Around the West of Ireland – with Dr John Brady

John Brady looks ahead to the new tour he will be leading this May: Ireland History & Heritage

Driving around the west of Ireland at this time of year always reminds me of Seamus Heaney’s poem, ‘Postscript’ where:

You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

Beyond the ‘big soft buffetings’ the weather is currently providing; it’s the sense of being ‘neither here nor there’ that I love about exploring Ireland. The ‘here’ of the particular and local gives the place an intimacy but sometimes masks the ‘there’ of connectedness with the wider world.

The picturesque town of Cóbh, forty-five minutes from the bustle of Cork City, captures this perfectly. You could easily forget when you’re enjoying the peaceful views of the harbour that almost everything you see connects the town outwards. Spike Island, ‘Ireland’s Alcatraz’ held thousands of convicts who were transported to Botany Bay and Van Diemen’s Land between 1847–83. The old train station is a reminder of the 3 million people that came to Cóbh to emigrate to the United States. Most famously maybe, Cóbh was the Titanic’s last port of call in 1912.

Even an island like Inis Mór is woven into the wider world. Perched on a cliff over the Atlantic, the 3,000-year-old fortress, Dún Aonghasa on the Aran Islands, feels both ancient and immediate. Some say it was built by the mythical Fir Bolg, a people banished to the extremities of Ireland by another mythical race, the Tuatha Dé Dannan. Yet this is only one story on a small island that has experienced 4,000 years of habitation from Stone Age farmers to pioneers of the early-Christian monastic movement, from Elizabethan soldiers to antiquarians, folklorists, poets and artists.

I hope to see you in May to share more of these stories when the days are longer and there are a few less strong winds buffeting at the car!

Dr John Brady, February 2026.

Ireland: History & Heritage departs 26 May–5 June 2026