You’re Too Sweet For Me
In my last ‘Letter’, I examined light and dark literary themes in the stained-glass windows created by the Irish artist […]
Windows of Light: Harry Clarke
Bewley’s Oriental Cafe in Dublin and a completely extraordinary stained-glass window scatters light on our coffee cups. I drink while […]
An Alternative Christmas Song
I mentioned the delicate song ‘Snow’ when I featured ‘Undertow’ – another song by Lisa Hannigan. In aesthetic terms the […]
‘Suddenly rich’ – ‘Snow’ by Louis MacNeice
The Irish born poet and playwright Louis MacNeice was part of the ‘Auden Group’ sometimes referred to simply as the […]
Waterlog: My Summer of Wild Swimming
My summer of wild swimming has been infinitely improved by the accompaniment of Roger Deakin’s classic book ‘Waterlog’. Subtitled, ‘A […]
Edna O’Brien
‘To read Edna O’Brien is to know love; of words, of literature and of life itself.’ Eimear McBride One day, […]
A Rainy Night in Soho
The funeral of Shane MacGowan, the lead singer of The Pogues, was such a fitting tribute. The streets of his […]
I Believe in You
In 1999, I was watching T.V. and happened to see a tribute concert to Linda McCartney (the late wife of […]
An Ending
A quote today: the famous passage that ends James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’, which, in turn, concludes his first prose work […]
He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
It is, of course, a cliché to say that suffering can be transformed by a great artist into beauty – […]