At The Risin' of the Moon ...

The ruins of a chapel near Dun Aengus on the Aran island of Inishmore, off Galway, Ireland. Photo by RC.

Lots of film buffs think John Ford is the best American film director who ever lived. He was talented. His record of four Academy Awards--for The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941), and The Quiet Man (1952)--remains unbeaten to this day.

Born Sean Aloysius O'Fearna to a family of Irish immigrants in 1895, his Celtic values and sentimentality inform his work. And though I seem to be the only classic film fan who doesn't like his (truly weird) film The Searchers (1956), today is a good day to celebrate his many, many other winners.

The Origins of Dracula in Dublin

St. Michan's Church, Dublin.

Bram Stoker and his book Dracula (1897) may not freely associate in your mind with Dublin. But the author was born in Dublin, attended Trinity College, and began his career as a free-lance theater critic in the city.

In Ireland, there is speculation that what he saw in a tiny north side church, may have played a part in the vampire story that made him famous.

Visions of Celtic Lands

On my first trip to Ireland.

I've been planning a trip to Ireland--a country I haven't seen now for more than two decades. I do have Celtic in my background--McHutchison was my paternal grandmother's family name--but it is, I believe, of the lowland Scot variety.

I like to pretend I'm related to T.E. Lawrence, whose father was the Anglo-Irish baronet Sir Thomas Chapman.