Dzogchen Beara is a Tibetan Buddhist Retreat Centre located on the Western tip of the Beara Peninsula in West Cork. I took these photographs early one morning in 2006, while Jason was attending a retreat. The place is breathtakingly beautiful (as is every nook and cranny of West Cork) and very, very peaceful. We went back down for a week in 2010 and picked out several houses and locations that would be ours when we win the lotto. In lieu of that big lotto win we’ll just have to visit on a more regular basis. We’re bombarded with misery here in Ireland on the radio, on the television and in the papers, it’s nice to know peaceful places...

This was a shoot from the hip/upper chest area while trying to look nonchalant in the pub moment. I liked how the man reading the paper was reflected in the small mirror behind the bar. I’m thinking I probably should have cropped out the face in the far right, but it’s posted now.

On a very chilly January day, myself and Jason joined in with Peter Donegan’s Garden Group for our fifth trip out. Peter is a gentleman, a genius and a landscape gardener extraordinaire and has organised all of these trips off his own bat and they’ve all been brilliant. This time the trip was to Skerries Windmills in North County Dublin. The mills in Skerries were used for grinding corn: wheat, oats and barley – wind power complementing water power, particularly in times of drought. At the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII in 1538, the Canons Regular of St Augustin of Holmpatrick owned c.1000 acres of land...

We had the pleasure of going to see Mike Scott and The Waterboys play in the Grand Canal theatre in Dublin last night. Myself and Jason both love the band and have been to see them loads of times. Last night’s gig was called An Appointment With Mr. Yeats and it was absolutely superb, with the poetry and writing of W.B. Yeats set to the band’s music.  Mike is an amazing musician and performer and he and the band received several well deserved standing ovations.   It is pure joy to watch Mike and Steve Wickham spar musically on the stage.   If the band are coming to play anywhere near you, go and see them you will not...

When I was at Bloom In The Park on Thursday, who did I bump into? Only Ireland’s president Mary McAleese. Well I was actually about 10 feet away smelling flowers and attempting to snap bees when I saw the president and entourage meeting some of the staff in the walled garden. I think this is quite a nice smiling shot of her.