stage Cove. At one time the hub of County Waterford’s copper mining, it was from here that copper ore was shipped out on small boats to waiting sea-going ships for transport to Swansea for smelting. Now part of the Copper Coast…
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The Silent Majority
The Sculpture Room in Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery
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Liberté, égalité, fraternité
A detail on the Church of Our Lady of the Angels in Collioure, France
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After a storm comes a calm….
It’s been some eighteen months since Renaissance was resurrected, and a new theme beckoned. In appearance it’s vaguely similar to my old one, but behind is some of the latest website technology introduced by WordPress. Apologies for the delay in getting it up and running, it just takes a little longer for us septuagenarians to…
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Solitude
A fisherman sat by,While on his line in calm reposeHe cast his patient eye.As he sat, and hearken’d there…Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Equine Delights
‘Twilight and a pair of curious horses on Croaghaun Hill are silhouetted against the misty blue Comeraghs’ an extract from Waterford, A County Revealed
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Ripples
The wind that ever is with mystic mightA spirit ripple of the Infinite.…Victor Hugo
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Atlantic Evening
The wind has swept from the wide atmosphereEach vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray;And pallid Evening twines its beaming hairIn duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.…by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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“The Sampson”
Four kayakers en route for a sea view of “The Sampson”, a crane ship washed onto Ardmore Head on the County Waterford coast. Samson had left Liverpool in 1987, bound for Malta under tow from a tug boat. The towline parted in a gale off the Welsh coast early on 11 December. The two men aboard…
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Graphic Beauty
An image from my dust covered, ancient archives. Originally shot on film in the 1970s, processed in the 2020s, with shades of Erwin Blumenfeld’s 1950s.
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Companionable Evening
The wind has swept from the wide atmosphereEach vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray;And pallid evening twines its beaming hairIn duskier braids around the languid eyes of day…Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Reach…
Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’Into the future I want to fly like an eagleTo the seaFly like an eagleLet my spirit carry meI want to fly like an eagle‘Til I’m freeFly through the revolution… Steve Miller The skies the limit: on that optimistic note I’d like to wish everyone a peaceful and contented 2023
George Munday Creative 