Tag Archives: Ireland

Everything is going to hell in a handcart – including me

Posted on by under Life and stuff

‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.’

William Butler Yeats , The Second Coming

I first heard this poem many years ago but it was just a poem then. It was written in 1919 at the beginning of the Irish War of Independence when Ireland sought to free itself from English rule. However, this was not happening in a vacuum, Europe had just been through the First World War and there was still plenty going on as you can see below.

Continue reading →

Just published – the first DI Biddie O’Sullivan mystery

Posted on by under Biddie O'Sullivan, Crime writing

You can now find my latest crime novel, Murder At Shark Island, on Amazon books. This has been something of a new departure for me as so far all of my crime novels have featured retired murder specialist Mac Maguire. It would be fair to say that Biddie is a little different.

She’s a Garda detective working out of Cork City, Ireland. She’s also six foot three inches tall and a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She is currently unattached but wishes that she wasn’t. Her son has just moved out and is enjoying his university life while she is rattling around an empty house. Work becomes everything to her and, in this her first case, she gets the job no-one wanted…

Continue reading →

My new detective – Biddie O’Sullivan

Posted on by under Crime writing, Life and stuff, Mac Maguire, Writing process

As a writer, I try to make plans but I’ve learned that, sometimes, such plans can very quickly go out of the window. I was halfway through Mac Maguire’s fourteenth adventure, A Murdered Crow, when a new idea hit me pretty much out of the blue. It was all Mac’s fault really as I had him reviewing some crime novels as part of his investigation into a murder and, in order to give him some clues, I had to invent a couple of authors and their fictional detectives. One of these fictional characters was called Detective Inspector Biddie O’Sullivan who works out of Cork City, Ireland. As I say, Biddie was invented just to help Mac’s plot along but, somehow, she stuck in my head.

Continue reading →

The Chancer – Mac’s eighth adventure – Just published!

Posted on by under Mac Maguire

book coverThe eighth and latest Mac Maguire mystery has now been published in Amazon Books. Here’s the official blurb –

‘Mac is on his way back to Ireland for a funeral when a body is found at the airport. A man has been stabbed three times in the back and Mac volunteers to help his police colleagues. He’s flying back to Donegal where he hopes to find out something about the victim’s background.

It appears that the dead man was ‘a chancer and romancer’ and Mac has his work cut out delving into his numerous, and mostly nefarious, dealings in the north of Ireland. With the help of a troubled colleague from the Irish Police Mac soon discovers that the murder in the airport has set off a ticking time bomb that will soon explode.

Mac finds himself delving into his own past as his childhood memories of Donegal come flooding back and an old family mystery is also solved.’ Continue reading →