Fiction
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind Snippet: A War of Wits
The story opens in 1916. The world is at war, Irish freedom fighters have just stage...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind Snippet: MAUD IS STUNG
The story opens in 1916. The world is at war, Irish freedom fighters have just stage...
10 Jun 2026
DANCING IN THE WIND NOTEBOOK DAY 43: John MacBride - The Soldier
John MacBride was a soldier in South Africa for a few years, fighting with the Boers (D...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind Snippet: Stuff and Nonsense
The story opens in 1916. The world is at war, Irish freedom fighters have just stage...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind Snippet: "You Are a Married Man, Sir!"
Willie Yeats was not the only poet to be attracted to Iseult Gonne. His young secret...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind Snippet: Ezra!
Willie Yeats was not the only poet to be attracted to Iseult Gonne. His young secret...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind Snippet: Iseult Gonne and Ezra Pound
This is a snippet from my current work in progress, Dancing in the Wind. This section...
10 Jun 2026
Women of 1916 Enniscorthy Rising
This photography belongs to Ibar Carthy who runs a photographic studio in Enniscorthy, ...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind: Extract 9: PORTRAIT OF EZRA POUND 1
To receive exclusive extracts from this story and give feedback on where it should g...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind: Extract 8: A MOMENT OF TRUTH
To receive exclusive extracts from this story and give feedback on where it should g...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind: Extract 7: How Like Your Mother You Become
To receive exclusive extracts from this story and give feedback on where it should g...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind: Extract 6: Just Get Him Here
To receive exclusive extracts from this story and give feedback on where it should g...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind: Extract 5: An Astrological Deadline
The story opens in 1916. The world is at war, Irish freedom fighters have just staged a...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind: Extract 4: The Teller of the Tale
The story opens in 1916. The world is at war, Irish freedom fighters have just staged a...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind: Extract 3: Who is Rosie?
The story opens in 1916. The world is at war, Irish freedom fighters have just staged a...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind Extract 2: MacBride is Shot
The story opens in 1916. The world is at war, Irish freedom fighters have just staged a...
10 Jun 2026
Dancing in the Wind Extract 1: Iseult Dances
The story opens in 1916. The world is at war, Irish freedom fighters have just staged a...
9 Jun 2026
A Woman’s Beauty is Like a White Frail Bird: W.B. Yeats Poems Inspired by Iseult Gonne
[caption id="attachment_30339" align="alignleft" width="196"] Iseult Gonne c. 1918[/cap...
9 Jun 2026
Short Story: Amber Scorched with Honey (Maud Gonne finds Lucien Millevoye is Married)
As promised, this is a chapter extract from my work in progress that also works as a fr...
9 Jun 2026
A Mouthful of Air: Poet Town and W.B. Yeats's spiritual marriage to Maud Gonne
I thoroughly enjoyed my recent appearance on A Mouthful of Air, the poetry podcast name...
9 Jun 2026
Maud Gonne Discovers Lucien Millevoye is Married: Fiction Member Extract Nov 2025
From that day of first meeting Millevoye, the world sets itself a little differently ab...
9 Jun 2026
Short Story: The Holy Church of Romance
This story is extracted from A Life Before, my current novel-in-progress, but is also a...
9 Jun 2026
WB Yeats Poems in the Dublin University Review 1885-1886: Open Fiction Post
As I have been exploring WB Yeats as a very young man, a list of the poems he first pub...
9 Jun 2026
Fiction Extract: The Artist's Way
"The Artist's Way" is an extract is from A Life Before, a prequel to Her Secret Rose,...
9 Jun 2026
Graignaspiddogue: A Setting in More Than A Muse
This is the opening chapter from A Life Before, a prequel to Her Secret Rose, which I p...
9 Jun 2026
Fiction: Extract from A Life Before: Yearnings
This is extract is from A Life Before, a prequel to Her Secret Rose, which I published ...
9 Jun 2026
Friday Fiction: "Sparks of light." Novel Extract from A Life Before
This is an extract from the first book in my Yeats-Gonne series, A Life Before This One...
9 Jun 2026
"Honor Bright": Extract from the novel A Life Before this One
This is an extract from the first book in my Yeats-Gonne series, A Life Before This One...
7 Nov 2025
W.B. Yeats and Maud Gonne: The Dublin Years
Last week I spoke on a panel at the 2025 Conference of the International Yeats Society:...
11 Aug 2024
Maud Gonne: An Emblem for Our Times
This is the final post about our 21-day kickstarter campaign to see a statue of Maud Go...
7 Jun 2024
Maud Gonne in Dublin Museums and Art Galleries: Open Post
With tributes to Maud Gonne on public view in Dublin already, do we really need a stree...
27 Apr 2024
Maud Gonne, Eavan Boland, and Mother Ireland
Finding out that Maud Gonne and Eavan Boland share a death anniversary got me thinking ...
23 Feb 2024
Maud Gonne's Political and Social Achievements
I believe Maud Gonne deserves public honor from Dublin for her social and political ach...
9 Feb 2024
Does Maud Gonne deserve a statue in Dublin? Of Course She Does
Does Maud Gonne deserve a statue in Dublin? Of course she does and a group of writers a...
1 Dec 2023
WB Yeats Writes The Lake Isle of Inisfree
Enjoy this patron-exclusive extract from my next novel, A Life Before, publishing later...
10 Nov 2023
Was WB Yeats an Indie Author? Yeats and Self-Publishing: Open Fiction Post
WB Yeats Was an Indie Author. Join me as I take a deep dive into Yeats's Self-Published...
23 Jun 2023
Maud Gonne's Upbringing: Open Post
A fictionalised summary of Maud Gonne's upbringing, based on extracts from, A Life Befo...
21 Apr 2023
"If she had more religion she would have less morals": WB Yeats on George Eliot
My favourite 20th century poet, W.B. Yeats, was not a fan of my favourite 19th century ...
1 Jul 2022
Friday Fiction: Remembering the Irish Civil War 1922-23
Con McCarthy: died Jan 10th 1923 in the Irish Civil War Ninety-nine years ago, my gr...
3 Jun 2022
Isabella Pollexfen Varley: Artist and Aunt of WB Yeats
One thing I love about writing historical fiction is doing the research. I often have t...
15 Apr 2022
"A Family, Together" Extract from the novel A Life Before This One
This is an extract from the first book in my Yeats-Gonne series, A Life Before This One...
18 Mar 2022
Friday Fiction: A Traditional Irish Love Story
Below is the beginning of a short story about a famous Irish love story, the story of L...
23 Dec 2021
Illustration by JB Yeats "The Stolen Child"
John Butler Yeats, father of the poet WB In researching the prologue to my Yeats-Gon...
27 Aug 2021
Friday Fiction: Yeats-Gonne Series: Maud Gonne is Arrested
Each Friday, I publish an extract from my work in progress, currently Dancing in the Wi...
20 Aug 2021
Friday Fiction: Yeats-Gonne Series: An Unequal Marriage
Each Friday, I publish an extract from my work in progress, currently Dancing in the Wi...
3 Aug 2021
WB Yeats Letter to Maud Gonne on Her Marriage
"Poets should never marry," Maud Gonne told WB Yeats shortly before she, without tellin...
31 May 2021
DANCING IN THE WIND NOTEBOOK DAY 39: Maud Gonne's Links with Free India Activists
Maud Gonne's father, Tommy, was a Cavalry Major, which was how the English born Maud en...
26 May 2021
DANCING IN THE WIND NOTEBOOK DAY 35: Rules for writing poetry by Ezra Pound
Pay no attention to the criticism of men who have never themselves written a notable wo...
24 May 2021
DANCING IN THE WIND NOTEBOOK DAY 33: Ezra Pound's Fascism
Ezra Pound had many famous sayings. The one that has always been most useful to me is "...
18 May 2021
DANCING IN THE WIND NOTEBOOK DAY 30: Unpublished Photographs of Maud Gonne
Some fabulous unpublished photographs of Maud Gonne have appeared in a new Irish docume...