May the leprechauns dance over your bed and bring you sweet dreams. - Irish lessing   To this day, across much of the Western Isle, the lore of fairies remains so strong, farmers will divert crops, homebuilders will adjust property lines, hikers will swing wide of their treks and the burliest and beardiest of men dare not trifle with the environmental curiosity known as, the fairy ring, a.k.a. fairy fort. In Irish, they are called lios or raths and at...

    Quilts of country, ombres green Queen Ériu, her legend to bear Goddess of Ireland, a kingdom and people you wean   Dublin, dark waters; Dingle, deep harbours Galway, fair strangers; Boyle Moone men Kiillarney, for Christmas; Sligo, for Summer Castletownshend, Mary Anns Pub; Dalkey, where our Bono, then?   A land of heart, a folk bleeding pride Where a mankind began, where the wildest writers thrive Whether your life be mad for craic, or deep in a despair you cannot abide Dance feis, fairies and magick will contrive   Be your feathers ruffled, or hod you the grandest joy in-hand Every soul can turn all the more merry, with the simplest of times in Fair Ireland         ...

  A Hard-hitting Intro to the Game Square in the right eye. That's where the pitch hit me. (I'm a lefty-batter; so, the right profile got the brunt.) Third-grade, maybe fourth-, I don't recall. What I do recall is crying a lot, then my softball coach telling me to lie down on the bench and hold a glass of iced tea on my throbbing eye. The only thing worse than the pain, was the humiliation: lying there like a weirdo with a glass of Nestea on my face. Sh...