The writer hails from County Antrim and has lived in the desert southwest of the United States for over 20 years. Her blog is her virtual home away from home.

  • Dispatch from the Diaspora

    a red letter day

    I’m sure he exists, but I have never seen the mailman where I live in Mexico. Regardless, I still peek into the letterbox every day, the way I used to all those years I lived in Arizona when there was likely to be an envelope marked By Air Mail, Par Avion waiting for me in the mailbox in front of our…

  • Dispatch from the Diaspora

    When the sun stops …

    Dawn light began stealingThrough the cold universe to County Meath, Over weirs where the Boyne water, fulgent, darkling,Turns its thick axle, over rick-sized stonesMillennia deep in their own unmoving And unmoved alignment. (from A Dream of Solstice by Seamus Heaney) Winter Solstice is the turning point I look forward to each year. The day after my daughter’s birthday, it is…

  • Art,  Belfast,  Christmas,  Memoir,  Photography,  Saying Thank You,  Thanksgiving,  Van Morrison,  Writers

    a time to give thanks …

    The pandemic forced us to reconsider and replace  known ways with new routines and rituals; it inspired new reasons - reminders - to be thankful - for all we had previously taken for granted  - hugs and handshakes, hanging out and happy hour, multiple trips to the grocery store on the same day and meetings without masks; hair appointments and…

  • Dispatch from the Diaspora

    Enniskillen lingers

    It never occurred to me that I was a child of The Troubles until I stumbled upon a scholarly dissertation about Northern Ireland. As a child, I was usually at a safe distance from “The Troubles,” I saw at 6 o’clock every evening  when we turned on the news or the odd time our kitchen window rattled when a bomb…