Jun 12, 2020 | Features
With the continuing protests over the death of George Floyd spilling into other protests, especially in Britain, with campaigns to remove statues and other monuments honouring slave-owners and imperialist figures, here is a feature I wrote twenty years ago on the...
Jun 5, 2020 | Features
I wrote the following feature seventeen years ago. It was published in August 2003 in the Andersonstown News and is as relevant now as it was then, because racism remains pervasive, both subtle and explicit – clearly in the USA, as witness the killing of George...
Jan 17, 2020 | Features
Every year Japan sets aside a day to mark ‘Respect for the Aged Day’. I think it is something that legislators in Leinster House and Stormont should consider, even though symbolic, as a measure of raising awareness about our elderly citizens. Here is a newspaper...
Sep 13, 2019 | Features
I loved this little book of stories and poems which the author, Martin Connolly, autographed for me at Scribes at the Rock in August 2018 shortly after it was published by Snowchild Press. Martin (from Belfast) is Professor of English Literature at Tsurumi University,...
Sep 5, 2019 | Features
For many years I have been collecting quotes on a variety of themes from the books or poems I’ve read and which have appealed to me, made me smile, or made me think, or suggested a little insight into the meaning of life. In 2018 I discussed publishing these with Seán...
Aug 17, 2019 | Features
Continuing on in my novel, West Belfast, which deals with the rise of the IRA post-August 1969, here is Chapter Eight, titled, The Honeymoon Period. “You’re wrong!” said Dominic. “You’ve got it entirely wrong.” The men were in the upstairs bedroom of a supporter’s...
