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Welcome to Old Ireland.   My initial idea for this site was to cover only classic vehicles, but since classicireland.ie was already taken and the best alternative I could find was this one, my thoughts for the site began to broaden.   A lot of the inspiration for this comes from the few magazines for which I have written articles.   Let’s get these mentioned early, because you should not be surprised to see a little of their influence here.   Real Classic is subscription only in print, but also has an excellent site at https://www.real-classic.co.uk/ , where Frank, Rowena and a host of writers entertain and inspire.   Then there is Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly, formerly in print monthly, but now only on line at http://mnmotorcycle.com / (unfortunately now obsolete.  You will need to use the Wayback machine to find it).   MMM’s archives could keep you reading happily for months, and the like it or not truths told by Thomas Day (Geezer with a grudg...

This is terrorism? Really?

 So, a couple of weeks ago a protest group called 'Palestine Action' broke into RAF Brize Norton.  That in itself was surprizing enough; the RAF security on that base must have been rubbish.  I would love to read their explanation of how someone managed to get through their fence, ride a scooter up to parked planes, spray paint them, and then escape again without anyone noticing! What I do find amazing has been the government's reaction to this incident.  There is a case to be made that the perpetrators of this action should have been thanked.  After all, had this been done by actual terrorists it is likely that the planes would have been destroyed, with perhaps RAF personnel killed, of even weapons stolen, fuel ignited etc.  OK, Palestine Action have admitted to using crowbars to, in their words, "decommission" the planes, but the actions of real terrorists would have been much, much worse than what actually happened.  Embarrassing as the incident was...

A good (old) story

Just a little bit of publicity for one of the internets oldest still existing web sites, Project Guttenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73756), and hopefully too for Grandad's blog (Link in the sidebar), which has now been taken over by his daughter Kate.  A warning though, if you read old books, don't expect them to be politically correct in todays terms!!   I've been reading this 1923 collection of short stories and thought those of you who who like a good horror tale might like this.  Enjoy.  :-) DERRICK’S RETURN   BY GOUVERNEUR MORRIS   From _Cosmopolitan_     Derrick dreamed that Indians had captured him and had laid him face down in their camp fire and were slowly burning his head off. As a matter of fact a surgeon was working out a difficult problem in the back of Derrick’s throat, and for a little while, toward the end of the operation, anesthesia had not been complete.   The operation was a succes...