About Irish Island
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The name irish Island is merely a play on words. What it should be called is, "I" land. Because in this one area of my life it's only me. I am the only inhabitant of this land. Of course the "Irish" part is due to my Irish lineage. On my father's side, my ancestors came from County Antrim in the North of Ireland and came to this continent in 1726 fifty years before it became a country. On my mother's side, my ancestors came here in 1840 and were from County Cork in the Southern part of Ireland. Historically my ancestors would have been sworn enemies. The North and South of Ireland were at war with each other for many, many years. May still be for all I know. And though you won't find any reference to being Irish in my essays, you should know that I am Irish and very proud to be. I am also lucky enough to be able to trace my blood line back to 1640 with no breaks in lineage. Essentially, this website is a vanity press although with websites, unlike books, there is nothing to press. It is merely a place to publish my essays since they are not published anywhere else. The first thing people tell me after reading my essays is, "you should get them published in the Reader's Digest". I don't know why everyone chooses that publication to suggest I get my works published in, but as soon as they suggest that, I inform them that the Reader's Digest only re-publishes articles, essays, short stories and other odd bits that have been published already in other magazines, books, newspapers etc. So if I choose not to send my essays and short stories into a legitimate magazine or publishing house, the only way anyone other than me will be able to read them is on this web site. It costs me very little and I can say what I want to say without fear of debate or reprisal. Although there really isn't any danger of either of those since these are personal memories of mine. Normally they are memories stoked with emotion which is why they remain so clear in my memory to begin with. Any links on the IrishIsland.net website that link to off-site web pages are always to pages that are free. Nothing is more iritating to me than a website that parades itself as a "content driven site" (not commercial) and has links on it that guide you to other pages where someone wants to sell you something. I am old fashioned in my belief that the Internet should stay free for sites like mine. Of course commercial sites are needed so our shopping arena is world-wide and therefore giving us the best prices and selection. But when you are shopping for ink cartridges or books or what have you, you know going in that their reason for existing is to make a profit. No problems with that. It's when you go to a site for information or something along that line and they force you to "join" and incidentally ask for your credit card number up front, that I get so angry I wouldn't patronize them even if I did need what they are selling. Just so you know. My apologies if you were looking to find the answer to some mysterious reason for my essays being published on this site. As it turns out, I guess it's simply ego. My wish is that someone will read my memories and actually feel what I felt when they were actually happening to me. That's it. Please browse the site and enjoy my life in individual pages of memories. Oh and one last thing...if you see a little Forever Young easter egg (like this one Joe M. Young |
on any page on the Irishisland.net website, start clicking all over because that little egg means there is an easter egg somewhere on the page. What is meant by that is there is at least one hidden link somewhere on the page. It can be fun hunting these hidden treasures down. ©Copyright 2013 by IrishIsland.net - All Rights Reserved World Wide, Used by Permission This Page Last Updated: 25 October, 2013 Contact Joe M. Young |
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