Fergal Hallahan
Fergal Hallahan: Cycle tour relied on the very thing I’d been trying to avoid
AFTER my first big cycling trip in May a friend asked me: “What was the single best thing about it?” Ooh.
Travel: Getting directions for fun and philosophy in the Wicklow Mountains
WE MUST look odd, mad even, tramping in a line across this broad expanse of heather when there's a perfectly good track around the edge of it that would take us to the forest on the other side in half the time.
Travel: No shortage of helping hands in Lough Erne family adventure
Fergal Hallahan and his family headed out on Lough Erne in a cruiser for the first time as guests of hire company Carrickcraft and found people willing to help, even when help absolutely, definitely wasn't needed
Travel: Mullans Bay offers a taste of the quiet life on Lower Lough Erne
NEVER has the phrase ‘get away from it all’ held such weight; usually ‘it all’ encompasses the routine of work, home and school life – ample excuse for a break, in the normal scheme of things – now it also covers the virus, the news and, sadly, other people.
Travel: Going Dutch in Duinrell makes for an epic and awesome family holiday
EVEN taking into account the natural high that simply being away from the daily grind gives, if you come home from a holiday giddily contemplating not just a return visit but a permanent move, it’s a fair indication that you’ve had a good time.
Review: Luka Bloom the real deal at the Black Box in Belfast
REVIEW Luka Bloom Black Box, Belfast IT’S the way of the world that when Christy Moore comes to town he plays the Waterfront Hall while for his younger brother, it’s the Black Box.
Travel: The historic city of Lubeck is a sweet spot on Germany's Baltic coast
YOU don’t have to be a history buff to get the most out of a visit to Lubeck: with its handsome buildings, cafe-bars on winding streets, art shops, leafy parks and waterside walkways, there’s plenty to take in on the contemporary plane.
Book reviews: Long Shot tells of horror and humanity in Kurds' fight against Isis
BOOK OF THE WEEK Long Shot: My Life As a Sniper in the Fight Against Isis by Azad Cudi is published in hardback by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, priced £20 (ebook £9.
Travel: Gower's closeness to Swansea is a bonus but, really, it's all about the beaches
FOLKIES among you might recognise ‘the Gower’ from Beeswing, Richard Thompson’s bittersweet paean to free-spiritedness, which Christy Moore recorded and sings live.
Film: Black 47 a robust take on Irish Famine in the form of a good, bloody yarn
“IT’S not always cowardice that makes men run,” says disgraced police inspector Hannah (Hugo Weaving) of his former British army comrade, the now renegade Martin Feeney (James Frecheville), in Black 47.