Patient or not? A dog waits as his owner chats at the farmers market in Blarney on St. Patrick’s Day this year. More Photos.

A Morris Minor, registered in 1964, parked in Bantry town in County Cork. Pictured in September 2008 while on holiday there. After reading the Wikipedia page on the car this is probably a Minor 1000.

Grim faced people walking along O’Connell Street in Dublin a month ago.

Abbeystrowry Cemetery is located near Skibereen in County Cork. It is the site of some of the mass graves used in the area during the famine around 1845. I didn’t know, or had forgotten there was a famine in 1740/1741 when 400,000 people died. That many people died on this little island of ours in…

Another frosty morning in Blarney, County Cork. I’m glad I work from home. The roads are deadly now. Snow fell in Dublin yesterday and the city practically came to a stand still. It hasn’t snowed in Blarney yet but the roads have been bad. We had a Christmas Day adventure when the car didn’t make…

The new Opera Lane in Cork City separates the gleaming buildings of the new development that was built right in the heart of the city and completed this year. Back in July it was a rugged dirty construction site, and this photo is a fitting end to 2009, and the Noughties. Not much construction work…

A disused chain lies forgotten on the ground near the lighthouse on Mizen Head, County Cork.

Look up and see naked branches cover the sky with their evil and treacherous appendages, and then walk straight into some dog sh*t that an uncaring owner neglected to clean up.

Strong shadows in exceptionally bright sunlight in May 2008 in Blarney.

Flash back to 2005 if you will. Ireland is in the grip of the Celtic Tiger boom. Cork is undergoing a transformation. The city’s streets were dug up and remolded with apparently improved drainage (didn’t help recently unfortunately) and the revamping of the city centre was in full swing. Here’s the construction on Daunt Square,…

Heineken. ’nuff said!

The side gate to SS Peter and Paul’s Church in Cork City remains open during the day.