The Ó Súilleabháin Clann of Munster

Photos unearthed by a Christchurch archivist could help finally solve a 75-year-old mystery: What happened to Amelia Earhart?

The photos found by Matthew O'Sullivan, the keeper of photographs at the Air Force Museum in Christchurch, could prove Earhart spent her final days as a castaway on a remote island north of New Zealand, and that she didn't, as some believe, die in a plane crash. 

Visit this link for full article: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/8834138/NZ-photos-may-solve-Earhart-mystery

January 8, 1819, Dimbatty Valley. Sitting in a valley kissed by the clouds, Collector of Coimbatore, John Sullivan, 31, wrote to Sir Thomas Munro, Governor of Madras: “My dear Colonel, I have been in the Highlands for the last week. This is the finest country… it resembles I suppose Switzerland more than any other part of Europe… it freezes here every night, this morning we found ice in our Water chatties (clay pots).”

Nearly two centuries later, the valley still retains part of the charm that captivated Sullivan, who went on to found Ooty, the first hill station in India. On a wet June afternoon, the tea plantations and vegetable patches shimmer a bright green. In a way, they are a tribute to Sullivan. For, it was he who introduced European fruit trees, vegetables and flowers to the hills and suggested that the British cultivate tea there.

When he first trekked up the Neilgherry (as the Nilgiris were then known) with a contingent of soldiers, elephants and ponies (who were disbanded halfway), it was through dense shola-filled forests and steep cliffs. During his second visit to Dimbatty (which means soft, pillow like) valley, Sullivan set up a camp. Later, it became a two-storey structure called Pethakal bungalow, named after a sacred stone that existed there. Sullivan lived there till 1823. In the five-acre property, he experimented with cultivation of potato and other English vegetables such as cabbage, beetroot and carrot. In the 1820s, the spud finally made its appearance in Ooty.

For full article from The Hindu, please click on photo.

Woody Sullivan is obsessed with sundials. In fact, the UW astronomy professor calls himself a “sundials nut.” Rebecca Cummins, a professor in the UW school of art, creates art that manipulates light and shadows.

These two interests made Sullivan and Cummins the perfect pair to create two unique sundials at the Exploratorium, a hands-on science museum in San Francisco.

For full Daily article, please click on photo.

Minister of State Jan O’Sullivan is to officially open homeless shelter McGarry House in Limerick.

Forty years ago, Memphis' most iconic Irishman opened the first incarnation of his now-famous Beale Street bar, Silky O' Sullivan's, home of the beer-drinking goats and mysterious cocktails served in "diver" buckets.