Restoring Mayberry

Many people I know gravitate to antiques – tools or toys, decorations or devices -- for their beauty and durability. Why, however, must the...

The Girl looking at the neighbours' horses The seasons turn differently for all of us. My family in Missouri are seeing the last 4...

While most cars on the roads here average several years old, as it would be across most of the West, a surprising number of our neighbours m...

For a single blessed week, it was warm and dry here, and I could bicycle across the countryside wearing shorts. The clima...

Built 250 years ago by armies of barrel-chested Irishmen fed on meat and beer, they became one of the country's great natural resources....

Well, I’m back from London Book Fair -- I was supposed to go last year but, as some of you might remember, the eruption of an Icelandic volc...

It’s St. Patrick’s Day again: downtown parades, green felt hats, plastic orange beards, pennywhistle-and-accordion music, and television rep...

This is St. Brigid's Day, to commemorate a saint who built a learned and peaceful community here as the Roman Empire was experiencing it...

I don't usually get into politics, but some people have asked me about the perhaps confusing news coming out of Ireland right now. I dea...

If my writing's been a little sparse lately, it's partly because I've been busy writing the cover story for the next issue of th...