When I retired from teaching in 2013, I resolved to take on a new challenge, so I began experimenting with developing my own blog. I eventually settled on WordPress and, slowly but surely, began learning, single-handedly, the intricacies of building my site and editing, adding, importing, and sharing photographs, video clips, and other images and illustrations to embellish my writing. Since those early days, it has brought me great joy and satisfaction. In truth, I get a great sense of achievement when I send a blog post out into the ether and wait for a reaction, hopefully a positive one.

My initial hope was to publish some musings about life in the slow lane following my retirement! The blog was meant to be a repository of my rants, my rambles, and my reviews of poetry, fiction, and film. It was also meant to include some analysis of the political situation that my rants section didn’t already cover!

Over the intervening years, it has become a platform for second-level students and their teachers, guiding them in their Leaving Cert English studies. I have published well over 260 blog posts on poetry, drama, and film. From September to June each year, I have a loyal following of eager students who visit my site and use the free resources. I also have a very loyal following in India!

For years, when I was teaching, I gave grinds to neighbours’ children and children of friends and colleagues and a few others who came – in desperation! – because they had heard things on the grapevine. I have to say I always begrudged the time I lavished on this one-to-one teaching. I would have much preferred to be out in the garden or pucking a sliothar around with Don. My blog fixed all that, I can now work at my own pace; I can come and go, let matters rest, distil, and ferment before I publish at my leisure.

To date, the blog has had over 1.8 million hits, which is astounding. This year alone, I have had visitors from 179 countries!

In addition to publishing material that students studying for Leaving Cert and A Levels snap up, I also write posts that reflect my own interest in poetry. Chief among these is my near obsession with Michael Hartnett, who was reared in Maiden Street in Newcastle West. I knew him when he returned to live in Glendarragh, near the town, from 1975 to 1985. I also had the pleasure of teaching his son, Niall. I have done some exhaustive research on his background, influences and, of course, his poetry, which I love. I have enough material on one of his iconic poems, The Retreat of Ita Cagney (Cúlú Íde in Irish), to write a PhD thesis! Maybe someone else will take up that baton in time!

I am also very interested in local history, and I have done some research into the etymology of some local places and place names, like Ahalin and Clouncagh in my own parish and Maiden Street in Newcastle West. The harsh reality, however, is that even though I have about 400 active followers, very few read my ‘local’ stuff! Like Goldsmith’s village schoolmaster, I sometimes feel that I am ‘wasting my sweetness on the desert air’!

Now, I mentioned rabbit holes in this rambling essay’s title, so here’s why.  Teachers worry that the era of books is over, and their worst fears may be about to be realised.  Alice, in that wonderful story, disappeared down a rabbit hole, but the power of our internet age gives us all the opportunity to disappear down several rabbit holes each day, to our great advantage and for further education.  I’ll give you an example now, and you’ll quickly see that you couldn’t do this trick with a novel or even a textbook.  All you have to do is click the links below, and down that rabbit hole you will go!

My blog contains several reviews of novels, plays, and films, mainly material that interests me personally. I have reviewed many Irish writers, like James Joyce,  John McGahern, Claire Keegan,  Donal Ryan,  Jennifer Johnston,  John Boyne, Seamus Deane, Brian Friel, and  Kate Cruise O’ Brien. I have reviewed plays from Knockaderry Hall to The Abbey Theatre and have had great fun reviewing films like The Banshees of Inisherin for my own enjoyment.  Each link opens up an opportunity for further, deeper study – if you so wish.  If you’d like to read some of my Hartnett material, then simply click on The Hartnett Files and off you go!

I’ve had the odd post go viral, such as Michael Hartnett’s 26 Pubs at Christmas!, which I posted just before Christmas 2023. By Christmas Day, 12,000 people had read it, which was a great Christmas present indeed. The most views in a day occurred on the 7th of June, 2022, the day before yet another COVID-affected Leaving Cert began: would you believe it, 3,959 chancers visited my blog that day looking for inspiration before the English exam on the following day!  In truth, I am astounded by the stats, and the internet audience is staggering.  Here are just a few of my most read blog posts, the major hitters: Study Notes on ‘Foster’ by Claire Keegan – 131,000 views, An Analysis of Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins – 14,000 views, A Brief Analysis of Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Death of a Naturalist‘ – 15,000 views, Analysis of  ‘The Forge’ by Seamus Heaney – 76,000 views, Character Study of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy in ‘Pride and Prejudice‘ – 108,000 views, An Analysis of the Poetry of Thomas Hardy (1840  – 1928) –  40,000 views, and finally, AN ANALYSIS OF THE POETRY OF ROBERT FROST (1874  – 1963) –  32,000 views, etc., etc.

All my material is freely available to view. Still, unfortunately, I have noticed recently that sites in China and America have been harvesting all my material to enrich their dubious AI project.  I haven’t been approached for permission – or indeed payment.  Such is our crazy world!

Anyway, a quote from Leonard Cohen sums up the overwhelming ethos of my blog. I don’t believe in perfection and have always agreed with him when he says in his iconic song, Anthem:

Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering,

There is a crack in everything,

That’s how the light gets in.