Author Harry McAvinchey

Chocolate and sugar have always been about politics. Especially that sweet sugar. It was the ancient Persians ,closely followed by the Greeks who initially discovered the real delights of sugar. I should say they discovered the amazing grassy reeds which produced a sweet- tasting honey, without the aid of honeybees. That was in India sometime […]

I wish I knew my birds a little better. Oh , I know what a thrush looks like ,or a starling and a swift or swallow. I can pick out a robin or a bluetit, a magpie or a dove .What I’d dearly love to know is what that little fellow with the white breast […]

The Kincora House scandal that appeared in 1980 isn’t going away. It’s now a lifetime ago.That was the year I got married; thirty six years ago in a life where I’ve seen my three daughters grow up to have adult lives of their own… and still it trundles on. The abuse that happened within the […]

  “The Dear knows”, as my late mother would say…. that it’s a dunderheaded uselessness to even give it any time or thought at all.The “Dear” being some transcendent overseer of all human foibles on earth….a sort of cosmic Shakespeare, tasked to write and manipulate the stories and pull the strings of soft-headed commonfolk. That’s […]

I’ve been thinking that the hare just might be the perfect symbol to reflect the very distinct personality pertaining to the citizenry of the magical land of Norneverland.Given that across the land people are riven with conflicting senses of identity the leperid might provide the adhesive glue to better reflect our innate curmudgeonry complexity ; […]

So what did I miss while I’ve been away? On Easter Sunday around about midday I was tooling down the near-clear motorway, airport -bound, while in Dublin there was a veritable stew of marching and half-hearted speechifying about a history that no-one can agree on. There was a fractured conversation as to the why and […]

“GO” is an ancient boardgame .It is possibly the oldest boardgame known to man and it is very much an ingrained part of the culture of the east. I came across mention of it in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. Somehow, it began being mentioned in the underground press and in the art colleges […]

David Ford the Justice Minister for Norneverland and also a member of the Alliance Party, says he cannot attend a ceremony that commemorates men who used violence in the 1916 Rising. He has been invited as a guest at the centenary event but has declined. Basically he snubbed the Irish Government and the Irish people […]

I see Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, the third largest political party in Ireland, was barred from a White House reception in Washington for the Friends of Ireland.If you wanted to make some waves and encourage the voters to come out in their droves in support of Sinn Fein, that might be the kind […]

I’m chomping down on what can only be described as a marmalade pizza. It’s a fat heel of “Nutty Crust” bread, lightly toasted, every inch of which is slathered in thick -cut “Fruitfield Old Tyme” Seville orange marmalade and full-fat “Golden Cow” butter.I can feel my arteries a-tremble. Toast is one of the pleasures in […]