Journalist, author, broadcaster
In Ireland, small talk is not what it was. For centuries, Irish people chatted idly about the weather, then, for one crazy decade, it was difficult to buy a pint of milk without being invited to give an opinion on property prices. Now it’s the ever-worsening recession that is inescapable. “How is it in Longford?” […]
I’ve been in Edinburgh on and off during August, doing some reviews for a couple of local magazines, The List and Fest. It’s been great fun – I’ve seen some great stuff as well as the inevitable dross – but rather post all my reviews here I’ll paste a couple of samples with links to […]
Review of Tom McCarthy’s excellent Booker-nominated novel C from the Sunday Business Post. Literary spats seldom make news headlines, but Gabriel Josipovici’s description of Martin Amis, Ian McEwan , Julian Barnes and Salman Rushdie as ‘‘prep-school boys showing off “, pricked ears far beyond the closeted books world. The former Weidenfeld professor of comparative literature […]
Retailers in the North this weekend are counting the cost of last week’s emergency budget in Britain. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s first budget included a package of spending and welfare cuts and tax increases aimed at saving an estimated £40 billion. In an effort to tackle Britain’s spiralling deficit, Osborne unveiled plans to […]
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit of a Luddite – no mobile until 2003, no email until same year, used a Walkman every day until 2004 – but I do think that electronic communication has, to an extent, killed the dear old letter. Gone are the days when I used to […]
Early last Tuesday morning, 56 men and women, two relatives of each of the 27 people killed and injured on Bloody Sunday, met in silence at Derry’s historic city walls. In the course of a solemn, hour-long procession, they walked by the Bogside’s low-rise flat complexes and on past William Street before finishing up at […]
At 9:45am yesterday, 56 men and women met in silence at Derry’s historic city walls. In the course of a solemn, purposeful procession, they walked by the Bogside’s low-rise flats complexes and on past William Street, each carrying a black-and-white picture accompanied by four short words, “Set the truth free”. Less than an hour later, […]
Director Spike Jonze’s interest in surreal debut novel Light Boxes is a career boost. February is persecuting the town. It has been snowing for 300 days, children are disappearing and all forms of flight are banned. The downtrodden residents are on the verge of revolt – but can they succeed? We might be less than […]
This feature on the beautiful (and wonderfully vibrant) Danish city of Aarhus appeared in The Irish Independent on June 6. “Why wasn’t Jesus born in Aarhus?” starts a popular Danish joke. “They couldn’t find three wise men.” Evidently, second-city bashing is not a sport confined to Ireland: Copenhagen’s urban sophisticates love to mock Denmark’s other […]
I argued that baby-boomers need to be coaxed down from the top of the academic tree in this opinion piece in The Times Higher Education on June 3. There’s been quite a bit of reaction and comment to the piece on the THE site. A few weeks ago I bumped into an old college friend […]