Hungry Hill: Daphne du Maurier’s Fantasy Ireland

A few months ago I spent a weekend with friends on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork.  On our way from Glengarriff to Castletownbere we drove along the base of the bleak looking Hungry Hill.  It’s the highest mountain on the peninsula.  During our few days we visited...

The Day My Grandfather Didn’t Become a Golf Champion

A hundred years ago this very day my grandfather, Joseph Gorry, reached the zenith of his amateur golfing career.  Very probably for him it felt like failure.  The events of that day became the stuff of golfing legend in the family.  His daughter, Joan Gorry, was...

I’m Mad as Hell!

I’m led to believe that it was Mark Twain who said ‘never let the truth get in the way of a good story’, but who knows?  Who cares?  Truth is a commodity much less valuable than perception.  Get a celebrity into a graveyard, show him any old gravestone and tell him...