Monthly Archives: October 2015

Yesterday the Reach Project was delighted to hold a conference in the Skainos Centre, Belfast, themed “Democracy In Action”. Their presenter was Mr Gary Harte, Outreach Officer for The Houses of Parliament who traveled from London to facilitate the event, through his … Continue reading →

On 21st June, 1990, I published The Cavalier Duke by Professor J.C. Beckett under my imprint Pretani Press. Along with Professor Michael Grant, President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University, Belfast, Professor René Fréchet of the Sorbonne Nouvelle, Université de Paris III, Professor Robert Gregg … Continue reading →

This is a wonderful verse by one of our excellent modern Ullans poets, a worthy successor to the Rhyming Weavers and I love it. It was written by Wullie Logan , oor ain Bard o Dunloy, known to the general … Continue reading →

I was born in Bangor, County Down, and reared in the nearby little village of Conlig (a). In the Ulster Gaelic or Ulidian, this means “the stone of the hound” and the whole area was Gort-na-lig, “the field of stones”, … Continue reading →

In his Foreword to the Belfast Poet Dennis Greig’s Morning in Belfast, which I published in 1983 under my imprint Pretani Press, John Hewitt wrote on 10th April 1983, “I first encountered the name of Dennis Greig in 1977 in the booklet Worklines, Belfast … Continue reading →

“Cultural divisions in Northern Ireland – Myth or Reality” are notes for a Radio Interview I gave in Paris at 10.30 am on Friday 29th April 1983, when I was asked to speak to senior scholars at the Sorbonne University. … Continue reading →

Edgar Allan Poe  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, … Continue reading →

But this sweep, ample as it was, did not reconcile Chichester to the disappointment of not being able to secure, as his share, the great Irish territory in Upper Clannaboy, then and still known as Castlereagh, extending southward from the … Continue reading →

The region over which Sir Arthur Chichester thus became Governor had been known time immemorial as one of the most important in Ulster. Its original extent varied somewhat in the lapse of time and according to local circumstances, but it … Continue reading →

It would be unkind if we did not here parenthetically record the charitable action of MacDonnell in regard to these same Spanish castaways. Theirs, indeed, was a hard lot. The best blood of Spain young nobles from a southern clime … Continue reading →