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Welcome

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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...
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One of the following must be true

  It’s been a while since I wrote about the world of politics, but I had to return to it at some point, so here goes.   😊   One of the following must be true, or perhaps they all have some semblance of truth?   1)       Politics or other high office jobs attract the delusionally idiotic, the corrupt and the perverted. 2)       Power corrupts. 3)       Even a saint cannot go unscathed through the scrutiny that falls on our public servants and others whose position gets them media attention.   This started while watching Morning TV over my breakfast.   There was a talking head expert on a piece about one of the eternal problems in the NHS, who came out with the following informative statement, “As people get older, they have more risk of dying”.    I bet you never realised that before.   I wonder haw much they pay these TV experts to impart that level of...
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Revamped, and free again for a few days. And a free short story too.

 I've posted about publishing a book on Amazon here before:   The Other Road eBook : Caswell, Ian: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store To celebrate me eventually having time to rewrite the start of the story it will be available on Kindle FREE for five days from 1st May.  A paperback version will be available shortly too.  I initially worked hard to keep the word count down, because the publisher I had been going to use recommended a 30,000 word limit, their logic being that this would keep the purchase cost down, thus encouraging more people to give a new author a chance.  30,000 words was never going to happen, but it did give me some sort of guide.  Given the sales of the book so far, I can confirm that cutting down the word count does not work. My efforts to keep the word count down led that first part of the story to be incredibly information dense, with huge monologues etc.  Although I was always unhappy with this, I thought ignoring the experts woul...
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Tech and modern cars.

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 My old Astra was getting to be a real pain.  The noise from somewhere underneath continued (see my original write up on it), but additional, hard to trace problems were also building up.  It had started to leak somewhere around the boot too, yet I could see no good reason for this since the seals were good.  This got to the point where, over time, the recess for the spare wheel filled up and the water then sloshed around sufficiently that it started to soak through the foam of the rear seat, making it damp.  The inside of the windows were often dripping with moisture too, and demisting took an age.  Last autumn and winter here were exceptionally wet, and this was a constant source of annoyance.  Since building an extension on our house a few years I no longer have direct access to my garage, and have to work on the car out in the street. I have to admit that although the bodywork was in good condition, the constant niggles with this car, most of which...
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Whisky Galore - The Irish version......almost.

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This will be a little convoluted at first, but please persevere.  I first got interested in this story because of an old book I was reading.  Like me, you may think that climate change is a relatively new concept.  Google says different, and it is right, the concept may have gained popularity and significance in the last 60 or 70 years, but it is not new. This is what Google has to say on the subject:  "While the concept of human-caused climate change dates back to the 19th century, the phrase "climate change" gained prominence in the 1950s-1970s. Gilbert Plass used the phrase in 1956". The old book mentioned above is called Ulster Folklore, by Elizabeth Andrews, which was published in 1913.  I can't say that I would recommend it (the supposed science in it can't have been good at the time, and age has not helped it), but at least the book is short.  From page one, it is filled with bad science, most of which seems to attempt to link all the old folk t...
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