Ryan Murdock: Writer, Traveller, Reader of Books

Norman Lewis was the 20th century’s most underrated writer about place. A man who took pride in his ability to fade into even the most exotic background, he wrote about cultures on the cusp of total and sometimes violent change. He had an instinct for...

The echo of words were in the air as we made our way to Dublin to tramp the streets of Ireland’s Big Smoke on the last three days of the year. Our hotel off Leeson Street Upper was a stone’s throw from the Grand Canal, and a quick cut across St. Stephen...

“It’s smaller than I thought.” That’s a phrase no one wants to hear, particularly men, but I was talking about the castle we’d driven across Co. Tipperary to see. The photos I’d seen were so imposing that I guess I just expected its rooms to go on and...

The countryside around the Rock of Cashel is scattered with ecclesiastical ruins.  The entire region bears the traces of half-forgotten martyrdoms, and the struggles of early Christian saints to wrest the island’s inhabitants from the pagan beliefs the...