Ali Isaac's Blog: H A G

Well… September passed me by this year, and to be honest, I’m glad to see the back of it. For the first two weeks, Carys was at home sick. She spent the last fortnight in hospital. On the night she was due to come home, she had an anaphylactic reaction to a treatment. That same night, Manchán Magan left this world on adventures new that we can only guess at. I hadn’t expected any of it. I could feel myself unravelling.

But do you know what happened? When I briefly explained my absence on Insta, t...

My Mugwort plant is blossoming, even after I just moved her into her new position. She’s not feeling sorry for herself after her brutal upheaval, she’s getting on with her life. A lesson to us all © Ali Isaac

Well… I’ve been threatening my paid subscribers with ‘a little gift-post’ for months now, so finally, here it is! But before we get into that, first, an apology.

I went missing again this summer, third year in a row. And so there was no new content on H A G for three months. I don’t know wha...

Has this ever happened to you? Picture the scene: Covid pandemic, social distancing, queue outside Lidl supermarket, face masks. A woman hurries out with her bags, sees me and stops. “Hi Alison,” she says, and we proceed to have a short conversation, excruciatingly vague on my part, during which I realise she knows me well. Her mask covers her up to her eyes, her blonde hair hangs down to her brows, her voice is muffled by her mask, and I am mesmerised, because I can dredge up no memory that tel...

Bealtaine Blessings to all you Cailleacha! The fixed date for the festival of Bealtaine is May 1st, but astronomically it falls this year on Monday 5th, so we get to celibrate it twice! I hope the good weather holds, because I have a lot of wood gathered from all over my garden to add to my bonfire tonight. In Ireland, the month of May is also known as Bealtaine, which makes me a Bealtaine baby, as I was born in May.

As we celebrate the first day of summer (and birthdays… these days, I welcome n...

When I moved to Ireland back in 2002, I knew no one but my husband and son. We lived in Skerries, and although Irish people are extremely friendly and hospitable, I found my close friendships mostly amongst the other ‘outsiders’. When I moved to Cavan some years later, it was like starting anew, all over again.

That was in 2008. In those early days, I met Yvonne. Yvonne was a beautician, but every time I arrived for a treatment, I felt I left with so much more. She had a calming aura, and a sooth...

In my last post, I described how the willow found me, and how it has become the backdrop to my life. It was inevitable, how could it not be, when they are drawn to watery spaces. Like is attracted to like, and I live in the wettest part of Ireland, where it is said there is a lake for every day of the year.

Dromore Lough, Cootehill, Cavan © Ali Isaac

We have just had two unusually balmy weeks of sunshine; every morning, we awoke to sunshine, and the sky stayed cloud-free until bedtime, and beyond...

bare earth

When we came to this house on a hill, the earth had been scraped away during the building of it, leaving an acre of muddy ooze that appeared to be completely barren. We were deeply drawn to this space, even though we were ‘gazumped’ three times. But eventually, it came to us. The hill was surrounded by trees, and gave us a magnificent view out over the valley. Now, the trees have grown so much that they have become the view. We get to enjoy the best sunsets and sunrises (although we d...

You may have seen posts on your social media feeds recently that claim studies have shown that humankind have evolved their women to survive beyond menopause solely for the purpose of helping to rear future generations, and that we are one of the few species on the planet that have developed in this way.

Well. Fuck that, if you don’t mind me saying.

My children have not made me a grandparent yet, and I have a feeling it will be some time before they do. If and when grandchildren do come along, t...

Céad míle fáilte, a hundred thousand welcomes to H A G! I’m Ali Isaac, and this email comes to you from the intersection of female senescence and Irish landscape, both mythical and natural. My book, Imperfect Bodies, will be published by Héloïse Press in the spring of 2026.

My writing is mostly free, but I sometimes send extra little gift-posts to paid subscribers.

So here we are at the beginning of Brigid’s season, and it’s cold with cloud down to the ground and torrential rain here in Cavan. It’...

The Hill of Faughart is a site of ancient ruins, epic battles, long-buried kings, of saints and stories and legends. It is also place of great beauty. It is somewhere I have wanted to visit for a very long time but never did, even though it lies only an hour’s drive from where I live.

It is also said to be the birthplace of Brigid.

My newsletters are free, but I sometimes send my paid subscribers little gift posts.

The base of a round tower in the old cemetary on the Hill of Foughart with Brigid’s...