Apr 26, 2010 | Latest
Poet Pádraic Fiacc is the subject of next Sunday’s documentary on BBC Radio 4, ‘Lost Voices’, presented by Brian Patten. Pádraic Fiacc was born in Belfast in 1924 and is one of Ireland’s greatest living poets whose writing, says Gerard Dawe, “is haunted by a sense of...
Apr 13, 2010 | Latest
Finished ‘Second Readings’, an excellent anthology of summaries of fifty two great novels by Eileen Battersby, literary critic at the Irish Times. Of course, now I have to add several more novels to my list of books I must read before I die which will take their...
Mar 8, 2010 | Latest
‘The Art of War’ was written by Sun Tzu in China about 2,500 years ago. On Sunday (7th March) I was interviewed by the historian and broadcaster Julian Putkowski for the World Service of the BBC on the enduring nature of the advice given by Sun Tzu. I first read the...
Feb 7, 2010 | Latest
7th February. On Royal Avenue on a freezing day I met Tom Mathews and knew/ That a pint of stout he would want, a pint that I might later rue.So, we went to Madden’s Bar to literally discuss the state of the literary nation. He had been in a shop, trying to buy Martin...
Feb 5, 2010 | Latest
5th February. Spoke last night at the book launch of ‘The Badness of Ballydog’ by Garrett Carr in the No Alibis Bookstore on behalf of Féile an Phobail and as part of our Spring Festival, Féile an Earraigh. Other events over the next few days – besides lots of...
Jan 24, 2010 | Latest
Finished ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut around Sunday lunchtime; then visited my mom and her friends, Mary and Sarah, in Grovetree House; came home and read a limited amount of Sunday Shit online by the anoraks led by the key Tralfamadorian, Mick Fealty, who...
