Standing Stones, Stone Circles and other things...

April 2021 and, due to Covid Restrictions, there are still no gigs in Ireland. Other music photographers I know, both amateur and pro, have found other projects to sate their interest, but I was struggling.

What's the best thing to do when struggling? Simple, spend money on gadgets! I bought myself a Mavic Mini Drone. Now all I had to do was learn to fly it and figure out what to do with it.

That took a bit longer than I expected. The weather in February and March wasn't great, lots of rain unfortunately, and that's not good for flying drones. However, I did start to formulate a plan.

Out by Punchestown Racecourse, there are two Standing Stones. I figured I'd use the drone to get some images of them. Then I began to wonder if there were any more around Kildare. It turns out that there are plenty!!

So, each Saturday morning, weather permitting, I go out with my drone and camera to photograph them.

First up is the Standing Stone opposite the main gate at Punchestown.

Longstone at Craddockstown - Punchestown, County Kildare

In a field beside the exit at Punchestown is yet another Standing Stone.

Punchestown Longstone - Punchestown, County Kildare

A friend told me about a Stone Circle out near Ballymore Eustace. So after a small bit of internet research, I had its location and I was off to the Broadleas Stone Circle!

Broadleas Stone Circle - Ballymore Eustace, County Kildare

One of the guys I work with told me of a Standing Stone near Kilcullen. That's only out the road from me, so after another quick Google search, I was off to find the Kilgowan Standing Stone.

Kilgowan Standing Stone - Kilcullen, County Kildare

Whilst I was taking photos of the Broadleas Stone Circle, a local told me of another near Hollywood in Co. Wicklow. So, when I could manage to get out there, I did and it did not disappoint!

Athgreany Stone Circle - Hollywood, County Wicklow

Late one night with time on my hand, I searched online for more interesting Stones in my locality and came across Adam and Eve, otherwise known as Boherboy Standing Stones in Saggart. Now, Saggart is close to Casement Aerodrome, so you can't fly a drone there. That didn't matter, the stones are easily accessible, so I just brought my camera instead.

Boherboy Standing Stones - Saggart, Co. Dublin

And that's it so far. As restrictions lift and we can travel further afield, I'll continue to shoot these images. It's hard to believe that all these neolithic and bronze age sites are all only a few short miles from my home and the only two I ever heard about in school were the Punchestown stones.

So yeah, that's my new project. The one that will hopefully keep me sane whilst the country remains in lockdown! Stay tuned for more.

2022-03-26 Buskers on Grafton Street, Dublin

I took a walk around Dublin today, thought I'd check out the buskers on Grafton Street. There's a fine history of busking in Dublin, acts like Hothouse Flowers , The Frames , Rodrigo y Gabriela , Damien Rice , Paddy Casey , Kodaline and a host of others all cut their teeth on and around Grafton Street. It stands to reason that some of those busking today will be successful in the future! So, who did I get to see today? Well, check out the photos below: Zoe Clarke Allie Sherlock Paul Jenkinson

Bye Bye Spotify...

I ditched Spotify Premium this weekend. Why? Well, I read an interview with Daniel Ek , the CEO of Spotify, and I profoundly disagreed with what he said and his attitude towards musicians in the interview. So I said 'F*ck it', and closed my premium account. I still do have a free account* as many bands choose Spotify to release their music, so I'll keep it for that reason. What now though? Well, I'd created a large library of music on my home server over the last 20 years or so. Every time I bought a CD, it got ripped to the server. Every time I bought digital music from Bandcamp , Google or 7 Digital , they too got stored on the server, and that was fine for home use, it worked well. But now I'd dumped Spotify, what could I do, how could I access my music outside the house? I'd played around with software called Plex a few years back, but had no use for it. I ended up doing nothing with Plex, but for this project, I decided to revisit it. I knew that i

Interview with King Kong Company

Originally published 10/09/2013 on Chunk.ie So, there I was, wandering around the Electric Picnic wondering who I was going to watch next. One of the lads said he had heard good things about King Kong Company and that we should check them out, so off we headed to the Body and Soul Arena to do just that. As I mentioned in my review of the Electric Picnic, the gig was epic. I figured we just had to interview them here on CHUNK.ie, and here it is! First things first, congratulations on a storming gig at the Electric Picnic. It completely blew me away. Was this your first Picnic experience? We’ve been to many Electric Picnics over the years but just as punters, and it’s always been a great festival, so it was a fantastic experience to play at its 10 year anniversary. King Kong Company is a rather interesting name for a band, where or how did you come up with it? The name is taken from the film Taxi Driver. If you look closely, Travis Bickle is wearing a badge which says King

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