William Bulfin was a man who loved everything about Ireland; its heritage, its landscape, its people. Nowhere was this more evident than in his writings, as he travelled around this beautiful land of ours on his High Nelly bicycle in 1902. For him all Ireland was sacred ground, but in a particular way his heart was in North Munster and the soft melancholy Midlands, and it was in those places that his book of journeys began. In his book, "Rambles in Eirinn" William wrote ..."You are higher than the grey peaks of the nearest ranges; you are on a level with the others. You are up in the blue air where only the eagle soars and the skylark sings.The rooks and daws and seafowl are winging their flight below you over lake and valley and hill. Only the clouds lie here when they are lazy or too full of rain to travel. It is the flower of bogs-the canavaun of the mountain tops of Eire." From everything that that passage meant to the soul of the man who wrote it. The ingredients of that passage are an eye for colour, a remembrance of things past, an ability to see and value the phenomena of social change. Benedict Kiely from "The Capuchin Annual" 1948

William Bulfin

William Bulfin was a man who loved everything about Ireland; its heritage, its landscape, its people. Nowhere was this more evident than in his writings, as he travelled around this beautiful land of ours on his High Nelly bicycle in 1902.

For him all Ireland was sacred ground, but in a particular way his heart was in North Munster and the soft melancholy Midlands, and it was in those places that his book of journeys began. In his book, “Rambles in Eirinn” William wrote …”You are higher than the grey peaks of the nearest ranges; you are on a level with the others. You are up in the blue air where only the eagle soars and the skylark sings.The rooks and daws and seafowl are winging their flight below you over lake and valley and hill. Only the clouds lie here when they are lazy or too full of rain to travel. It is the flower of bogs-the canavaun of the mountain tops of Eire.”

From everything that that passage meant to the soul of the man who wrote it. The ingredients of that passage are an eye for colour, a remembrance of things past, an ability to see and value the phenomena of social change.

Benedict Kiely from “The Capuchin Annual” 1948