Welcome


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 grudge: see his own site at http://geezerwithagrudge.blogspot.com/), should make everyone on two wheels pause for thought.  If you have time on the MMM site, have a look for BJ Max’s Redneck files; great writing, great stories.


As you can see, my interest in classic vehicles centres around two wheels.  This does not prevent me from appreciating others though, like the picture below of a very cool 1952 Daimler convertible that parked in my local Sainsburys just as I did. Or the pictures of the svelte looking Porsche tractor taken at Ardglass in 2017.  Talking to the both owners passed a pleasant few minutes, and as with the vast majority of the classic vehicle community, both were very friendly and had a few tales to tell. 




I have always been fascinated by social histories and family stories too, so there will be a few from my Mum from time to time as well to get things going.  In the pipeline (in thought at least) are stories about Irish built racing cars, Rolex watches, Train derailments, tales from the old biker meeting place in Bangor that used to be known as ‘The Paddock’ and of my used and abused BMW R75.   If you have found this site and decide to return then you are likely to get very, very bored of my ramblings unless a few others decide to post articles here too.


I will try to post stories here as often as I can, but if you have a story to tell that has even the vaguest link to all that is old and Irish, feel free to contact me and I will put it online here.  This could cover anything from natural history to living in a traditional Irish house.  Let’s preserve a few of these stories while we can.  I can’t promise to make you rich unless some kind some kind person would like to sponsor all this, in which case I would be more than happy to give a few incentives to anyone kind enough to help the site out.   The best kind contributors can hope for is to see their work on line in glorious technicolour and the 15 minutes of fame that goes with this.  Even that depends on people finding this site, so if you like what you see here; please pass the sites details on.  If you have an event, club or meeting to publicise that is linked to old Ireland, drop me a line and I will put the details up here.

Until I see if there is any interest in this site, I have gone for the cheap option of publishing here on Blogger.  I don't have the resources or free time to compete with the professional presentation of the magazine sites mentioned above, and I have a lot to learn about web publishing, so please bear with me.  There won’t be much here initially but it should fill out over time, so please watch this space.


Thanks,


Cas

oldandireland@gmail.com

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