Author Harry McAvinchey

What can you say .It’s a quiet sort of day and the item that has risen to the frothy surface on local radio is whether or not Jim Wells, the DUP politician, has put his foot back into his mouth again , or …possibly not. He was some past form in this respect so it […]

Curious and curiouser. The relatives of the victims want to re-open the Birmingham Bomb inquest on the basis that much new evidence has come to life.I was writing recently about the fact that there always seems to be a parallel story running beneath the “official” story that we are constantly being fed . One narrative […]

“Couple Found Dead Beneath Fallen Chestnut Tree”. “That’ll be the headline, you know”, I said to the good wife ,as we walked along by the river with the wind fairly roaring and tearing at my ears and the fallen leaves swirling about us , a whirling cyclone of shredded, golden confetti.It’s bound to happen , […]

You’d assume that somewhere in the background , papers are already being shuffled in the corridors of power….Yes.. Let’s try that on for size ….”A few bad apples!”.. That has a certain ring to it .It’s a catch-all kind of phrase and covers any number of possibilities and is vague and homely enough to allow […]

Have you any idea why in America they call the pavement …”the sidewalk” while we might at times make do with “the footpath” ? This kind of thing fascinates me .What about the word “yogurt”? I was making a litre of plain yogurt just now.Sometimes I get it right and sometimes if I’m not patient […]

The “Dear knows”….my late mother would have said.The “Dear” in this case being that celestial being who knew just about everything worth knowing out there. Listen, feel free to stop me at any time in the convesation here, because I have to admit to the occasional bout of confusion. If I was being easy on […]

I’d almost despaired. It’s that long month of January that does it for most of us here in Norneverland. Many of the inhabitants have shot their financial load with the Christmas and New Year festivities. December’s early wage is long spent; they’ve maxed out their credit card ; the streets have emptied of shoppers and […]

“And straight I will repair To the Curragh of Kildare For it’s there I’ll find tidings of my dear.” I was thinking about that Dublin weekend with my father and uncle all those years ago , after a recent visit to my dentist to replace a filling a few days ago. Both of them are […]

The brain can be very selective in what it cares to store or discard from the deep pool of murky memories that make up each of our lives. I watched those kinds of dreamscapes slipping away from my father until there was nothing left but his dementia and the walls of his nursing-home room…and me […]

Dammit!! That one slipped by unnoticed. .. There I was , recently ,making lists of the great and good ,the dead and the truly gone, in the past year, 2015 ,when I suddenly realised that I’ve been caught out while momentarily looking the other way .Right , bang on the the final day of the […]