Stories from travels in

Mary Murphy

Fifty shades of … brown

It took a while for me to put my finger on what I was missing most – and then it finally dawned on me. Colour.

So where did it happen?

Here are four words… immersion, submersion, aspersion, and affusion. When you read them, what one word comes to mind …. apart from ‘clueless’?  I had

Hapless revolt or heroic war?

Years and years and years ago, when visiting a plantation house somewhere in the Carolinas where the guide was telling us not to sit on

Islands in the sand

I’m not sure if I can take much more of this. That crash you just heard was yet another illusion being shattered. When I hear

2013 Grateful 8

I have long since imagined Bethlehem as a little mountain village with perhaps one main street, an inn, and a manger. I had a romantic

No women allowed

With donkeys and goats competing for space with plastic bags and rubbish of all sorts, the Judean desert isn’t what you’d call pristine. Actually, what

The shepherds’ field

I can read the book or see the movie. I can’t do both. Well, I can, but any time I have, I’ve been disappointed. Nicole

Geographically Challenged

Yesterday, I thought I was heading to Israel. This morning I woke up in Palestine. Perhaps I should have read the itinerary more carefully. Or

2013 Grateful 10

Just returned from the wilds of Alaska back in 2001, I found myself in Carlow at a nightclub. Some lad was chatting me up. His