Her Mayo granny left a notebook of folk stories with a page for every county, most of them empty. Ayo is filling them in, one place at a time. Her father rings after every trip with a Yoruba story to match. Declan drives a Dublin Bus all week and drives her at the weekend, with sandwiches. Their son Femi, 15, is mortified by all of it.
Ayo's stories, in order
STORY 1 · 19 February 2025Glendalough's deer tale meets the miners' road
STORY 2 · 21 April 2025Avebury's stones, the road to the dead and the Devil's dropped hill
STORY 3 · 22 June 2025Tintagel Castle and the stories that escaped it
STORY 4 · 23 August 2025Past the Cliffs of Moher, five ways the Burren kept a story
STORY 5 · 24 October 2025Muirchú's tale of Tara's king and Slane's fire
STORY 6 · 25 December 2025Loughcrew's witch had neighbours. One kept a fire, another made water run uphill.
STORY 7 · 24 February 2026Glastonbury Tor has a tower. The town below has the rest of the story.
STORY 8 · 27 April 2026Tory Island has a giant's fort, a saint's tower and a painter's hut
STORY 9 · 28 June 2026Halloween things to do in Ireland with kids, from free parades to the Cave of Cats
STORY 10 · 29 August 2026Seven holy wells in Ireland with stories worth the journey
STORY 11 · 30 August 2026Stone circles in Ireland: six rings worth getting out of the car for
STORY 12 · 31 August 2026Holy wells you can still visit and the stories people told
STORY 13 · 1 September 2026Sheela-na-gigs: five women watching the doors
STORY 14 · 2 September 2026Great Blasket Island: the houses, the fairy tune and the boat you must book
STORY 15 · 5 September 2026Beside Skara Brae, an oath stone vanished and Norse visitors left graffiti
STORY 16 · 7 September 2026St Davids Cathedral and the pilgrims who came from the sea
STORY 17 · 11 September 2026Clonmacnoise is closed. Follow its saints along the Shannon anyway.
STORY 18 · 13 September 2026Ogham stones: read Ireland's oldest names from Cork to Wales
STORY 19 · 14 September 2026Devenish Island by boat: a saint's coffin, a lost book and the castles beside it
STORY 20 · 16 September 2026St Brigid's Cathedral and the fire Kildare lit again
STORY 21 · 19 September 2026The fairy thorn beside the motorway, and forts you can enter
STORY 22 · 20 September 2026Holy islands and hermit cells at the sea's edge
STORY 23 · 22 September 2026Isle of Eigg: a cave, an empty village and a beach that sings
STORY 24 · 24 September 2026Gougane Barra has a serpent, a river and nine white deer nearby
STORY 25 · 26 September 2026Gallarus Oratory and four more stories on the Dingle peninsula
STORY 26 · 28 September 2026Bardsey Island: saints, a schoolhouse and a king with a fishing boatAyo's letters to the desk
Ayo Okafor-Byrne to The desk, 20 May 2025
Granny's notebook has a page for Wicklow with only one word on it: 'deer'. I know why now. One page filled, twenty-five to go in the Republic alone. My father rang to tell me about a Yoruba hunter who spared a doe and was paid in luck for the rest of his life. He says Kevin got off lightly with milk.