This Ireland exists. And should one travel there and not find it, then they have not looked closely enough.. Hugo Hamilton: The Island of Talking – In the footsteps of Heinrich Boll #IrelandisFull: the migration of this phrase from the far-right into the mainstream is an awful feature of our woe-begotten times. It begs the … Read more
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
Oscar Wilde said that the tragedy of being old is that one is still young. I am eighty-six, going on nineteen. Is this a record? I’ve been pruning and wood carving with my chainsaw for years. There is no shortage of wood from the trees that I planted thirty years ago. The resultant grotesque heads … Read more