The Vikings in the ninth and tenth centuries established Dyflin (Dublin) and Jórvik (York) as colonial centres and the Irish Sea became a maritime thoroughfare between the two in addition to playing a key navigation route around the islands’ shores.…

There is a song by the folk rock band The Waterboys called ‘This is the Sea’. It concerns the changes in life, using the sea as a metaphor: Once you were tethered, Now you are free, That was the river, This is the sea. For some reason I had those…

Well, in the period leading up to the anniversary, our children were young. Carys was born in 1990 and Iwan in ’93. So when the possibility arose to help out with the creation of the Tapestry, my hands were full and I was, unfortunately, not able to…

Recently my sister Karen and I discussed our memories of visits to Ireland as children - we would go most years to visit Mum’s side of the family in West Cork. Before budget airlines shortened and cheapened the trips, Dad would drive the car from…

Much has been written on the sense of displacement that stems from the diasporic experience. Growing up in Britain with a firm sense of Irishness, identity has always resided in something of a halfway-house. In Britain, you’re part of ‘that Irish…

What do you get when you put together the Welsh reputation for musicality and the Irish tradition of a céilí band? The natural desire to compete. At least that’s what it stirred for me, a young musician performing in Wales as part of an annual…