The Blessed Virgin 'neath the wintry-bare trees of the local convent garden.

Clondalkin, Dublin.

In the spirit of the weather in Ireland lately.
Harry Clarke’s ‘the Snow Queen’, one of Ireland’s greatest illustrators

Connemara snow scene by J.P. Rooney
http://www.jprooneyartstudio.com/m/-/galleries/the-shop-index

‘Old Dublin - Marrowbone Lane’ by Joseph Malachy Kavanagh (1836-1918)

‘A Green Island Garden Under Snow, Antrim’ by the renowned Irish artist Frank Egginton (1908-1990)

‘The Delegates’ by Mildred Anne Butler (1858-1941) an Irish artist, who worked in watercolour and oil of landscape, genre and animal subjects.

James Arthur O'Connor's 'A Frost Piece'

Elizabeth Magill, 'Greyscale'

'The Snow Faerie' by Jim FitzPatrick, known for more comic styled illustrations.

Gaoithe sídhe, or fairy wind, is a sudden wind gust or whirlwind thought to have been caused by the faeries.

The Cailleach is the Irish goddess of winter, the cold, wind and tempests. She was called "the old gloomy woman" or envisioned as a crane with sticks in her beak that forecast storms. Snow that fell in late spring was often attributed to her.

In mythology Síd-mounds are imagined as centres of fairy power & commerce, they have their own farmland & craftsmen, much like a ringfort.

On the inside, the fairy-mound radiates a mysterious golden light; crystal chairs sparkle, & music plays for the sídhe lord & his retainers.

The interference of the fairy-kind in worldly affairs is based on a desire to 'rekindle human glory' - They dwell on the heroic within man.

Summit cairn on Sugarloaf Hill, Co Tipperary.

In the distance is Slievenamon, mound of the god Midir, which is also crowned by a cairn.

In early Irish literature, the fairy/sídhe have many names: 'god-men' (fir dé), 'god-kindreds' (cenéla dé), & 'god-peoples' (tuatha dé).

Three Irish words used to describe fairy:

Scál - An uncanny being, sometimes a god who passes on supernatural information.

Airdrech - A battlefield spirit, an omen, a prophetic sign.

Síabair - A spectral being who distorts & shape-shifts, takes on illusory appearances.

The Rock of Cashel in County Tipperary.

Reputedly the site of the conversion of Aenghus the King of Munster by St. Patrick in the 5th century AD. #StPatricksDay ☘