Booking now, starts 31st Oct, next in our #coffeehousepoetry creative & critical #BetweenTheLines series, as Cahal Dallat features six more poets for investigation & inspiration, with collective weekly workshopping of your new work✍️ fri 31 oct—sat 20 dec, £280, 7wk course tinyurl.com/between-the-...

Where else to escape to (when a suddenly sub-tropical end-of-September sun strikes in London) but the cool shades of the Wisteria Walk at Wisley Gardens just off the M25 (& Alpine Houses & Bonsai Walk & eating on the Terrace, & & &... & water features everywhere...)

The poetry of music, the music in poetry: join us in #Yeats's boyhood London neighbourhood at 'I Dreamt I Dwelt: Irish Composers, WB Yeats & Bedford Park’s Heyday' with Irish Heritage celebrating #BedfordPk’s 150th anniversary at: St Michael & All Angels see: tinyurl.com/Wed22Oct-Boo...

Cahal Dallat catches up with fellow-Ballycastle-man Patrick Casement with stories of Sir Roger in London & the Glens, after Cushendun's 'Culture Month' talk on 'Roger Casement & Jack White: Rebellious Sons of Empire'. Thanks to organisers Katy English & Jude McNeill & their team for a great event!

Big prairie sky: brooding clouds set on fire by setting September sun over Dalriada Crescent, Cushendall

Patrick Casement & Katy English, cousin & great-niece respectively of 'Roger Casement & Jack White: Rebellious Sons of Empire' engrossed in tech set-up for their talks @theoldchurchcentre, Cushendun, on two 'Glensmen' who defied family & class expectations to campaign for Irish independence.

Graceful, energised, expressive dance yesterday in tribute to violinist/choreographer Patricia Mulholland (1915-1992) & her Irish Ballet @theoldchurchcentre, Cushendun, plus superb wide-ranging exhibition & presentation on the ballet's story by Patricia's great-niece & keeper of the flame, @judelir.

Never thought those 70s colours would feature in a fashion article... but the pic does capture the school-holiday summer I worked in Cushendall's tweed factory shop. Mine is one of several articles on the factory's story which now count as 'local history'. Thanks @antrimhistory & 'The Glynns'!

'The Glynns', ed. by Donnell O'Loan (l), with my 'High Fashion on the Coast Road' featuring alongside the Glens of Antrim Tweed Factory's history by Paul Connolly (r). My first summer job, while still at school, was in the factory shop, when just being on the fashion world's margins seemed so cool!😎

🌏 Excited to set out, this Sunday 21st, on a brand new themed creative-writing series. My long-standing map obsession found its way into 'No Far Shore' & since then I've developed this fascinating 7wk course, 'an enchantment of maps: vision, cartography, inspiration'. see tinyurl.com/the-enchantm...

Lovely audience at our talk yesterday on Roberta 'Ruby' Hewitt at Old Church Centre, Cushendun. Thanks to those who travelled far to be with us, Donegal, Belfast, Armagh etc, & to so many from around the Glens, & great welcome from Katy English, Jude McNeill, Maria McAlister & 'Culture Month' team.

'...no other corner in this land / offers in shape and colour all I need / for sight to torch the mind with living light.' From 'The Glens' by John Hewitt, about whom @CLDallat & I will be talking tomorrow, though mostly about Roberta who brought him here! tinyurl.com/roberta-hewitt-cushendun-14sep

Sudden glint of light on Garron Point against that louring sky, as a rainbow dips behind the horizon... before disappearing. 🌈

Waking to the dawn light that I've known, like, forever... A constant, constantly changing, infinitely variable. Great to be back in Cushendall for this September sunrise. 🌅

Leaving Scotland... in the last of the light. ⛅

Update: one place now available, starts fri 19th, next in our creative & critical #BetweenTheLines masterclass, as Cahal Dallat features six more poets for investigation & inspiration with collective weekly workshopping of your new work✍️ see: tinyurl.com/starts-next-... art: aravind rajamanickam

Just a reminder that our Cushendun 'Culture Month' talk, on why Roberta Hewitt matters poetry-wise, is this Sunday. And good to hear from so many of you who'll be joining us! See you there. sun 14 sep, 3pm: 'a wiser creature', with anne-marie fyfe and cahal dallat see: tinyurl.com/roberta-hewi...

Sadly going to miss our local Chiswick Book Festival this year, with its packed programme (as we're back "home' in the Antrim Glens talking about Roberta Hewitt in Cushendun). But for those in & around London, see: chiswickbookfestival.net/festival-bro... All best to @TorinDouglas & Festival team!👍💐

Mapping out your autumn writing, charting your creativity, looking for new directions?🌎 Booking open now – your chance to explore a fascinating new theme. sun 21 sep—sun 16 nov, £280: 'an enchantment of maps: vision, cartography, inspiration' see: tinyurl.com/an-enchantme... art: toonjosenart

Always love discovering boathouses (including finds, in Fresgoe & Fethard-on-Sea, in Carmel, Cape Breton & Nantucket, on my #NoFarShore odyssey, & one from my Cushendall childhood.) This one belongs to Agatha Christie's holiday home, 'Greenway' & features in Poirot mystery 'Dead Man's Folly'.

Several of the weekend house-guests at Agatha Christie's holiday home, 'Greenway' (National Trust, nr Brixham, Devon) clearly choosing the 'No Comment' option under interrogation, on the grounds that 'Anything you say...' 😂

In the understairs nook on the left, salmon rods, a shooting stick, tennis racquets, croquet mallets. And the sweep of the main staircase, where the deceased is often found, raising the 'Did they fall or were they pushed?' conundrum. Agatha Christie's 'Greenway', National Trust, nr. Brixham, Devon.

How many dastardly Agatha Christie murder plots were hatched in these surroundings? And how many country-house-weekend parties in Christie's oeuvre end with the guests assembled in the Sunday morning drawing room as the local PC interrogates them ? (Agatha Christie's, 'Greenway', National Trust)

The advice to 'Write about what you know' clearly worked for Agatha Christie who owned (& week-ended & holidayed in) 'Greenway', overlooking Devon's River Dart, & then set so many successful mysteries in just such grand country-house settings. (Glampton, Devon, National Trust)

A last look down at the empty stage from half-way up the steep & winding steps of the fantastical Minack Theatre, no more dramatic setting imaginable in which to have watched a tragic Prince of Denmark suffer 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'. Great work by #WinchesterPlayers

'Goodnight, sweet prince': Horatio's farewell to his dying friend, with all around, a high onstage body count (from betrayals, double-crossings, stabbings, poisoned cups) against a backdrop of the night from which no traveller returns. #WinchesterPlayers at #MinackTheatre

An appealing #Hamlet: #WinchesterPlayers' Tommy Jessop's compelling study of the Prince of Denmark as an affable guy suddenly having to wrestle with whether to fight back against 'a sea of troubles'... as the light declines on the Atlantic horizon. (Minack Theatre)

'Be the players ready?' Full house on a precipitous cliff's edge (in Cornwall rather than Elsinore) waiting for #WinchesterPlayers' night-watch (& the old king's ghost) to appear, at the start of #Hamlet in the unique #MinackTheatre.

Positively Aegean... from a bend in the steep single-track road that leads from Porthcurno village up to Minack Theatre, a dramatic glimpse of sunlit beach & cove sheltered by granite outcrops.

Booking now, starts 19 Sep, next in our creative & critical #BetweenTheLines masterclass series, as Cahal Dallat features six more poets for investigation & inspiration with collective weekly workshopping of your new work, see: tinyurl.com/betweentheli... art: 'changing directions', fran kie

River as timeline, from Tower (1066) to Tate Modern & Shard. Great day out (with grandkids) on Terrible Thames boat trip, our city's story told by superb performers in a mix of dates & disasters, plague, fire, hangings & horrors, plus Boris Johnson, Liz Truss & a few topical jokes for the grown-ups.

Before autumn courses kick off, our summer travels/research (Coventry, Belfast & 'at home' on the Antrim coast) end with a talk in Cushendun (next bay from Cushendall) on Roberta Hewitt & how her connection with the Glens inspired much of her husband John Hewitt's poetry tinyurl.com/roberta-hewi...

Tirzah Garwood (back to camera), Edward Bawden (with whom Tirzah & Eric Ravilious shared the Great Bardfield house from 1931) then the top of Eric's head, along with North-East Essex Group artists, at Saffron Walden's Fry Art Gallery. Artwork by sculptor Ian Wolter, unveiled May 2025.

No, not a new location for our 'BetweenTheLines' masterclasses – just a Great Bardfield bookshop that's similarly insistent on the importance of 'reading between the lines'. (For autumn's virtual #coffeehousepoetry 'BetweenTheLines'✍️ with Cahal Dallat, see: tinyurl.com/next-BTL-boo...)

'Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest...' Thaxted Parish Church, mostly 14c/15c, overlooking the town & Gustav Holst's house. Holst played the church's Lincoln organ. His friend from Bedford Park/Hammersmith days, Conrad Noel, was vicar here.

'The Priory' on Watling Lane, Thaxted, where US poet Donald Hall lived in his Essex year & where he worked on poetry in the mornings, book reviews midday, & his first prose book, 'String Too Short to be Saved' (about childhood on his grandparents' Eagle Pond Farm in New Hampshire) 'around teatime'.

Thaxted Guildhall: the town's 15c meeting place, or 'moot hall', just below the church. US poet Donald Hall hoped to rent this relic but settled for 'The Priory' opposite. Later we corresponded, his letters typed on a manual typewriter under his letterhead, Eagle Pond Farm, Wilmot, New Hampshire.

Exploring Essex: Gustav Holst discovered Thaxted on a walking tour & moved here in 1913. He became central to local cultural life & when he used the 'Jupiter' theme from 'The Planets' for Irish poet Cecil Spring Rice's 'I Vow to Thee my Country', he named the tune 'Thaxted'. 🌏🎵

Journey's end in rural Essex: after Ravilious is lost off Iceland in 1942 Tirzah Garwood marries Irish radio producer Henry Swanzy in 1946. Her cancer returns in 1948, she dies in 1951, & is buried in Copford churchyard. On her headstone her husband Henry adds 'Eric Ravilious, Lost in the Atlantic'.

After two homes on Essex village High Streets (see prev. posts), Tirzah Garwood & Eric Ravilious move to isolated Iron Bridge Farm, & Tirzah's mostly managing on her own as Eric's commissioned as a war artist in 1939, & is lost off Iceland in 1942 when the search flight he's on fails to return.

The artists' life: next stop 'Bank House', Castle Hedingham. Tirzah Garwood & Eric Ravilious leave the Bawdens 'Brick House' (see prev. post) for a place of their own in 1934. They have their three children here, & stay until 1941, though the house was cold & frequently flooded.

Exploring Tirzah Garwood's (& Eric Ravilious's) rural dream: married in 1930, they leave Upper Mall in Hammersmith in 1931 to share 'Brick House' in Gt Bardfield, Essex, with artists Edward & Charlotte Bawden, an artists' collective that will become the North-East Essex 'artist's colony'.🎨

Great to see #NoFarShore 'Charting Unknown Waters' –uncharted for me at least – including super @serenbooks royalties cheque showing just how many📚have set sail in past year, & being recognised in a café from author pic (see prev. post), both thanks to @theopenuniversity & Prof. Fiona Doloughan💐

Balmy evening at Shaw's Corner & the 'stage' set to whisk us off to 1885 Bulgaria in 'Arms & the Man'. 🎭 Can almost see Shaw (who lived here 1906-1950) watching us, & delighted by Rumpus Theatre Co's dazzling performance. 💐Thanks to The Shaw Society & Eoin @ SHAW-2020 for letting me know!

Looking just a little inquisitive (?) & cool enough to let me get this close, the tiny wren's always a welcome visitor: sacred in Celtic myth, 'king of birds' in Greek fable, & generally a harbinger of happiness 😊

Mapping out your autumn writing, charting your creativity, looking for new directions?🌎Booking now open, your chance to explore a fascinating new theme. sun 21 sep—sun 16 nov £280: 'an enchantment of maps: vision, cartography, inspiration', 7-wk course see: tinyurl.com/enchantment-... (art: unattr.)

That feeling when... not quite getting mobbed-by-fans 🤣 but when the Sunday-morning queuer behind you at Gail's in Kew recognises you because she's studying your book on her @openuniversity.bsky.social #LiteratureMatters course (along with Plath, Orwell & Wilde!) 📚 annemariefyfe.com/publications

Lovely day yesterday taking Cushendun/London friend, artist & arts-activist, Katy English, around #Yeats's #BedfordPk world. Then back to ours for leisurely lunch & talk of people, paintings, poetry of place, & upcoming autumn events here in Chiswick and 'at home' in the Glens.

A dream of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' last night with Chiswick House's woodland glades🌳as the magical forest where nobles, lovers, players & fairies are enchanted, misdirected, entangled, confused, made asses of in puckish pranks. Wise & witty performances from the superb 'Outdoor Theatre' 🎭 cast!

The Bedford Park Festival thank-you garden party – one of the rewards for making poetry things happen: sun-filled afternoon (& refreshing Pimm's🍸) with the volunteers who handle organisation, publicity, front-of-house etc at our events, including NZ-er & now Chiswick-ite @shelleyhass.bsky.social