Our authors
Edward Durand
Edward Durand is an Irish writer of non-fiction books, poems, songs, articles and children's stories. He has been studying the various wisdom traditions, comparative mysticism and comparative philosophy for decades. He attained a degree in Philosophy at the University of Ulster. After university he also studied Journalism Herbalism, EnglishTeaching and Parapsychology. He is the author of 'Life Hacks: Tips of Practical Wisdom to Enhance your Life', ‘Tree Poghams: Poems inspired by the wisdom of the ancient Ogham tree alphabet’, 'Deep in the Heart of Nature: The poetry of Edward Durand' and various unpublished works.
Stella Durand
Stella Durand is the author of several books, including Through the Year with the Irish Saints, Dove of White Flame and Drumcliffe: The Church of Ireland Parish in its North Sligo Setting, and her first one for us, A Treasury Of Money-Saving Tips: Living For Less To Help Save The Planet.
Stella Durand was born Stella L’Estrange, in 1942 in Dublin to a Sligo family, and spent her childhood in the war and post-war years, thoroughly used to thriftiness. She studied Philosophy, Theology, English and Nutrition. She was ordained as a Church of Ireland minister and was Rector of Kiltegan Group for seventeen and a half years.
After some years of teaching in London, she married a Church of Ireland clergyman (now deceased), and is the mother of four now adult children, and has five grandchildren. She has had a long time of learning how to bring up a sizeable family on less than half of an average income. She taught English, Theology, Music and Yoga. She has been a healthy vegetarian for 27 years, for a variety of reasons – health. unhappiness with factory farming, because using land to grow crops rather than raise animals will feed more people and do more to alleviate world hunger, and lastly for spiritual reasons as she belongs to a religion that states that God is Love. She plays the ‘cello and piano, and a bit of guitar, and loves reading, poetry, flowers, art and music, and has had a life-long interest in nutritional medicine.
Reginald Heber
Reginald Heber (1783 –1826) was the Church of England Bishop of Calcutta, he was educated at Oxford University. Reginald is best known for the hymn ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’. He travelled around India consecrating Churches and setting up schools. He died after plunging into a swimming pool to cool off after giving an impassioned speech against the inequality of the caste system.
Although known for his hymns, he had a collection of poems published entitled ‘The Poetical Works of Reginald Heber’ (Philadelphia: E.H. Butler, 1870), from which a Latin poem called Carmen Seculare and an English poem called Palestine won prizes. He was a Doctor of Divinity and Lord Bishop of Calcutta, later of all India and Australia. Rev. M.A. De Wolfe Howe said of him in his introduction to his poetry book “There is no name in the annals of the present century, which awakens so universal and grateful an interest in the religious world, as that of Reginald Heber”.
Reginald’s poems fall into the Romantic literary period, which is echoed in atypical ways by his poems, such as the love of God. According to The Classical Encyclopaedia, Reginald Heber was “a pious man of profound learning, literary taste and great practical energy”. Fifty-seven of his hymns appeared in ‘Hymns Written and Adapted to the Weekly Church Service of the Year’ (London: J. Murray, 1827). The release of this book commemorates the 200th anniversary of his passing.
