Journalist, author, broadcaster
Determined to conquer his fear of heights, Peter Geoghegan signed up for a rooftop tour of Stockholm. But could sweeping views of the beautiful Swedish capital cure him? (From Ryan Air magazine, May 2011). A couple of days before I left for Stockholm, Veerle, my rooftop tour guide, had sent me a pithy, one-line email: […]
Like Z-list celebrities, volcanoes are often more infamous than famous. Vesuvius, Krakatoa, Etna: all owe their household name status to the destructive force of their periodic eruptions. Last year, another, more difficult to pronounce name entered the pantheon of volcanic infamy – Eyjafjallajökull. The Eyjafjallajökull glacier, in south-west Iceland, had been dormant for some 200 […]
‘I’m not like anyone you’ve met before. Not in Europe, America or anyplace else.” Rider, my unexpected travelling companion for a sizeable tranche of the train ride from Washington DC to New York, is not delivering an idle boast — just the opposite, in fact. At 6ft-plus, with lank, straw-coloured hair and a wide-rimmed Panama […]
There are two types of season in Scotland,” Billy Connolly once quipped, “June and winter.” As the warm evening sun flickers one final time on the calm, aquamarine waters of Loch Goil, near Loch Lomond, before disappearing behind the ruins of Carrick castle, I glance at my wristwatch. If the Big Yin ever tires of […]
This feature on the beautiful (and wonderfully vibrant) Danish city of Aarhus appeared in The Irish Independent on June 6. “Why wasn’t Jesus born in Aarhus?” starts a popular Danish joke. “They couldn’t find three wise men.” Evidently, second-city bashing is not a sport confined to Ireland: Copenhagen’s urban sophisticates love to mock Denmark’s other […]
Feature on the spectacular Easter celebrations in the Costa Blanca from todays Irish Times. IT’S ALMOST midnight, but the street lights are off in El Barrio. Thousands of people line the narrow backstreets of this part of Alicante, creating a din of excited chatter in the warm evening air. The scent of fresh flowers and […]
This review of the Lough Rynn Hotel in Mohill appeared in The Irish Times on Saturday 16 January ’10. I first visited Lough Rynn well over 20 years ago. It was the day of my first communion. We squashed into my mother’s blue Renault 5 for the half-hour journey north from our Longford home to […]
I’m very flattered to be the subject of the Friday interview on Maeve O’Lynn’s excellent W[r]ite NI blog. If anyone wants to read it in full it’s here but here’s a few select questions: You’ve variously written a thesis, an academic book, many travel articles and news reports. What’s your favourite style or mode of […]
This review of the (in)famous Hotel Chelsea appeared inThe Irish Times on November 21. Few hotels have influenced popular culture like the Chelsea. Jack Kerouac stayed here when he wrote On the Road ; Brendan Behan, Jean-Paul Sartre and Frida Kahlo are among the countless artists and bon viveurs who, at one time or another, […]
Last month I checked into the New York hotel that has gone from seamen’s flophouse to celebrity hangout for the List. Here’s my take on it: ‘Hey, can you get me in?’ a woman with a brash New England accent squawks at me as I approach the entrance to the Jane hotel in New York’s […]