Belfast writer, and poet, Ciaran Carson carried a black flute with silver keys on its main body, which he would screw together to play sometimes. In class. At Queen’s University, Belfast. He once asked me, “What would you have liked to become in life?” I answered: “Either a master carpenter, a mathematician, or a pianist.” … Read more
The bed had been positioned deliberately near the window so the artist had a view of the sky. The sky embodied eternity. Our creations change with every era, each century brings a new art, but the sky, on a cloudless blue day or in the grey rain, appears as it did to our most remote … Read more
When I was five, I made myself a paper flute. I played it sitting on a stone in the Danish summer. My parents later gave me a real flute and I played it fervently until my teacher said it was time I learned some more instruments. I didn‘t consider myself a musician. I just loved … Read more
Waking Up He had thousands of kodachromes when he died. Nowadays they’d be snaps stored on the cloud, given back tritely as memories by some iphone. Anyway, they went in the bin, regardless of what they meant to him. I have chameleon words, collections of notes, playing the same role: tie it down — capture … Read more
How I Remember Her I glared that first night as she vaunted perks And spoke in winding roads; uncouth she pried About my grade and cut. Around her stride, I feel as though I’m drunk. I miss her quirks. The nights we stargaze drag on. I should work. I see her down the bar, then … Read more
Paul O’Brien’s biography, Sean O’Casey, Political Activist and Writer (Cork University Press) is a timely re-assessment of an often controversial, figure whose place in the literary canon is, O’Brien argues, is insufficiently acclaimed. It coincides with the hundredth anniversary of Druid’s production of O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy: ‘The Plough and The Stars’, ‘Juno and the Paycock’ … Read more
The leaves of Greenwich Park were the soul of Autumn as I walked slowly up the hill to the secret garden in the quiet rain. I opened the gate and entered to find there was no one there. Maybe there was nobody in the whole park. A red squirrel went on eating in the middle … Read more
A Partial Epitaph My friend, with many an article and book saved in the Cloud, would censure Robert Emmet for attitudinising in the dock. We’re most of us the beneficiaries of ordered states; opinion-formers wanting Emmet stopped is something that one sees. But this rant? Picture him in middle age, pardoned, respectable, like Thomas Moore … Read more
Julian Lloyd’s iconic portrait of Nick Drake now forms part of the U.K.’s National Portrait Gallery’s photographic collection. Lloyd’s friendship with the archetypal singer-songwriter, who died, tragically, aged just twenty-six in 1974, permits a rare intimacy between photographer and an elusive subject. In some photos Drake looks to be at peace with himself and his … Read more