Tra­di­tion­al Irish Christmas Pudding.

This recipe comes from my mother, who has used it for many years. I added the soaking of the fruit in hot water.

This amount makes one large pudding and two smaller ones (4–5 quarts), so scale down to your needs.

Stick a sprig of holly in the top before bringing to the dinner table. When it's placed on the dinner table, heat a tablespoon of brandy or whisky over a flame until it catches fire, then pour over the pudding. Turn down the lights to enjoy the blue-tinged flames.

Serve with Brandy Butter.

It's the 100th an­niver­sary of the 1911 census of the United Kingdom, which was taken on the night of Sunday, April 2nd. Ireland was still part of the UK and hence was included in the census.

The census results are online. The Irish results are freely browsable. The UK results cost money.

Three of my grand­par­ents were born in the 18 months following the census.

George Clery

My maternal grand­fa­ther, George Victor Clery, was born on March 30th, 1900. He died on March 3rd, 1965, twelve days before I was born. I am called George after him and Vincent after my father.

Gen­er­a­tions of Clerys worked for the Munster & Leinster …continue.

Twenty years ago, three twelve-year-olds went into their local woods in Knocknaree near Dublin. Hours later, only one was found, catatonic. Now, under a different name, Rob Ryan is a detective in the Irish Murder Squad and another twelve-year-old has been murdered in Knocknaree.

Tana French's debut is subtle and gripping. The story unfolds in unexpected ways. Ryan's re­la­tion­ship with his partner in detection, Cassie Maddox, is tested to the breaking point while he tries to conceal his past and stay on the case.

Highly rec­om­mend­ed.

Patricia Teeling wants to experience more of life than farming and university, and moves to Dublin to be a science teacher. She quickly finds herself adrift, belonging no more in her country home yet not of the city. She is soon drawn to the married Englishman who lives downstairs. His wife is murdered after she receives obscene telephone calls. Then an attractive man with a limp—­dubbed the Goose­foot—ap­pears.

While the author has an enviable command of English, I found his characters to be tiresome and in­scrutable yet un­ac­count­ably eloquent. Patricia is improbably untouched by …continue.

Nine years ago, the Ryan Commission was set up to produce a report on physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of children in Catholic Church–run re­for­ma­to­ries in Ireland. This week, they released a 2600-page report detailing abuse to tens of thousands of children from the 1930s to the 1990s. The abuse and violence were systemic and in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized, if not universal, and they were hushed up and overlooked for decades. The stories of the abused, in their own words, make for horrifying reading. It's a national disgrace.

The Christian Brothers come off the worst of the many religious orders who are implicated. Even in their day schools, they long had a reputation …continue.

Séamus Joyce, a former senior civil servant, returns to Dublin from self-imposed exile in Germany. He has been engaged as a consultant by Finer Small Campuses to evaluate his alma mater, King's College Dublin, a third-rate, third-level in­sti­tu­tion.

Millar, himself an Irish academic, satirizes both Irish higher-level education and the brave new world wrought by the Celtic Tiger economy. It's a different world from the depressed, inward-looking Dublin that Joyce moved to as a student. The plot moves ef­fi­cient­ly and some of the characters are, well, characters. Not Joyce though: he's insecure and in­tro­vert­ed, still …continue.

I grew up hating rugby. I spent eleven years at a rugger-bugger school in Dublin. I couldn't stand the game. I was a small, unathletic child with no interest in sports. Rugby, even the modified rugby that they teach seven-year-olds, was violent and unpleasant and involved running around cold, wet fields. I had a big operation on my feet when I was 10 and I parlayed that into an excuse never to play rugby again.

I can't remember when I last watched a rugby match, but it was surely back in the '80s, as I doubt I've seen one over the 20 years that I've been in the States.

So imagine …continue.

On the 9th or 10th of January 1989, I flew from Dublin to New York. That was the last day that I ever lived in Ireland.

I came to the U.S. on a tourist visa. It was no lie. I had a round-the-world ticket and I would go on to Australia in early March. In June, I left Australia and traveled to Bangkok and Hong Kong. Sometime in July, I landed back in Ireland to settle up my affairs. I fit in a trip to the South of France with some old friends.

In August, I would return to America to attend graduate school. I have lived in the …continue.

When I was a boy, anytime we said ‘Dundrum’ (a suburb of Dublin), it was with a snigger, because it was synonymous in our minds with the mental asylum located there. Nowadays, Dundrum is much better known as the home of a large shopping centre. I'm so out of touch with Dublin that I hadn't realized that there was a major new shopping centre there. I assumed that people were talking about the unim­pres­sive little centre that I remembered there from my childhood. Until today, when we went there to return the mobile phone that we had given my mother for Christmas.

Dundrum was, indeed, a madhouse. There's much talk of a …continue.

I'm Irish. I was raised on butter. Not margarine. Butter. Good Irish butter. Yellow, creamy, with a little salt.

Melted onto toast. A soft yellow layer on bread. A pat of butter on your potatoes. Fry your eggs in butter. Let butter melt on your chips.

I knew butter was important in baking, but I didn't realize until today how carefully it should be treated:

The most common mistakes made by home bakers, pro­fes­sion­als say, have to do with the care and handling of one ingredient: butter. Creaming butter correctly, keeping butter doughs cold, and starting with fresh, good-tasting butter are vital details that pro­fes­sion­als take for granted, and home bakers often miss.

Butter is basically an …continue.